What is the Hand-off Ceremony, and why does it exist?
A plain-language walkthrough of the mechanism behind Sigmamarkt's 'seller cannot pull the account back' guarantee.
Gaming account sales have run on the same broken model for years. The seller hands the email and password to the buyer. The buyer pays. Then everyone hopes the seller never files a recovery form. That hope costs buyers millions of dollars every year. Sigmamarkt fixes this with the Hand-off Ceremony: our secure transfer protocol.
What happens the moment a listing opens?
When a seller lists an account, the last step is the ceremony. The account's recovery email is bound to Sigmamarkt. Two-factor authentication comes under our control. The phone number is held in the system. This access is temporary, and every step is recorded.
From this point on, the seller no longer controls the account. Listing the same account on another site does not help. The verification codes and the recovery email now go to Sigmamarkt. Selling the same account twice becomes impossible.
What happens when the sale closes?
When the listing matches a buyer and the payment lands in escrow, a second ceremony runs. Sigmamarkt transfers its access to the buyer. The recovery email re-binds to the buyer. The two-factor key is handed to the buyer. The phone number is updated. This transfer is also recorded. The buyer then reviews the account during a 7-day inspection period. If there is no dispute, the period closes and the seller gets paid.
What if the seller files a recovery form later?
It won't work. The recovery email is now the buyer's. The two-factor key is with the buyer too. The seller can claim the account all they want. But when the game publisher asks for proof, the seller has none. On top of that, the transfer is written into a cryptographically signed sale history. In a legal process, that record shows exactly who owned the account, and when.
Isn't this bad for sellers?
Quite the opposite. The Hand-off Ceremony protects sellers too. No one can falsely accuse a seller of stealing the account back after a sale. The signed record proves the transfer. The handoff moves in one direction and never reverses. The seller hands off once, then rests easy.