How to check a crypto middleman before you trust it

A middleman holds the money while two strangers finish a deal, which makes the middleman the one party both sides have to trust. Whether it's a person with an "MM" role or a bot, the same questions tell you whether that trust is earned. Here is a checklist you can use on any of them, including us.

Why this matters

A middleman solves the "who goes first" problem, but only if the middleman is honest and careful. A fake middleman is one of the oldest scams in online trading: the "middleman" is really the other party's second account, so both sides of the deal end up with the same person. A careless real middleman can lose funds too.

A few minutes of checking costs far less than either of those.

The checklist

1. Can you check their history yourself?

Vouches are easy to fake. Second accounts can post them, bad ones can be deleted, and screenshots can be edited. Look for history you can check without trusting the middleman: completed deals with transaction hashes you can open on a public block explorer, with dates and amounts that make sense.

How to check: open a few of their transaction hashes on a block explorer. Do the amounts and dates match what they claim? Are they all from the same few days?

2. Is there on-chain proof for each deal?

Every crypto escrow deal leaves at least two transactions on the blockchain: the deposit into escrow and the payout out of it. A good middleman can show both, and the payout should come out of the same address the deposit went into.

How to check: on a block explorer, open the deposit address. You should see the coins arrive, then leave in the payout transaction.

3. Who is accountable when something goes wrong?

Bots are fast, but bots get stuck, and people disappear. Find out who answers when a deal stalls, where you can reach them, and how refunds work. "Just DM me" is not a process.

4. Are the rules written down?

Fees, who can release funds, what happens if one side disappears, how refunds work, any time limits. Rules that only exist in DMs can change halfway through your deal.

5. Who holds the keys, and for how long?

Most Discord middlemen, human or bot, are custodial: during the deal, they control the funds. That's normal, but it means the whole deal rests on them. The bigger the amount and the longer it sits there, the more that matters.

6. Will they do a small deal first?

An honest middleman has no problem with a small first deal. Start with an amount you could afford to lose, watch the whole flow from deposit to payout, and only move up once it has worked.

7. How old are they, really?

Scam setups are often brand new. Check when the middleman's Discord server and accounts were created, and when their website's domain was registered.

• Every Discord ID contains its creation date. Turn on Developer Mode in Discord's settings (under Advanced) to copy IDs, then use any "snowflake" date decoder.
• Domain registration dates are public through a WHOIS or RDAP lookup.

New doesn't mean dishonest (we're new too), but a story that doesn't match the dates is a warning.

8. Did you find them, or did they find you?

Reach a middleman through a link you looked up yourself. Be careful when the other party insists on one specific middleman, or when a "middleman" messages you first.

Red flags

• Fake or thin vouches. Lots of praise from new accounts, the same wording again and again, all posted within a few days.
• They DM you first. Especially "staff", or a "middleman" you never contacted.
• Pressure. "Do it now", "the bot is about to go down", "last chance".
• They refuse a small test deal, or insist that your first deal has to be a big one.
• Payment outside the process. "The bot is broken, just send it to my wallet", or a deposit address that arrives by DM instead of inside the deal ticket.
• They ask for your seed phrase or private keys, a "verification payment", or remote access to your device. No legitimate middleman needs any of these.
• Lookalike names and links. One letter off in the server name, the bot's name or the website address.
• Promises you can't check. "Insured", "guaranteed", "audited", "thousands of deals", with no way for you to verify any of it.

The checklist applied to Truzor

A checklist is only useful if it's applied honestly, so here is ours. The short version: Truzor is new, and the most important item, a track record, isn't there yet.

Truzor passes the checks a new project can pass on day one, and fails the one only time can fix. Our advice is the same advice we'd give about any new middleman: start small, check every transaction yourself, and only move up once you've seen it work.

How to check our numbers

• Open the public deal ledger at truzormm.com/ledger.html. It lists completed deals with links to their deposit and payout transactions.
• Read the raw data at truzormm.com/ledger.json if you'd rather not rely on our page design.
• Look at the completed-deals channel in the Discord. When a deal finishes, the bot posts an anonymized summary there with a link to the deposit transaction.
• If anything doesn't match, tell us in a support ticket.

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