Terms of use

1. What the service is

Qlyphs OTC (“the platform”) lets users post and accept offers to exchange QTC for USDC between themselves. It is custodial for QTC: it creates a QTC wallet for each user, holds the keys of that wallet, and holds the QTC of each open trade in an escrow wallet it controls. It does not hold USDC at any time. Qlyphs is a brand name, not a legal entity: the legal entity operating the platform will be named here before these terms take effect.

2. Accounts

• One person, one account. You sign in with Telegram, or with an email address and a password of at least 12 characters. Trading requires a connected Telegram account either way.
• You are responsible for your Telegram account, your password, your authenticator app and its recovery codes, and for any recovery phrase you export. Anyone who holds an exported phrase controls that wallet.
• You must be legally allowed to trade crypto-assets where you live. Whether identity checks will be required is one of the points under legal review.

3. Trading rules

• Prices are set by users. The platform gives no price, advice or guarantee of execution.
• A match is a commitment. The seller’s QTC is moved into escrow automatically; once that lock is confirmed the buyer has 90 minutes to pay the exact USDC total from their registered address.
• Arbitrum addresses are recorded at the match and used for that trade whatever you change later. Funds sent to an address you entered incorrectly, including a withdrawal destination, cannot be recovered by the platform.
• Payments that do not match exactly — amount, sender, recipient, network — do not complete a trade. They are between you and your counterparty, or a matter for a dispute.

4. Fees

The platform fee is 2% of the QTC amount of each completed trade, taken inside the release transaction. There is no fee on USDC, on deposits, on posting or on cancelling an offer. The Quantus network fee of a lock or a withdrawal is paid from your wallet; Arbitrum gas is paid by the buyer. A change to the fee applies only to trades matched after it.

5. Custody of QTC

You accept the custody design and the limitations described on the Transparency page, in particular that the platform holds a copy of the keys of your wallet and the key of the escrow wallet, that deposited QTC is at risk if the platform is compromised or ceases to operate, that exporting your recovery phrase does not remove the platform’s copy, and that the platform has not been audited yet. Withdrawals and exports require two-factor authentication and are subject to a daily limit and to holds after a security change.

Pending legal review. Holding crypto-assets on behalf of users is a regulated activity in many jurisdictions. Whether, where and under which authorisation the operator may offer it has not been determined. This draft claims no licence, registration or exemption, and deposits are not covered by any insurance or guarantee scheme. The ownership of deposited QTC, its treatment if the operator becomes insolvent, and any identity checks custody may require will be written by counsel.

6. Disputes

Either party may open a dispute while a trade is awaiting payment, releasing or refunding. The QTC stays in escrow meanwhile. A platform admin decides between two outcomes — release to the buyer or refund to the seller — on the basis of on-chain data and the evidence submitted, and records a note visible to both parties. Whether and how such a decision can be challenged is under legal review.

7. Conduct and sanctions

Letting trades fail or time out, submitting false evidence, or attempting to defraud a counterparty leads to warnings. A second warning restricts the account for 7 days; a third closes it. Open trades of a sanctioned account are still settled or refunded according to the rules above.

8. Availability

The platform may enter maintenance mode, during which new offers and trades are blocked. No uptime is promised. The draft intends to keep the settlement of open trades and withdrawals running with priority over every other function.

9. Risk and liability

Crypto-assets are volatile and transfers are irreversible. You trade at your own risk. The allocation of liability between you and the operator will be written by counsel and is intentionally left out of this draft.

10. Technical notes

The trading app uses two first-party cookies, qotc_session and qotc_csrf, which are required to stay signed in. See the privacy draft.

11. Changes

Until the legal review is complete this text may change at any time. The final version will carry an effective date and a change log.