Topic: My auction/puzzle concept discussion [thebutterzone] (Read 1004 times)

IIRC, you have previously posted that your IQ is something above average (or something similar regarding you having above average intelligence).

Unfortunately the average user of the forum (and the average market participant of the various marketplace sections) does not have an above average IQ (this is putting it very nicely).

I also believe that you probably need an above average IQ in order to understand your concept well enough so that they ould be comfortable bidding. (although it appears that you have edited this somewhat to make it slightly less confusing).

To confirm that I am understanding your proposal correctly, I will rephrase it as I understand:

• You have a bunch of physical goods that you want to sell
• The goods are located in CA, and you do not wish to ship them
• You want a certain price that you will be willing to take for the goods
• You will auction these goods as a single lot, and the good will also include an undisclosed amount of BTC
• The auction will end at the sooner of (a)12 hours after your hidden reserve is met, or (b)as soon as a "ceiling" price is met
• So you know that you are handing the goods to the auction winner, you will provide them with an encrypted message that will be necessary to disclose in order to prove they are the same person (or their agent) as the auction winner
• The winning bidder must meet certain criteria, and must PGP sign all of their bids
• The winning bidder must pay within a certain timeframe

I do not see anything in your proposal that would break any forum rules, nor does your proposal violate any community standards. I might suggest that you provide the SHA256 (salted) hash of both the reserve and the maximum in order to avoid potential claims that this changed after the auction started. I would also suggest that you list out what is for sale on your auction thread instead of making bidder visit your websites.

With that being said, I would suggest that you split up your inventory into similar items and sell them in batches, this way someone that is interested in buying, say your paper currency wouldn't have to also pay for your electronics parts in need of repair (and everything else). I would think this would result in an overall higher price for your items, although it would also require additional work on your end to sell.

I would also offer the option to ship your inventory, and require the buyer cover the cost of shipping as well as the cost of insurance (or the risk of not insuring items sent in the mail). This is a fairly standard practice, and limiting your potential buyers to those who are within a few hundred miles of San Diego, CA (or who will be within 45 days of the auction ending).

The first 2 non-bolded paragraphs are too long to read? If you need everything in a single sentence, go to Twitter.

local rules: don't quote the OP (as this is a Work in Progress) & don't post nonsense just to boost your post count for ad campaigns

The current value of my listed inventory at fs.tbz1.com (and the crosslinked stuff at tbz1.com) is hovering around BTC25. I have a bit of unlisted inventory to even it out, but if the market price fluxes too much (or I sell some of the inventory), the BTC25 below will have to change and lock the exchange rate in just before the auction. The inventory will be put on selling vacation, in other words nobody will be able to buy anything listed as long as the auction is live.

I also have an *amount of BTC which will be funded to a (PRNG generated, not brainwallet of the listed item names) BIP38 encrypted private key, split up into a series of post-its of let's say 6 characters each, like a puzzle you just have to arrange in the right order, and those post-its will be tucked into my inventory immediately prior to pickup.

The binding auction for the stuff in the 2 paragraphs above will open at BTC25, topic in Auctions to prevent bid retraction.

Bidders will be notified in the auction's OP that if they won't personally, or have an agent they trust, pick up all the inventory, they shouldn't bid, but if they do, they're bound to pick up or have it all picked up no matter what. I'm dead serious about liquidating my inventory, but I'm not going to be liable for shipping cost, shipping packing, shipping damage, shipping theft, or anything else involved in shipping stuff en masse myself.

Bidders will also be notified in the auction's OP that if they had clear and convincing negative feedback of stealing BTC or owing BTC from contracts they broke before the start of the auction (so nobody can negbomb them out of their position), their bids will be disqualified and people are free to ignore them. Anybody less than Jr. Member will be disqualified as well.

There will be a secret BTC reserve amount & maximum BTC amount I set in advance - both inclusive of the BTC25 of inventory+the amount I can fund, referenced above at the *.
 
Either
1) A 12 hour countdown from the time of a bid meeting or being the first to exceed the secret BTC reserve amount
or
2) Someone meeting or being the first to exceed the secret maximum BTC amount

... whichever comes first, will determine the end of the auction. The winning bidder will be required to be reduce their payment to the maximum, if they exceeded it.

I will do my best to post STOP BIDDING, AUCTION WON BY [winner] immediately when the 12 hour countdown hits zero, or I see a topic reply notification email meeting or exceeding the maximum before the countdown hits zero. Hopefully I won't be asleep/need to pull an all-nighter for the proper timing.

Bids placed
1) 12 hours or more after the secret BTC reserve amount was met
or
2) After the secret maximum BTC amount was met or first exceeded, but prior to 12 hours passing

...will be disqualified.

If the winning bidder violates their binding bid (7 days of non-payment to an unfunded BTC address I PGP clearsign and PM to them, reviewable by staff, at which point a negative feedback will be left for the winning amount), the next highest qualified bidder will be required to pay to another unfunded BTC address I PGP clearsign and PM to them, rinse and repeat as the 7 days of non-payment for each next highest bidder run out and negative feedbacks are left on each.

The winner will be provided upon payment, via a PGP-encrypted PM, the BIP38 passphrase and a randomly generated code, to give to their trusted agent if they need to use one (who will then give it to me so I can verify I'm not giving all the stuff to a fake agent), or to me directly. Regardless of whether their trusted agent runs off with the winner's goods after giving me the randomly generated code, the BIP38 passphrase will prevent the thief agent from also stealing the winner's BTC after arranging the post-it notes properly.

If the winner can't solve the puzzle once all the goods are in their possession and can take pictures of everything, or their trusted agent turns thief, I'll have a backup of the BIP38 private key and passphrase I can encrypt in PM to the winner, using their same public key I encrypted to in the first place.

I'd prefer to be the first to run an auction/puzzle in this format as a proof of concept, but others can run with it, auctioning off their own stuff+BTC.

Thoughts?