Effective date: 2026-05-07
grcbazaar is software, not a financial service. It is a classifieds board where Gridcoin users find each other and arrange peer-to-peer trades. The Operator (whoever is running this instance, defined in §2) does not custody your funds, does not process your payments, does not ship anything, does not insure anything, and is not a party to any deal you arrange through it.
By creating an account, signing a message with your wallet, posting a listing, sending a message, or otherwise using this site (the “Service”) you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
These Terms are written to be read. Where the law requires capital letters or specific phrasing for enforceability, we have used them; everywhere else we have tried to keep it plain.
Operator — the natural or legal person who hosts and runs the grcbazaar instance you are connecting to. Identified at /about and in the footer.
You / User — anyone who accesses or uses the Service.
Listing — any content (text, image, price, terms) you publish through the Service offering goods or services for sale or trade.
Deal — a transaction or agreement between Users initiated through the Service.
Wallet — a Gridcoin-network wallet whose private keys you alone control.
GRC — Gridcoin (mainnet) or Gridcoin testnet currency, depending on which network this instance is connected to.
grcpay, stamp, explorer — separate services published under the gridcoin.club family. Each has its own terms. Linking from grcbazaar does not make them part of the Service.
The Service is a classifieds board with messaging and optional on-chain stamping of message hashes. It is not any of the following, and you agree not to treat it as any of the following:
— a payment service, money transmitter, money service business, e-money issuer, or virtual asset service provider;
— a custodian, escrow agent, exchange, broker, dealer, market maker, or trading venue;
— a bank, credit institution, lender, or insurer;
— a clearinghouse, settlement provider, or guarantor of counterparty performance;
— a notary, certifying authority, or arbiter of disputes between Users.
The Operator runs hosting and software. Users do everything else. Specifically: Users price their own listings, agree their own terms, send their own funds between their own wallets, ship their own goods, and resolve their own disputes.
You may use the Service only if all of the following are true:
(a) you are at least 18 years old, or the legal age of majority in your jurisdiction, whichever is greater;
(b) you are not a resident of, located in, or a national of any country or region subject to comprehensive sanctions by the United Nations, European Union, United Kingdom, Switzerland, or United States, including but not limited to North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Syria, the Crimea region, and the so-called Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia People’s Republics;
(c) you are not listed on, or owned or controlled by a person listed on, any sanctions list maintained by the authorities in (b), nor by OFAC, HM Treasury OFSI, or the EU Consolidated Sanctions List;
(d) using the Service is lawful in your jurisdiction; and
(e) you have full legal capacity to be bound by these Terms.
You are responsible for confirming each of these. The Operator does not verify them and accepts no liability if any of your representations turns out to be false.
The Service identifies you by a Gridcoin address you control. You authenticate by signing messages with the private key of that address. The Operator never asks for, never receives, and never stores your private key.
Consequences:
— If you lose your private key, you lose access to your account permanently. There is no password reset, no email recovery, no support process to get back in.
— If your private key is stolen, the thief gains your account, your listings, your reputation, and the ability to message your counterparties as you. Protect your key.
— Anyone who can produce a valid signature from your address is treated as you. The Operator has no way to tell otherwise.
You agree never to share your private key, seed phrase, or hardware wallet PIN with anyone, and never to enter them on any page that is not part of the wallet software you trust. The Operator will never request them.
When you publish a Listing, you represent and warrant that:
(a) the goods or services described are lawful to offer, sell, ship, and import in every jurisdiction relevant to the transaction (yours, the buyer’s, and any country the goods will transit);
(b) you have the right and authority to offer them;
(c) the description, photos, condition, and price are accurate and not misleading;
(d) you can fulfill the listed offer at the listed terms;
(e) you will pay any taxes, customs duties, levies, and other charges arising from the transaction; and
(f) the Listing does not infringe any third party’s intellectual property, privacy, or other rights, and does not violate §8 below.
You alone are the publisher of your Listings. The Operator does not verify them, does not endorse them, and is not the seller of anything offered through the Service.
You may not list, request, advertise, message about, or transact in any of the following through the Service:
The Operator may treat anything reasonably resembling the above as a violation, regardless of clever phrasing, euphemism, or coded language. This list is illustrative, not exhaustive. If something is borderline, ask before posting; if in doubt, don’t post.
Payments for Deals happen on the Gridcoin network, wallet-to-wallet, with grcpay sitting in between. The grcbazaar Service itself does not receive, route, hold, or forward your funds at the application layer; the checkout flow mints a payment address through grcpay and the chain does the rest.
grcpay is a separate service with its own Terms at grcpay.gridcoin.club/disclaimer. If you transact through grcpay, your relationship for the payment leg is with grcpay; your relationship for the listing and the Deal is with grcbazaar. The two services are operationally independent even when run by the same maintainer (see v1 architecture and the v2 transition immediately below).
The grcbazaar Service charges no fees in v1. If that changes, the fee structure will be disclosed in these Terms before it takes effect. grcpay’s own fee policy is governed by its Terms.
v1 is a deliberate bootstrap. In v1, settlement runs through the public grcpay instance at grcpay.gridcoin.club, which is operated by the same maintainer (@gridcat) as grcbazaar. Funds for a Deal therefore briefly transit a grcpay hot wallet operated by that maintainer before being forwarded to the seller’s recipient address. This is a deliberate, time-limited choice for v1 and is the only architecture supported until v2 ships.
v2 removes the operator from the payment path. When the Gridcoin Research wallet ships HTLC (hash-time-locked contract) support in a major release, grcbazaar v2 will switch settlement to direct buyer↔seller HTLC and multisig flows. The maintainer will not custody, route, or hold funds for Deals in v2. The grcpay public instance will be removed from the grcbazaar payment path at the same time, and this section will be retired.
v1 is bounded by that release. The v1 architecture is in place only until the Gridcoin Research major release that introduces HTLC support. When that release lands, v1 settlement is deprecated. If by that point community uptake is below a level the maintainer considers worth a v2 build, the Service may be paused or withdrawn instead of being upgraded; that decision is the Operator’s alone and is made in good faith.
v1 is sized for a small, known community. v1 is intended to evaluate the Service with members of the Gridcoin community who already know the maintainers. The Operator may impose hard volume caps at the platform layer (per Listing, per Deal, per day, per address) reflecting that scope, and may rate-limit, gate, or terminate any usage that exceeds the v1 evaluation envelope. None of those actions create any liability toward you.
No CASP / MSB / payment-institution authorization is being sought for v1. v1 runs on the strength of the open-source-software, small-volume, identifiable-maintainer, time-limited, good-faith-bootstrap framing rather than on a regulated authorization. If you require a regulated payment counterparty, do not use the Service in v1; come back when v2 ships and settlement has moved to a non-custodial pattern.
Messages between Users may be hash-anchored on the Gridcoin chain via stamp.gridcoin.club. This creates a tamper-evident record of when a message existed; it does not encrypt the message contents on chain (only the hash). Encryption of message contents end-to-end, where offered, depends on key material you and your counterparty manage. Lost keys mean lost messages, with no recovery.
The Service may store ciphertext or hashes of messages for delivery and dispute-evidence purposes. The Operator cannot, and will not attempt to, decrypt end-to-end encrypted messages.
The Operator is not party to your Deals and will not arbitrate disputes about price, quality, delivery, counterfeit goods, lost shipments, refunds, or any similar matter. You and your counterparty are responsible for resolution. Civil claims arising from a Deal lie between the Users involved.
Future versions of the Service may offer optional community-moderated escrow. The Operator will not act as a key-holder in any escrow flow it offers, and will not guarantee any escrow outcome.
The Operator may, at its sole discretion and at any time, with or without notice, with or without explanation:
(a) remove, hide, edit, or refuse to publish any Listing, message, or other content;
(b) suspend, restrict, ban, or terminate any account or wallet address;
(c) change, restrict, or remove features of the Service;
(d) impose rate limits, geographic restrictions, or category-specific gates;
(e) shut down, abandon, or transfer the Service.
Where applicable law requires a statement of reasons or an internal complaint mechanism for content moderation decisions (e.g., DSA Article 17 and Article 20), the Operator will provide one through the channels in §16. Outside those mandatory cases, the Operator owes no explanation.
The Operator does not pre-screen Listings or messages. Moderation, where it happens, is reactive: triggered by User reports, automated heuristics, or routine review. The Operator does not promise that prohibited content will be removed within any time frame, that all reports will be acted on, or that the Service will be free of illegal, fraudulent, or offensive content.
Absence of moderation action is not endorsement. Presence of a Listing does not mean the Operator has reviewed or approved it.
To report a Listing, message, or User, email gridcat@gridcoin.club. Include the URL, a description of the violation, and (if relevant) evidence. The Operator will review credible reports and take action it considers appropriate.
Intellectual-property notices. If you believe content on the Service infringes your IP rights, email gridcat@gridcoin.club with: (i) identification of the work; (ii) the URL of the infringing Listing; (iii) your contact information; (iv) a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is unauthorised; (v) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information is accurate and you are authorised to act for the rights holder; and (vi) your physical or electronic signature. Knowingly false notices expose the sender to liability for damages and costs.
Counter-notice. If your content has been removed and you believe the removal was a mistake, you may submit a counter-notice to the same address with the corresponding information. The Operator will follow the procedure required by applicable law (DSA Article 20 internal complaint mechanism for EU users; equivalent regimes elsewhere).
You keep ownership of the content you post. By posting it, you grant the Operator a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sub-licensable licence to host, store, cache, reproduce, display, modify (for formatting and moderation), distribute, and make publicly available that content, solely for operating, promoting, and improving the Service. This licence terminates when you remove the content, except for (a) backup copies retained for a reasonable rolling window, (b) copies cached or re-shared by third parties beyond the Operator’s control, and (c) anonymised aggregates.
The Service’s code, design, name, and graphics are the Operator’s. You may not copy, reverse-engineer, re-host, or rebrand the Service except as expressly permitted in writing or, when the Service is released under an open-source licence, by the terms of that licence.
The v1 codebase is closed-source while the design stabilises. The Operator intends to release the source under an OSI-approved licence when the codebase is promoted to a stable mainnet release. This is a stated intent, not a contractual commitment, and does not grant any present right to the source.
The Service collects the minimum needed to function:
— your wallet address (public on the Gridcoin network by definition);
— display name, avatar, and shipping defaults you voluntarily set on /account;
— Listings and messages you publish;
— operational logs (IP address, user-agent, request timing) used for security, abuse prevention, and capacity planning, retained on a rolling window and then deleted;
— preferences (theme, currency display) stored in cookies on your device.
The Operator does not require email, phone number, real name, government ID, or any other identifier. Anything you choose to provide voluntarily is stored as you entered it. The Operator does not sell User data and does not run advertising trackers. Outbound link clicks and aggregate page views may be counted via privacy- respecting analytics (Plausible) without per-user tracking.
The Operator will respond to lawful requests from competent authorities. Where permitted, the Operator will notify the affected User before disclosure.
The Service is provided “as is” and “as available” without warranty of any kind, express or implied. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Operator disclaims all warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy, completeness, availability, security, and quiet enjoyment.
The Operator does not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, free of malware, or that any defect will be corrected. The Operator does not warrant the conduct of other Users, the accuracy or legality of Listings, the deliverability of goods, the solvency of counterparties, or the availability, security, or correctness of the Gridcoin network, wallets, grcpay, stamp, the explorer, or any other third-party tooling.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties. To the extent any warranty cannot lawfully be excluded, it is limited to the minimum scope and shortest duration permitted by that law, and your exclusive remedy is the discontinuation of your use of the Service.
To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Operator will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, including lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, lost GRC, lost opportunities, loss of goodwill, business interruption, or substitute-procurement cost, arising out of or relating to the Service, however caused, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), strict liability, or any other theory, even if the Operator has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
Without limiting the foregoing, the Operator will not be liable for: (i) the acts or omissions of other Users, including fraud, non-delivery, mis-description, or theft; (ii) loss of funds in transit on the Gridcoin network; (iii) failures, forks, or attacks on the Gridcoin network; (iv) outages or errors of grcpay, stamp, explorer, wallets, or any other third-party tool; (v) consequences of your loss of private keys; (vi) consequences of unauthorised access to your wallet; or (vii) consequences of removing or refusing to publish any Listing.
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, or any non-waivable consumer-protection right under the law of your habitual residence.
You will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the Operator (and its agents, contractors, and affiliates) from and against any claim, demand, investigation, proceeding, loss, damage, cost, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or relating to: (a) your use of the Service; (b) any Listing or content you publish; (c) any Deal you enter into through the Service; (d) your breach of these Terms; (e) your violation of any law or any third party’s rights; or (f) any tax, customs, or regulatory liability arising from your activity through the Service.
The Operator may, at its option, take exclusive control of the defence and settlement of any claim subject to this section; you will cooperate. You will not settle any claim that imposes any obligation on the Operator without the Operator’s written consent.
You will not use the Service to transact with any sanctioned person, entity, vessel, or jurisdiction; to process funds you know or suspect are proceeds of crime; to evade sanctions or export controls; or to violate any applicable AML/CTF regime. You will not use the Service to transfer goods, technology, or services in breach of any export-control regime that applies to you.
The Operator will cooperate with valid legal process and may freeze, block, or terminate accounts associated with suspected sanctions or AML breaches.
These Terms, and any dispute arising out of them or out of your use of the Service, are governed by the laws of [Operator’s principal place of business], without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. The courts of [Operator’s principal place of business] have exclusive jurisdiction, and you submit to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.
If you are a consumer habitually resident in the European Union, the United Kingdom, or another jurisdiction whose consumer-protection law cannot lawfully be displaced by contract, you also retain the protections of the mandatory law of your residence and may bring claims in the courts of your residence to the extent that law requires.
The Operator is not liable for any delay or failure to perform caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including but not limited to: outages of the Gridcoin network, blockchain reorganisations or forks, denial-of-service attacks, vulnerabilities in third-party software, hosting-provider failures, network or DNS outages, hardware failures, governmental or regulatory action, court orders, war, civil unrest, insurrection, terrorism, sanctions, embargoes, fire, flood, earthquake, extreme weather, pandemic, and disease.
The Operator may update these Terms at any time. The effective date at the top of this page reflects the current version. For material changes, the Operator will attempt to highlight the change on this page or via an in-product notice. Your continued use of the Service after the effective date of the change constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms; if you do not accept, stop using the Service.
Severability. If any provision of these Terms is held invalid or unenforceable, the rest remains in full effect and the invalid provision will be reformed to the minimum extent necessary to make it valid and enforceable.
No waiver.The Operator’s failure to enforce any right or provision is not a waiver of that right or provision.
No agency. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, agency, employment, joint venture, or fiduciary relationship between you and the Operator.
Assignment.You may not assign or transfer these Terms or any rights under them without the Operator’s prior written consent. The Operator may assign or transfer these Terms freely, including in connection with a transfer of the Service.
Entire agreement. These Terms, together with any policies referenced from them, are the entire agreement between you and the Operator regarding the Service, and supersede any prior or contemporaneous agreements on the same subject.
Survival. Sections that by their nature should survive termination — including IP, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, governing law, and this section — survive.
General contact: gridcat@gridcoin.club.
Abuse, illegal-content reports, DSA Article 16 notices: gridcat@gridcoin.club.
IP-infringement notices, DSA Article 20 internal complaints, legal correspondence: gridcat@gridcoin.club.
Single point of contact for authorities (DSA Articles 11 and 12): gridcat@gridcoin.club. The Operator accepts service of process and authority correspondence in English at this address.