Dispute Resolution Matters
Trust is not built on the absence of conflict. It is built on knowing what happens when conflict appears.
In any system where value moves between people—money, work, services, or digital assets—disagreements are inevitable. What defines the quality of that system is not whether disputes exist, but how they are resolved.
When there is no clear, fair, and reliable way to handle disputes, trust slowly erodes.
Conflict Is a Feature, Not a Bug
Marketplaces, freelance platforms, payment systems, and on-chain protocols all rely on cooperation between parties that do not know each other.
Sooner or later, questions arise:
Was the service delivered as agreed?
Did the work meet expectations?
Were the rules followed?
Who should receive the funds?
Ignoring these questions does not make them disappear. It only pushes the problem to the edges of the system, where decisions become arbitrary and opaque.
Centralized Resolution Doesn’t Scale Trust
Most digital platforms handle disputes internally: support teams, moderators, private policies, manual reviews.
This creates a structural conflict:
the platform acts as both judge and interested party,
decisions are hard to audit,
users have little visibility or recourse.
As platforms grow, this model becomes:
slower,
more expensive,
inconsistent,
and increasingly distrusted.
Users respond by pricing in risk, reducing participation, or leaving altogether.
Without Resolution, Escrow Loses Meaning
Escrow systems are designed to protect both sides of a transaction. But without a credible way to decide who is right in a dispute, escrow becomes a deadlock.
Funds remain locked. Decisions are delayed or politicized. The original promise of trustless coordination breaks down.
Dispute resolution is not an add-on to escrow. It is what makes escrow work.
The Hidden Cost of Broken Trust
When trust breaks:
platforms absorb growing support costs,
honest users subsidize bad actors,
markets become less efficient,
innovation slows down.
At scale, the absence of fair dispute resolution forces systems to choose between speed and fairness—often sacrificing both.
Slice’s Perspective
Slice is built on a simple idea: trust emerges when outcomes are predictable, fair, and verifiable.
By providing a neutral, transparent, and fast dispute resolution layer, Slice allows digital systems to:
handle conflict without central authority,
scale transactions without increasing friction,
and restore confidence where it matters most—at the moment of disagreement.
Trust doesn’t break because people disagree. It breaks when there is no reliable way to resolve that disagreement.
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