Terms of Service

Tribe is a reputation and verification service that helps people who transact with strangers — vendors, freelancers, traders — establish and verify trust. We don't process payments. We don't hold customer funds outside of opt-in stake-and-slash escrow described in Section 4. We're not a marketplace, a bank, or a money services business.

You must be at least 18 years old to use Tribe. By creating a profile you confirm you meet that age requirement and that the information you provide is truthful. We may refuse, suspend, or terminate access at our sole discretion.

You're responsible for keeping your wallet, PIN, and email credentials safe. If you lose your wallet, you lose access to anything tied to it — including any stakes locked in escrow at the time. Identity verification (via Stripe Identity, Smile Identity, or Instagram OAuth) is optional but raises your trust grade; misrepresenting your identity is grounds for permanent ban.

When you opt into an Insured Deal, you authorise Tribe to lock USDC from your wallet into a treasury-controlled escrow on Solana. By doing so, you agree that:

• If you don't deliver and the counterparty files a dispute within 7 days, our admin reviews the evidence and may direct the stake to the counterparty's wallet (a "slash").
• A slash also writes a permanent STAKE_SLASHED event to your profile and lowers your trust grade for 180 days.
• If no dispute is filed within 7 days, your stake is automatically released back to your wallet.
• Our admin review is final for v1. We will publish a community-governed dispute panel in a future version.
• Tribe is not liable for the underlying transaction value — only the staked amount. The stake is a signal of trustworthiness, not insurance for the full deal.

You retain ownership of reviews, deal descriptions, and other content you post. By posting, you grant Tribe a worldwide, royalty-free licence to display, store, and use that content as part of the service. You agree not to post content that is illegal, defamatory, harassing, or designed to manipulate trust scores. We may remove content at our discretion.

• Creating fake accounts or using fake identity documents
• Colluding with another account to artificially inflate trust scores (wash trading)
• Filing false disputes to capture another user's stake
• Attempting to circumvent admin decisions or grade caps
• Reverse-engineering or scraping Tribe at scale without permission
• Using Tribe to facilitate illegal activity

Violations may result in immediate suspension and forfeiture of any active stakes.

Trust grades are algorithmically computed signals based on the data we have. They are not endorsements, guarantees of performance, or financial advice. We make no warranties about the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of any trust score, and we are not liable for any losses you incur from relying on a trust grade when transacting with another user.

Tribe is provided "as is." We may modify, suspend, or discontinue any feature at any time. The Solana network is operated independently of us; we are not liable for any chain-level downtime, reorgs, or delays that affect stake payouts.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Tribe's total liability to you for any claim arising out of these Terms is limited to the greater of (a) the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the claim, or (b) $50 USD. We are not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

We may update these Terms. If we make material changes we'll notify users by email and post the updated version with a new "last updated" date. Continued use after the change means you accept the new Terms.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. For questions, write to hello@usetribe.xyz.