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AUCTION VENDING MACHINES ARE NOW OPERATIONAL

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• faceface

  

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  @rob @deweller
  @jamesmm asked an extremely important question, that I'll reword based on my own lack of understanding how this works (after placing several bids and starting my own auction):

  Let's say I bid 10,000, and I am later outbid, and my next bid needs to be 12,000 to regain the lead, do I send 2,000 more to bid 12,000, or do I have to send 12,000 (which I may not have, since I just sent 10K to lock in my initial bid)? I didn't think about how important Jamesmm's question was, until I started getting hands-on with this. I'm hoping the answer is I'd need to send 2K more to up my bid to 12K, as it makes the most sense to me. Problem is, I don't think it's intuitive, and needs to be explained in detail to bidders.

  Yup, you just need to send the extra 2k.

  And I'd volunteer to write up instructions for bidders and sellers, if I feel I'm totally understand what's going on.

  ++ for that :-)

  I also can't help but wonder if the extremely high bids on the most recent LTB show ad auction were due to the bidders bidding 10,000, then 12,000 as a higher bid, not understanding they needed to bid just 2K on the second bid. @bcohen, is this what you meant, or is this a different theory than yours (on why the bids got so high)?

  My guess is that there is some crazy Israel / Palestine bidding war going on... It's sort of irritating seeing the comments get clogged up with the same old conflicts. Please down vote any legacy comments you see.

  Posted on August 13, 2014 at 4:17 PM
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• faceface

  

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  @deweller You can top-up your bid by sending a second bid from the same address. The bids are cumulative.

  @faceface - I'm pretty sure someone will outbid you. 25k is very cheap for 2 HOURCONSULT tokens.

  That's good. A notification when I'm outbid would be nice though.

  Posted on August 13, 2014 at 4:18 PM
  Last Edited: August 13, 2014 at 4:19 PM
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• deweller

  

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  Here are some FAQ points that @adam wrote up:

  Q: I have my Armory/Mycelium/Core all set up, what do I do?

  A: Visit http://counterwallet.co, create a wallet and use it instead of your normal wallet. Your wallet cannot see sponsor tokens or any Counterparty assets, so for now Counterwallet is the best tool.

  Q: I've been outbid - What happens now?

  A: Either send more tokens FROM THE SAME ADDRESS to increase your bid or wait until the auction expires and your non-winning bid will be refunded.

  Q: I sent in a bid at the last minute and I should have won, but I didn't - Why?

  A: It can take up to an hour for your bid to be included in a Bitcoin Block, at which point it becomes confirmed. Bids are only accepted after they are confirmed, please make sure to bid early and leave plenty of time before the end of the auction to account for this unpredictability.

  Q: I won a token that I don't want! What do I do with it?

  A: You can try trading it for LTBc, Bitcoin or something else on the http://counterwallet distributed exchange, or try to find someone interested on the forums.

  @rob and others on this thread - if you have more to add, please add it below. I'll put up a FAQ page.

  Posted on August 13, 2014 at 4:25 PM
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• deweller

  

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  @faceface

  That's good. A notification when I'm outbid would be nice though.

  Notifications would be nice. You'd have to associate an email address with a Counterwallet bidding address.

  Just testing the waters here... Would you pay a one-time LTBcoin fee for a premium service like this?

  Posted on August 13, 2014 at 4:26 PM
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• bcohen

  

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  @deweller "key component of proxy bidding is secrecy. Because all blockchain transactions are public, that secrecy is lost when bidding Counterparty tokens."

  yikes. I wonder if there is some way of mixing/scrambling and or splitting the bids so that the bid can't be figured out?

  Here is idea for starters:

  X Number of LTBc is locked in Escrow before an auction. I could lock say 300,000 But this is not the same as bidding 300,000 .. This is just the pool of LTBc that I can draw from auction.... Escrow is encouraged to be substantially more than your high bid to obfuscate your high bid

  Proxy bidding occurs Off-Blockchain Winning bid releases that number from escrow.

  Easier said than done. Just thinking out loud... I'm not a programmer ;)

  Posted on August 13, 2014 at 4:27 PM
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• faceface

  

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  @deweller

  @faceface

  That's good. A notification when I'm outbid would be nice though.

  Notifications would be nice. You'd have to associate an email address with a Counterwallet bidding address.

  Just testing the waters here... Would you pay a one-time LTBcoin fee for a premium service like this?

  Premium service... yes, premium service like this... probably not. Feels too much like a bug than a 'premium feature' tbh. I'd be happier to donate to this project for nothing tbh.

  Posted on August 13, 2014 at 4:30 PM
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• deweller

  

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  @bcohen Proxy bidding occurs Off-Blockchain Winning bid releases that number from escrow.

  You are right that this would likely need to happen off-chain. I don't want to take this off-chain as it introduces a substantial new number of moving parts to the system.

  And on-chain auctions have the great benefit of being fully visible and publicly auditable.

  Posted on August 13, 2014 at 4:36 PM
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• bcohen

  

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  @deweller

  Do you think its impossible to have a blockchain based proxy bidding system that ensures the secrecy of bidder's high bid?

  I suppose someone who builds such an animal has a valuable product on their hands.

  BitMit was auction based... but that was off-blockchain.... :(

  Posted on August 13, 2014 at 4:42 PM
  Last Edited: August 13, 2014 at 4:43 PM
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• deweller

  

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  Well, I suppose it is possible to generate a unique incoming address for each bid and then apply those bids to the auction.

  This does not ensure secrecy, but it would help mask which auction your bid is going to.

  A determined and astute observer would likely still be able to guess your true bid by looking at the timing of your bid and the amounts reported by the block chain around the time it came in. With the low traffic in Counterparty right now, that would be pretty easy.

  I think what you really want is a bot that watches the auction for you and then bids on-chain as needed up to your pre-set amount. This would be a more literal "proxy" bid system. This would incur some fees for multiple bids though.

  Posted on August 13, 2014 at 4:53 PM
  Last Edited: August 13, 2014 at 4:53 PM
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• bcohen

  

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  I think that proxy bidding is so common on the interwebs that their s/b notice that system is not like eBay and doesn't use a proxy system. Not sure how many people will even know what that means but at least it will be out there.

  Posted on August 13, 2014 at 4:56 PM
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