diff --git a/services.py b/services.py
index 5da63ef..444a9d5 100644
--- a/services.py
+++ b/services.py
@@ -288,18 +288,57 @@ 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 sign_and_send_to_nostr(merchant, default_stall)
+        stall_event = await asyncio.wait_for(
+            sign_and_send_to_nostr(merchant, default_stall),
+            timeout=STALL_PUBLISH_TIMEOUT_S,
+        )
         default_stall.event_id = stall_event.id
-        await update_stall(merchant.id, default_stall)
+        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"
+        )
     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: