Terms of Service

1. Who we are and what these Terms cover

Pocket ("Pocket", "we", "us") is an online marketplace available at pocketgrowth.xyz and any site or app we run under the Pocket name (the "Service"). Pocket is operated by its founding team while a legal entity is being incorporated. Once it exists, that entity will operate the Service and be the party to these Terms, and we will identify it here with its registered address.

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") are a binding agreement between you and Pocket. You accept them when you create an account, by ticking the box that says so. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal data. If you do not agree with these Terms, do not use the Service.

2. Who can use Pocket

• You must be at least 18 years old and able to enter into a binding contract.
• If you use Pocket for a company, you confirm you are allowed to bind it, and "you" includes that company.
• You may not use Pocket if you are subject to sanctions (see section 13), or if using it is against the law where you live.
• One person or company, one account, unless we agree otherwise.

3. Your account and your wallet

Your Stellar wallet is your account. You can sign in with a wallet you hold yourself, such as Freighter, xBull or Lobstr, or through Pollar, a third-party service that creates a wallet for you when you sign in with email or Google.

• Your own wallet: only you hold its keys. Pocket cannot recover a lost key, reverse a transaction or move funds for you.
• A Pollar wallet: Pollar, a third party, creates the wallet and keeps its keys on your behalf. Access depends on your Pollar login and on Pollar's service. Pocket cannot access, recover or move funds in a Pollar wallet. Pollar's own terms and policies, if any, apply to it.
• You are responsible for everything done with your account and for keeping your devices, keys and logins secure. Tell us at once at pocket.stellar.xyz@gmail.com if you think someone else is using your account.
• You choose your role, startup or specialist, when you create the account, and it cannot be changed later.

4. Your account details

Before you post jobs or apply to them, you complete your account details: your name, a contact email and your country, and, for a startup, the company's name. Your account becomes active when you send them. You agree to give true, current and complete information and to keep it up to date.

Pocket does not verify anyone's identity today. An active account is not a guarantee of anyone's identity, skills, solvency or conduct, and it is not an endorsement. Look at each profile and use your own judgment before hiring or working with someone. We may ask you to verify your identity through a third-party provider in the future, and will tell you before we do. We may suspend an account that gave false information (see section 14).

5. What Pocket is, and what it is not

Pocket is a venue. Startups publish jobs, specialists apply, and a startup can hire a specialist under the terms and milestones they agree on (an "Engagement").

• The Engagement is a contract between the startup and the specialist. Pocket is not a party to it.
• Specialists are independent. Pocket is not their employer, agent or partner, and does not direct or supervise their work. Pocket's dispute handling, results reports and product features are not direction or control of anyone's work.
• Startups are solely responsible for correctly classifying the people they hire under the labour law that applies to them.
• Pocket does not guarantee the quality, legality, timing or results of any work, nor that a job will be filled or an application accepted.
• The results in a delivery and in a contract's results report are reported by the specialist and accepted by the startup when it approves the delivery. Pocket does not check them. Only the payments in a report are read from the blockchain.
• Each party is responsible for issuing any invoices or tax receipts the law requires, for any tax withholding, and for reporting its own income. Pocket does not issue invoices for Engagements or withhold taxes, but may have to report information to tax authorities where the law requires it.

6. Payments and escrow

How escrow works

When a startup hires a specialist and the specialist accepts, an escrow smart contract is deployed on the Stellar network through Trustless Work, a third-party escrow protocol. The startup deposits the agreed amount in USDC, a stablecoin issued by Circle, into that contract. The contract holds the funds, not Pocket.

• Every deposit, approval and dispute is signed by the user's own wallet. Pocket signs only the transactions of its own escrow roles: creating escrows, releasing approved milestones and executing dispute decisions. It never signs deposits, approvals or disputes on your behalf.
• When the startup approves a milestone, Pocket releases that milestone's payment to the specialist. Approval cannot be undone: once approved, the milestone is released and the funds leave the escrow. By approving, the startup confirms the milestone was delivered to its satisfaction.
• There is no automatic release. If a startup neither approves nor disputes a milestone, its funds stay in escrow until one of the parties opens a dispute.
• Releases may take some time to be signed and confirmed on the network.

Pocket's roles in the escrow

Pocket does not take custody of your funds. However, Pocket's Stellar account holds the escrow roles that release a milestone after the startup approves it and that resolve disputes. The smart contract itself would carry out any dispute resolution Pocket signs, including a payment to any address. Pocket commits, and its systems are built, to direct escrowed funds only to the startup or the specialist of that Engagement, in the amounts shown in the Engagement or decided under section 7. If the keys of Pocket's account were compromised, escrowed funds could be at risk. Pocket protects those keys with reasonable security measures and monitors their use, and will notify affected users without undue delay of any incident that affects their funds.

Fees

Pocket charges a fee of 1% of each amount an escrow pays out, in a milestone release or a dispute resolution. Trustless Work keeps 0.3% of the same amount. Both fees are deducted from that amount by the escrow itself, so the specialist receives 98.7% of a released milestone; in a dispute resolution they are deducted from each party's share. Pocket does not charge for posting jobs, applying or depositing. The Stellar network charges small transaction fees. An Engagement keeps the fees in force when its escrow was created; if our fees change, we will show the new ones clearly before they apply to any new Engagement.

No refunds by Pocket

Since Pocket does not hold funds, it cannot refund, reverse or return a payment. Money leaves an escrow only through a milestone release or a dispute resolution.

Payments outside Pocket

Payments made outside Pocket's escrow are outside the Service. Pocket cannot help with them, will not resolve disputes about them, and they are not covered by these Terms.

7. Disputes between startups and specialists

Either party can open a dispute on a funded milestone that has not been paid. Its funds then stay in escrow until a Pocket manager resolves it. A dispute is the only way the funds of an unapproved milestone can move.

• Both parties can add evidence and comments. Each party will have a reasonable opportunity, normally 7 days from the opening of the dispute, to do so.
• The manager decides on the written terms of the Engagement, what was delivered and the evidence given, records a written reason for the decision, and has no personal interest in the outcome.
• The manager may pay the whole milestone to the specialist, return it to the startup, or split it between them. Pocket will only direct disputed funds to those two parties.
• The decision is executed on the escrow and is final for those funds. It is not an arbitral award, and it does not prevent either party from bringing any claim against the other before the competent courts or authorities.
• Pocket is not liable for the outcome of a decision made in good faith under this section, except for its gross negligence, wilful misconduct, or failure to execute the decision as made.

8. Blockchain and third-party risks

By using Pocket you understand and accept that:

• Blockchain transactions are public and irreversible. A transaction sent by mistake, or to the wrong address, cannot be undone.
• Smart contracts, networks and wallets can fail, have bugs, be attacked or be unavailable, which can delay or prevent payments. Protocol upgrades, forks or changes to Trustless Work's contracts may affect escrows.
• Circle's USDC terms govern USDC, and Circle may freeze USDC held at any address, including an escrow. Pocket cannot unfreeze such funds. Stablecoins can lose their peg.
• Pocket relies on third parties it does not control, including the Stellar network, Trustless Work, Pollar, Circle, wallet providers and hosting providers. Their services are governed by their own terms.
• Your wallet address and your escrow transactions are recorded on a public blockchain, where anyone can see them and nobody, Pocket included, can delete them.

Pocket gives no financial, investment, legal or tax advice, and nothing in the Service is an offer of any financial product.

9. Test network

This Pocket runs on the Stellar test network. Test USDC and test XLM have no value and cannot be exchanged for money. Accounts, data and test funds may be reset. Do not send real funds or main network assets to any address shown in this Service: they may be lost. No Engagement on the test network creates an obligation to pay real money unless the parties agree otherwise outside Pocket. Payments with real money happen only in the Pocket that runs on the Stellar main network.

10. Your content

Your content is what you add to Pocket: your profile, CV, portfolio, jobs, applications, deliveries and their results, evidence and comments. You keep ownership of it.

• You give Pocket a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, copy, display and process your content to run, secure and improve the Service. This licence ends when your content is deleted, except for copies we must keep by law, to resolve disputes, or as part of the records described in the Privacy Policy.
• Once your account is active, your public profile, and the CV you upload, are visible to anyone. Share in them only what you want others to see.
• Do not include in your profile or CV photos, identity document numbers, date of birth, health data, religious or political beliefs, or other sensitive personal data. Pocket may remove such content.
• You confirm you have the rights to everything you upload, and that it does not infringe anyone's rights or break any law.
• When a specialist accepts an Engagement, both parties' contact emails are shared with each other. Each party may use the other's data only for that Engagement, and is responsible for handling it lawfully.

11. Work product

Who owns the work a specialist delivers is agreed between the startup and the specialist. If they agreed nothing else in writing, once a milestone is paid in full the specialist assigns to the startup, to the extent the applicable law allows, the economic rights in that milestone's deliverables, or, where assignment is not allowed, grants the startup an exclusive, worldwide and perpetual licence to them. Moral rights stay with the author where the law makes them inalienable. If a dispute ends in a partial payment, the startup receives a non-exclusive licence to use the deliverables for its own business, unless the parties agree otherwise. The specialist may show the work in their portfolio unless the startup asks them in writing not to. Pocket claims no rights in the work product.

12. What you must not do

• Break any law, or use Pocket for fraud, money laundering or terrorist financing.
• Give false information, impersonate anyone, or create accounts for someone else.
• Harass, threaten or discriminate against anyone. Startups must not ask for, or make hiring decisions based on, race, ethnicity, colour, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, age, nationality, pregnancy or other protected characteristics.
• Post jobs for illegal work, unsolicited bulk messages, deceptive marketing, fake reviews, or adult, violent or hateful content.
• Upload malware, or anything that infringes intellectual property or privacy.
• Interfere with the Service: scraping it, overloading it, bypassing its limits or security, or accessing accounts or data that are not yours.
• Test Pocket's security without following our security policy, which explains how to report a vulnerability.

Reporting content, and how we moderate

Anyone can report content or a user they believe is illegal or breaks these Terms by writing to pocket.stellar.xyz@gmail.com. Please include where the content is, why you believe it is illegal or not allowed, your name and email, and a statement that your report is made in good faith. We review reports with people, not automated tools, and tell the person who reported what we decided.

If we remove your content, or restrict or suspend your account, we will tell you what we did, why, which rule or law it is based on, and how to ask us to review it. You can ask for that review by replying to our message or writing to pocket.stellar.xyz@gmail.com, and a different person at Pocket will look at it.

13. Regulatory status, sanctions and anti-money laundering

Pocket does not buy, sell, exchange or convert digital assets, does not exchange them for money, and does not offer investment or deposit products. Pocket is not licensed or registered as a financial institution, payment institution or virtual asset service provider in any country. If the law of a country requires a licence or registration for any part of the Service, Pocket may limit or stop the Service there.

You confirm that you are not, and are not owned or controlled by, a person listed on, or located in a country subject to, sanctions of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union or your country of residence. Pocket may screen users and wallet addresses, ask for additional information, refuse or suspend accounts, decline to sign releases or resolutions where the law requires it, and report to the competent authorities.

14. Closing your account, and suspension

You can close your account at any time, from your account page or by writing to pocket.stellar.xyz@gmail.com. You can also download a copy of your data there before you close it. Closing is not possible while money you are part of is in an escrow: finish or resolve those Engagements first. Offers still waiting for the specialist are withdrawn, open jobs are closed and pending applications are withdrawn. What happens to your data is explained in the Privacy Policy.

We may suspend or close an account, remove content, or refuse service if you break these Terms, if the law requires it, or to protect users, third parties or Pocket. When we can, we will tell you why and give you a chance to respond. Suspending an account does not move funds already in an escrow: they stay in the contract, and are released or resolved under sections 6 and 7. We may close accounts inactive for 24 months, after 30 days' notice, but never while funds remain in an escrow.

15. The Service is provided as is

To the extent the law allows, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose, availability, or that it will be free of errors. We may change, suspend or discontinue any part of the Service, and will give reasonable notice when a change affects funded Engagements.

16. Limitation of liability

Nothing in this section limits liability for fraud, wilful misconduct or gross negligence, death or personal injury, breach of data protection law, Pocket's own errors in signing a release or a dispute resolution, or any liability that cannot be limited under the applicable law.

• If you use Pocket for a business or profession, including as a startup or as an independent specialist, and to the extent the law allows: Pocket is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue or data; and Pocket's total liability for all claims relating to the Service is limited to the greater of the fees you paid Pocket in the 12 months before the claim, or 500 US dollars.
• If you are a consumer under the law of your country of residence, Pocket is liable in accordance with that law, and the limits above apply only to the extent that law allows.
• Pocket is not responsible for the conduct of other users, or for the performance of the Stellar network, Circle, Trustless Work, Pollar or wallet providers, except to the extent a loss is caused by Pocket's own breach of these Terms.

17. Indemnity

If you use Pocket for a business or profession, you will indemnify Pocket against claims by third parties, and the reasonable costs of defending them, to the extent they result from your content, your breach of these Terms or your breach of the law. You will not have to indemnify Pocket for losses caused by Pocket's own breach, negligence or misconduct. Pocket will tell you promptly about any such claim and let you take part in its defence. This section does not apply to consumers, except as their local law allows.

18. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms to reflect changes in the Service, the law or how we operate. The version in force is shown at the top, with its date. We will give at least 15 days' notice, in the Service and by email where we have yours, before a new version takes effect, unless the change is required by law or urgently needed for security. Every new version must be accepted before you keep using the Service; if you do not accept it, you can close your account at no cost. Funded Engagements continue under the version in force when they were funded, unless the law requires otherwise.

19. Governing law and disputes with Pocket

If you have a problem with Pocket, write to us first at pocket.stellar.xyz@gmail.com. Most issues can be solved that way, and we will answer within 15 business days, or sooner if your law requires it.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the country where Pocket's operating entity is incorporated, which we will state here once it exists. This does not take away the protection of the mandatory consumer and data protection laws of the country where you live. If you are a consumer, you may bring proceedings in the courts of your place of residence and file complaints with your consumer protection authority, and nothing in these Terms requires you to go to arbitration or to give up collective actions.

20. Users in the European Union, the United Kingdom and elsewhere

• If you live in the European Union or the United Kingdom, you have the rights the consumer and data protection laws of your country give you, and these Terms do not limit them.
• Startups use Pocket as businesses. Specialists are independent professionals, and Pocket asks them to act as such. Consumer protection rules that apply between a business and a consumer may not apply to an Engagement between two businesses or professionals.
• Our single point of contact for users and for authorities, including under the European Union's Digital Services Act, is pocket.stellar.xyz@gmail.com, in Spanish or English.
• If you use Pocket for a business, you may ask us to review any decision to restrict, suspend or close your account, as described in section 12, and we will give you at least 15 days' notice of changes to these Terms, as described in section 18.

21. General

• Electronic contracting and notices. You agree to enter into these Terms electronically, and to receive notices in the Service and by email to the contact address you gave us. These satisfy any requirement that they be in writing. Notices to Pocket must be sent to pocket.stellar.xyz@gmail.com.
• Force majeure. Pocket is not liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including network outages, blockchain congestion or halts, actions of a stablecoin issuer, or acts of authorities.
• Survival. The sections on escrow, disputes, content licences, work product, liability, indemnity, governing law and this section continue after your account is closed.
• No third-party beneficiaries. These Terms create no rights for anyone other than you and Pocket.
• Feedback. If you send us suggestions, we may use them freely and without any obligation to you.
• Trademarks. The Pocket name and logo belong to Pocket; you may not use them without our permission.
• Authorities. Pocket may disclose information to authorities when the law requires it, and will tell affected users where the law allows.
• Whole agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy and any terms shown for a specific feature are the whole agreement between you and Pocket about the Service. If a provision is found invalid, the rest remains in force. Not enforcing a provision is not a waiver of it.
• Transfer. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms without our consent. We may transfer ours to the entity that operates Pocket, or as part of a merger or sale, and will tell you if we do.
• Language. These Terms are written in Spanish and in English. If the two versions differ, the Spanish version prevails, unless the law of your country requires otherwise.

22. Contact

For anything about these Terms, write to pocket.stellar.xyz@gmail.com.