Buying
Discover products and services, pay securely, and track orders.
The marketplace shows products and services from local providers. Use category tiles on the Buy dashboard to filter by type. Toggle the map view to see providers near your location. Sort by distance, price, or rating.
Open Buy
Go to the Buy tab from the bottom navigation
Browse categories
Tap a category tile to see products
Filter results
Use filters for price, rating, or distance
Open map view
Switch to map to see nearby providers
Use the map view to find providers within walking distance.
Product detail pages show photos, pricing in sats or fiat, delivery options, and provider reputation. Read reviews from other buyers to assess quality. Check the provider's identity level badge for trust signals.
Look for the L3 badge on high-value purchases for maximum security.
Tap "Add to Cart" on any product. Go to your cart to review items, adjust quantities, and remove items. Choose a delivery method (digital, local pickup, or shipped). Proceed to payment to generate a Lightning invoice.
Add to Cart
Tap the cart button on any product
Review cart
Check items, quantities, and totals
Select delivery
Choose how you want to receive the product
Proceed to payment
Generate and pay the Lightning invoice
Make sure your Lightning wallet has enough inbound liquidity to receive change.
Lightning payments are instant Bitcoin transfers on the second layer. Today every purchase runs on Direct-Pay: you pay the seller directly and Colabonate never holds your satoshis. Escrow for higher-value trades is planned but not yet live. If there is a dispute, the Arbitration Council can rule on it — but without escrow it cannot move funds that were already paid.
View invoice
A Lightning invoice is generated at checkout
Approve payment
Confirm in your Alby or Lightning wallet
Paid directly
The sats go straight to the seller — Colabonate never holds them
Confirm receipt
Mark the order complete once you received the product
Because payment is direct, check the seller's reputation before large purchases, and confirm receipt only after verifying you got what you paid for.
How Lightning Payments Work
Lightning is Bitcoin's second layer — it enables instant, low-fee payments by routing transactions through a network of payment channels. Instead of waiting for on-chain confirmations (which take 10+ minutes), Lightning payments settle in milliseconds. When you pay on Colabonate, a Lightning invoice (a special encoded string) is generated for your order. Your wallet decodes it, sends the satoshis through the network, and the merchant receives them instantly. No middleman, no bank — pure peer-to-peer value transfer.
Escrow (planned, not live yet)
Escrow is designed but not yet enabled for everyday trades. When it arrives, funds for higher-value purchases will be held until the buyer confirms receipt — by a verifiable, open-source canister rather than by Colabonate — and a dispute could then release or refund them. Until then, every trade is Direct-Pay.
Paying Services in Stages
For services completed in multiple stages (like development, legal consulting, design, etc.), the total is split into milestones and each milestone is paid directly when it is done. Example: a 100,000 sats design project with 4 milestones — concept sketch (25k), first draft (25k), revisions (25k), final delivery (25k). You only pay the next stage after reviewing the previous one, which limits your exposure without any escrow.
Dispute Resolution via Arbitration Council
If buyer and seller cannot agree, either party can open a dispute. The dispute is handled by the Arbitration Council — a decentralized group of experienced community members. They review arguments from both sides, evidence, and chat history, then make a fair decision. Possible outcomes: full refund to buyer, full release to seller, or proportional split. For Direct-Pay trades the ruling is binding on reputation but cannot move funds that were already paid; with escrow (planned) it will release or refund the held funds. Arbitration Council fees come from a dispute fee, motivating them to make fair and timely decisions.
Lightning Wallet Requirements
To use Colabonate's Lightning payment feature, you need a Lightning-compatible wallet (e.g., Alby, BlueWallet, Zeus, Phoenix). Your wallet must be able to pay Lightning invoices — most modern wallets support this. Your wallet needs sufficient "inbound liquidity" to receive satoshis over Lightning. If your wallet is newly created, you may need to add liquidity via on-chain funding or LNURL withdraw. For larger amounts, use a wallet with sufficient capacity or connect multiple wallets.
Payment Limits and Identity Verification
Lightning payments have limits based on your identity level. L0 (anonymous) users have lower payment limits to protect new users. L1 (verified Nostr key) allows higher limits. L2 (peer verified) allows larger transactions. For very high-value purchases, L3 (Human Identity) may be required. Identity upgrades happen through the Identity tab — you can upgrade via Nostr peer verification or Human ID verification. Higher identity levels not only increase payment limits but also increase your trust score — sellers prefer working with verified buyers.
Orders are tracked as tickets in the Tickets section. Each ticket shows its current status (Pending, Accepted, Paid, In Progress, Completed). For milestone-based orders, you can approve each stage individually before the next payment is released.
Open Tickets
Go to the Tickets section from navigation
Find your order
Locate the active ticket
Check status
Read the current status and milestone progress
Approve milestones
Confirm completion, then pay that stage
If a milestone is not progressing, open the ticket to message the provider directly.