What non-custodial actually means

“Non-custodial” gets used loosely. A platform that holds your coins in a pooled wallet while you trade is custodial, even if the marketing page says otherwise. A platform that generates keys on its server and sends you the encrypted backup is custodial. A platform that can freeze, reverse or block a withdrawal is custodial.

OmniBazaar is non-custodial in the architectural sense: there is no mechanism by which we could hold your funds, even if we wanted to.

Keys never leave your device. Registration generates a BIP39 seed in your browser. The server sees an address and a signature proving you control it. It never sees the seed, the private keys, or your password. Login is challenge-response: the server issues a challenge, your wallet signs it, the server verifies the signature. No password hash to leak, no key escrow to breach.

Settlement is wallet-to-wallet. When you trade on the DEX, the swap contract moves coins directly between your wallet and the counterparty’s. When you buy on the marketplace, the escrow contract holds the payment until both sides confirm. At no point does the money sit in an account OmniBazaar controls. The fee is deducted by the same contract, and you can read the deduction rule in the source.

The relay is blind. Gasless transactions use EIP-2771 meta-transactions: you sign the intent, a validator wraps it and pays the gas. The validator cannot change the destination, amount or recipient because your signature authenticates those fields. The contract enforces them.

What this changes for you. The risk of platform failure — a freeze, a hack of the company wallet, a sudden withdrawal limit — is structurally absent. Your risk shifts to what you control: your seed phrase, your hardware wallet, the contracts you approve. Those are different risks, and they are yours to manage, which is the entire point.

The contract addresses are published on /technology. The explorer is public. Verify anything above. Hold your own.