[PRESS RELEASE – London, United Kingdom, June 12th, 2024]
GBM Auctions has announced the completion of the first charity Bid-to-Earn auction for the Polkadot ecosystem. The event, which was hosted on the Moonbeam Network, raised over $92,000 for charity and showcased the GBM’s novel bidding mechanism.
On May 16, GBM Auctions commenced the week-long auctions that saw three unique Polkadot-related items offered to the public: physical copies of the Ethereum Yellow Paper, the Polkadot White Paper, and the JAM Gray Paper, each signed and annotated by Dr. Gavin Wood.
Bidders used the native Moonbeam token GLMR for bidding, with funds from the event going to the Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal charity. The auction utilized Moonbeam’s scalable architecture, which supports fast bidding and low gas fees. In the process, it demonstrated the versatility of the unique auction format pioneered by GBM Auctions.
With a Bid-to-Earn auction, every bidder earns an incentive in the event of being outbid. This provides incentives for greater bidding volume, helping to raise more funds for the project in question. In the process, it ensures that all participants make something from the sale, including the bidders who are eventually outbid.
Hugo McDonaugh, co-founder of GBM Auctions, shared his thoughts on the success of the auctions:“We are delighted with the outcome of the auctions and they surpassed all our expectations. The auction results prove just how powerful our GBM Bid-To-Earn system is.”
The Ethereum Yellow Paper ultimately sold for a top bid of 193,600 GLMR, the Polkadot White Paper for 116,160 GLMR, and the JAM Gray Paper for 60,000 GLMR. In addition to raising $92,000 for charity, the Moonbeam-hosted auction saw the bidders who were outbid collect $12,000 in rewards. The formula has the potential to support a wide range of use cases within the Polkadot ecosystem and the wider blockchain space.
Dr. Gavin Wood, the co-founder of Ethereum and creator of Polkadot, shared his thoughts on the auctions: ”I’m proud to have helped raise money for such a humanitarian charity and it’s great to see it happen on Polkadot’s Moonbeam network.”
GBM’s Bid-to-Earn design makes use of smart contracts to provide a transparent and provably fair bidding system. It incentivizes participation while making it easier for the public to bid for items whose fair value may be hard to determine in advance. Through allowing participants to start low and enter increasingly higher bids, the system ensures that a fair value is eventually reached while fairly distributing revenue to underbidders.
Since developing its Bid-to-Earn system in 2018, GBM Auctions has hosted over 70,000 auctions, earning bidders more than $6M in the process. The auction model has been used by leading crypto figures such as Vitalik Buterin and Dr. Gavin Wood to raise money for charity. It has also been harnessed by web3 projects such as Aavegotchi and Unstoppable Domains to distribute NFTs to their communities.
As well as hosting Bid-to-Earn auctions via a dApp, GBM’s system can also be used on secondary marketplaces which enables web3 projects to sell digital assets in a fair manner that eliminates unscrupulous bidding practices while allowing the whole community to participate in a rewarding and engaging experience.
About GBM Auctions
GBM Auctions is the developer of the world’s first Bid-to-Earn auction system. Using web3 technology including smart contracts, it ensures that bidders can make money even when they are outbid. With lifetime volume of over $200M and over $6M earned by bidders, GBM Auctions provides a fair and transparent bidding system for blockchain communities.
Users can learn more: https://www.gbm.auction/