How a deal works
OakGavel runs on crypto rails, but you don't need to understand crypto to use it. Here is every step of a deal, in order, and the two mistakes that cost real money.
What you need first
- A wallet you control. It holds your money and it is also how you sign in — there is no account and no password here. Connecting your wallet proves who you are; it never gives us the ability to spend from it.
- Funds on Base. Base is the network every OakGavel deal settles on. A coin can exist on several networks at once, and they are not interchangeable — being on the right one is the single thing worth double-checking.
If you're paying
01
We open the deal
Price, what's being delivered, and the acceptance criteria you and the seller already agreed on. You get a link to the deal page.
02
You fund the Safe
The deal page shows the exact amount and the exact address. Send it on the Base network. The deal starts when it lands.
03
The seller works
They were told not to start before the money was in. When they're done, the delivery shows up on the same page — visible only to the two of you.
04
You approve, or you dispute
Approve releases the money. Dispute stops everything and sends the deal to us. Nothing moves while you're deciding.
05
You both leave a review
Reviews are attached to the wallet that did the deal, so they can't be bought or moved.
If you're getting paid
01
Don't start on a promise
Wait until the deal page says Funded. That's the moment the buyer's money stopped being something they can spend elsewhere.
02
Do the work, deliver on the page
A link and a note. Submitting the delivery is what asks the buyer to approve — a file sent by chat doesn't move the deal.
03
The buyer approves
If instead they dispute, we compare the delivery against the acceptance criteria written into the deal. That's why the criteria matter more than they look.
04
You get paid
The payout leaves the Safe as two transfers: your amount, and the 4% fee. It's signed by hand today, so it takes hours rather than seconds.
Who holds your money while a deal is open
Between funding and release, the money sits in a Safe multisig on Base — a contract, not a company bank account. Your deal page shows which one, and anyone can read its balance at any moment.
Moving anything out of that Safe takes two of its three keys, and right now all three are held by OakGavel and people close to it. So the plain version is: while a deal is open, we are holding your money. We say it instead of dressing it up, because it takes about a minute to check on BaseScan and finding out on your own would be worse.
What actually stands between you and us walking off with it, in the order it deserves to count: every movement of that Safe is public and permanent, tied to our address, and can never be edited or deleted — taking one deal would be a signed confession. The amounts are gig-sized and the deals are short, so nobody is exposed for long or for much. And there is a person on the other end of hello@oakgavel.com who answers.
That is a weaker guarantee than the one we intend to end up with, and we would rather you judge it clearly than take a slogan on faith.
The fee
4% of the deal, with no minimum, taken at the moment the money is released rather than when it's funded. The buyer sends the full amount; the seller receives the rest. Both numbers are on the deal page before anyone commits to anything.
Two things that cannot be undone
Money sent to the wrong network is gone. Money sent to the wrong address is gone. Not delayed, not reversible, not recoverable by us or by anyone — that is how these rails work, and it is the honest trade for payments that no bank can hold or reprice.
So: copy the address from the deal page itself, never from an email or a chat message, and check the network before you confirm.