English Auction Style Minter

[pompeyplottinAB]

English auction style minter that allows bids to be place with mint(s) going to highest bidder.

I think this could be used for any edition size and is especially needed for low editions and 1/1's. Auction time can be within 1 hour as usual or potentially days to be more inclusive to global community allowing them to not be awake when auction ends.

Example:
24 Hour Auction
100 mints
#0 to artist
Bids are allowed over 24 hour period. Mint # is assigned in order of highest bids until #99.

I believe stratification of mint price will take place naturally due to premium on early mint # and community knowing more money going to artist. It can also be incentivized with rewards such as #1 receives free allowlist on future projects, #2-10 receives signed print, #11-50 receives print, etc. Bids below #99 are automatically refunded at end of auction.

If fear of bot sniping at end of hour (which there will always be sniping whether it's Art Blocks or eBay and bots or manual humans), add undisclosed auction end window. For example, 24 Hour auction with a random closing window between 22-24 hours. If window closes at 22:30 bids can be made but will not be considered "winning." Top 99 Bids prior to 22:30 receive mint.

Another method is extending the auction as new bids come in. For example, in the last 5 mins every successful bid extends the auction 5 mins until no new bids are placed.

These and similar methods have been deployed to varying levels of success:

RaidParty: https://metadrop.com/curated/raid-party
https://medium.com/raidparty/how-were-trying-to-release-an-nft-collection-the-right-way-9981af9e95ec
RP Contract: https://etherscan.io/address/0x8aD0dfD8AFFeA59fF64722E411Ad34FEc5dDf2d8#code

Beeple's Spring Collection on Nifty:
https://www.niftygateway.com/itemdetail/primary/0xdd012153e008346591153fff28b0dd6724f0c256/2

MetaDrop: https://metadrop.com/curated/wassies-by-wassies

I understand every new minter style comes with tradeoffs and nothing will be perfect, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try alternate methods to see how these tradeoffs truly play out and keep potential bad actors on their toes. Dutch Auctions have helped prevent the initial Fixed Price gas war that only Bots can win and allow for better price discovery, but we've seen over the last 6 months it causes another type of gas war at the bottom of the auction that again, only bots can win. I have much more thoughts on this subject and happy to discussion more on a team call but I will say in closing that I don't think our problems are merely a nuisance, I think they are existential to the future of the platform. Thank you

[pompeyplottinAB]

Another thought:

The amount that would be considered resting price for the DA is now the "reserve price" for the EA. If total bids above resting do not exceed the max editions at auction close, artists have the choice of:

1. Project turning into fixed price at reserve price
2. Immediately closing the project so editions are capped at the amount sold in auction

I also want to highlight that an English/Open Ascending auction is the most common type in the world. Users who have participated in auctions from the range of Christie's/Sotheby's all the way to eBay will be familiar with this style albeit a slight modification for >1 edition sizes. Hence why I think this style is a great option for current AB collectors, traditional art collectors, and new users alike.

[jakerockland]

Users who have participated in auctions from the range of Christie's/Sotheby's all the way to eBay will be familiar with this style albeit a slight modification for >1 edition sizes.

While I agree here that this is definitely a more familiar auction style to folks, I will say that doing this applied to a >1 edition type release is definitely non-trivial as the edition size gets higher.

Doing this w/ edition sizes around ~25 (as NiftyGateway often does with much success) is much different than w/ edition sizes around ~250 or ~2500.

[jakerockland]

@snowfro you should def TAL at this – would love your perspective on the pros / cons of exploring this, when viewed specifically in contrast to #185