Nexus Best Open Library
An open collection of assessments, comparisons and measurement notes on Nexus Market and the Tor marketplaces it is usually ranked against. Every entry states its criteria and its limits.
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Library / Catalogue / Escrow models compared
Keywords: escrow, multisig, pooled wallet, custody, market failure
A pooled wallet market takes deposits into an account it controls and pays vendors out of the same pot. Balances shown to users are entries in the market own database rather than coins reserved for anybody in particular. Multisig escrow instead locks each order into an address that requires two of three keys to move, held by buyer, vendor and market separately.
On a good day both look identical from a buyer seat. The difference only appears on a bad day, which is precisely why it is worth understanding before there is one.
| Situation | Pooled wallet | 2 of 3 multisig |
|---|---|---|
| Market goes offline briefly | Balances unreachable until it returns | Order funds still locked in their own address |
| Market operator disappears | Pooled funds go with them | Buyer and vendor hold two of the three keys between them |
| Dispute over one order | Market decides and moves funds | Market key breaks a tie, cannot act alone |
| Market is compromised | Whole pool exposed at once | Exposure limited by the key split |
A market running multisig documents the scheme, because it is the strongest thing it can say about itself and there is no reason to hide it. A market that describes deposits and balances without ever naming a key arrangement is almost certainly pooling. The vocabulary is the tell, and asking support directly is reasonable.
Nexus documents 2 of 3 multisig with keys split between buyer, vendor and market, which is the structure described in the right hand column above.
It does not make a vendor honest, it does not speed up shipping, and it does not protect a balance you left sitting on the market outside an active order. Its scope is narrow and specific, which is exactly why it works. Everything outside that scope is still the buyer own problem, and the practical answer to it remains withdrawing what is not being spent.
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