diff --git a/services.py b/services.py
index 444a9d5..5da63ef 100644
--- a/services.py
+++ b/services.py
@@ -288,57 +288,18 @@ async def provision_merchant(
     # Publish the kind 30017 stall event so customers' clients can resolve
     # the stall name when they fetch products. Non-fatal on failure: a
     # later product publish (or webapp self-heal) will retry.
-    #
-    # Fire-and-forget: `nostr_client.publish_nostr_event` has no per-relay
-    # deadline and will block indefinitely if every configured relay is
-    # unreachable (cf. aiolabs/nostrmarket#7). When `provision_merchant`
-    # is called from the eager signup hook (lnbits/core/services/users.py
-    # ::_create_default_merchant, aiolabs/lnbits#46), inline-awaiting that
-    # publish hangs the uvicorn worker on `POST /auth/register` forever.
-    # The DB rows we just wrote are sufficient to serve the wallet UI;
-    # the stall event_id gets backfilled when the publish completes (or
-    # stays NULL until a later resubscribe-driven republish lands it).
-    asyncio.create_task(
-        _publish_default_stall_background(merchant.id, merchant, default_stall)
-    )
-
-    return merchant
-
-
-# Generous bound: signing through the bunker can take 1–2 s on a cold
-# session, plus the relay publish itself. 30 s is well over both, and
-# the cap matters only when the relay set is unreachable.
-STALL_PUBLISH_TIMEOUT_S = 30.0
-
-
-async def _publish_default_stall_background(
-    merchant_id: str, merchant: Merchant, default_stall: Stall
-) -> None:
-    """Background helper for `provision_merchant`'s default-stall publish.
-
-    Bounded by `STALL_PUBLISH_TIMEOUT_S` so even a permanently-unreachable
-    relay set doesn't pin an asyncio task forever. Errors and timeouts are
-    logged at warning — never raised, since the caller scheduled-and-forgot.
-    """
     try:
-        stall_event = await asyncio.wait_for(
-            sign_and_send_to_nostr(merchant, default_stall),
-            timeout=STALL_PUBLISH_TIMEOUT_S,
-        )
+        stall_event = await sign_and_send_to_nostr(merchant, default_stall)
         default_stall.event_id = stall_event.id
-        await update_stall(merchant_id, default_stall)
-    except asyncio.TimeoutError:
-        logger.warning(
-            f"[NOSTRMARKET] Default stall publish for merchant "
-            f"{merchant_id} timed out after {STALL_PUBLISH_TIMEOUT_S}s; "
-            f"event_id stays NULL until a later republish lands it"
-        )
+        await update_stall(merchant.id, default_stall)
     except Exception as ex:
         logger.warning(
             f"[NOSTRMARKET] Failed to publish default stall for "
-            f"merchant {merchant_id}: {ex}"
+            f"merchant {merchant.id}: {ex}"
         )
 
+    return merchant
+
 
 async def handle_order_paid(order_id: str, merchant_pubkey: str):
     try: