Trustap Adds Brandon Abbey to a Team Whose Transaction Management Service Makes Secure Buying and Selling a Breeze

Brandon Abbey has been a familiar figure to domain industry veterans since 2004 when he became the President at Escrow.com. Over the next 12 years, Brandon played a central role in helping close over two billion dollars worth of domain sales there. We continued to track Brandon's career when he moved on to Payoneer, then founded his own consulting firm. Most recently, when we heard about an innovative, rapidly growing transaction management firm, Trustap, founded by Conor Lyden, we weren't surprised to learn they had enlisted Brandon to oversee Digital and US Partnerships.

Brandon set up a call with Conor for me so I could learn more about what makes Trustap different from other services available to domain sales platforms as well as individual buyers and sellers. While I was thinking it would an escrow centered offering, it turned out to be much more that. Trustap is an end-to-end transaction management service that covers everything from securing payments made in a diverse range of options (including cryptocurrency), to fulfillment to support and even protecting sellers from chargebacks. Today Trustap, with offices in the US, the UK and Europe (Croatia), is being used by over 840,000 individuals and more than 150 marketplaces.

I found it particularly interesting that all of this sprang from a personal problem that Conor wanted to solve for himself. During his college years, as an avid football fan, Lyden was tired of wondering if he would actually get game tickets he tried to buy on the resale market. You had to pay up front but whether or not the stranger on the other end of the transaction would actually deliver them was always in question. That led him to found Trustap in Cork, Ireland in 2017 and the company has been growing and expanding its services ever since (to see exactly how Trustap solved this specific issue with tickets check out this case study (.pdf) of how StudentSeats.com used Trustap to stamp out ticket scams).

Conor told me, "I like to think about Trustap from two perspectives. One, as a solution for an individual wanting to complete a one-off transaction, and two, as a service for a marketplace wanting to offer transactional support to its users."

"For indviduals, the biggest differentiator for Trustap (aside from our lower fees) is our ability to offer a personalized 'White-Glove' offering for large value transactions. Trustap appoints a dedicated transaction manager who will liaise with the buyer and seller to ensure that everything runs as smoothly and securely as possible. On top of this, we offer multiple payment methods, including a wide range of  cryptocurrencies with a strong preference for stablecoins like USDC." Brandon Abbey added, "We can also handle broker transactions, including those involving multiple brokers and, as Conor noted, multiple currencies."

Conor Lyden
Trustap Founder & CEO

Brandon Abbey
Digital & US Partnerships, Trustap

For marketplaces, Lyden said, "The biggest differentiator between Trustap and other solutions is Trustap's holistic approach to end-to-end transactions management as opposed to just handling payment. Trustap assumes the role of the merchant of record for each transaction, which insulates the marketplace from any liability whatsoever, including chargebacks and tax reporting. As the graphic below shows, we manage the entire transaction from start to finish which lets the marketplace focus on what they do best - growing the supply and demand side of the marketplace." 

Click image to see larger version

In closing, Lyden noted, "Nobody starts a marketplace to get bogged down in transaction-related issues. Trustap can handle all that messy stuff and let the marketplace run the rest of their business as profitably as possible."

Trustap is a Stripe Verified Partner, a partnership that ensures Trustap users will get world-class security and that all payments and data are fully protected. You can get more information on their partnership with Stripe as well as Lyden's personal entrepreneurial journey with Trustap here.

(Posted June 10, 2025)  

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