Escapement v1

Parcels

The person who is paid (the payee) seals each parcel on their own device to the recipient’s sharing key, signed, exactly like sharing a file with a member. Up to 36 payments, one parcel each; a parcel can be a file or a receipt that records the payment. Terebyte holds the sealed parcels and can’t open them. Their blocks are padded to fixed sizes, so a parcel’s size says nothing about what’s in it.

Acceptance

The recipient’s app works out the terms itself (amount, payments, dates, how it’s paid, how it opens), checks the payee’s key in the public key log, and signs a hash of the terms. Our server checks that signature against the recipient’s published key. Nothing opens before the terms are accepted.

Release

When payment n is verified, the earliest parcel still waiting opens: in order, never a later one first, and each payment counted once. It arrives as an ordinary share in the recipient’s Airlock. Once open, it stays open: a refund, a dispute or tearing up the rest never takes it back. Whoever pays, it opens only for the named recipient.

The one-way rule

After acceptance, the terms can change only in the payer’s favour: a lower amount, a later date, automatic release instead of confirming each payment, forgiving a payment, opening a parcel early. Our server refuses anything else, and both sides see every change with its date.

Tearing up

If a payment is 14 days late, or whenever the payee chooses, every parcel not yet open is deleted. Nobody owes anything more.

How payments are verified

• Online payment. On Stripe’s own page, by US bank debit or by card up to $10,000. The money goes to the payee’s bank. A bank debit opens once it has cleared; a card 7 days after.
• Watch my account. A read-only feed of the payee’s own bank account: a cleared deposit of the agreed amount (within $1), with the lock’s reference in its memo or the only lock of that amount, counts for a payment due within 10 days. Only the matched transaction’s id is kept.
• Crypto. The payee’s own watch-only wallet; a fresh address for each payment; it opens after 3 Bitcoin or 10 Monero confirmations. The coins go to the payee’s wallet.
• Confirmed by the payee. The payee says the payment arrived.

What we can see

The amounts, due dates, how it’s paid, and each parcel’s status. Never what’s in a parcel or its name. Stripe sees the payee’s identity (it must) and the payer’s card or bank. Notifications say only that something happened.

What it isn’t

Terebyte verifies payments and releases files. It isn’t a party to the deal, holds no money, and can’t say that what opens is what was promised: only that it’s what the payee sealed. Opening a file isn’t a legal transfer of anything.