DPub Hard Asset Auctions

Inspiration

Online auctions for physical items are commonplace across multiple industries, including consumer goods, industrial B2B, medical, and government. Yet, Web2 auctions are highly flawed, centralized platforms. DPub is an auction framework for hard assets and digital items (tokens) with trust, transparency, and security as the core value proposition.

What it does

DPub physical auctions use Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to create a decentralized auction platform. Developers can build their own auction interfaces to place bids if they are permissioned accordingly or bidders can use the DPub auction interface. Bids from DPub are sent to Hedera, fair ordered, then reflected on the DPub auction site. While NFT and digital tokens are an obvious use case, the DPub team views Web2 and physical auction formats as most relevant. For this project, we built a brand new type of auction - hard assets (auto, real estate, state land/timber, and a drone).

How we built it

We built this with an extensive library from past projects (DPub) using Javascript and a no-code platform called Bubble. In addition, we implemented the following:

Each auction receives a Hedera Topic ID
Bidder platforms are given “submit message” rights
Bids are represented as messages
Physical assets or NFTs
Hedera Token Service (HTS) for NFTs
HashConnect for Dapp connection
Trust Enterprises API (for topic creation)
Bid metadata embedded in the message or in IPFS
Pinata IPFS (private IPFS cloud)
IPFS metadata example link link

Why did we use a low-code platform?

Our team has deep experience in Web2 SaaS platforms. Key to any software project is speed to market. Bubble.io is a low-code platform that can deliver time-to-market 3 - 4x faster than traditional methods (ie React). Bubble applications can be scaled but eventually would be rewritten in a traditional language once the project has traction and funding.

We built a plugin for Hedera, Hashpack, and Trust Enterprises to enable fast delivery of core functionality including

Create topic
Create message
Login
Create token (NFT and Fungible)
Mint token
Transfer token (NFT and Fungible)
Sell token
Transfer hbar

We have focused on Voice of Customer to build our platform rather than spending resources on development without sacrificing functionality, speed, or customer experience.

Practical use cases

Consumer and Retail

Consumer - Ebay
Christies - High-End Antiques
Mannheim - Auto Industry
Real Estate
Stock Market
Commodities

B2B and Government

Commercial and Industrial Real Estate
Corporate Acquisitions
Large Machinery and Equipment
Government Contract Bids

Try it out for yourself

You need a browser and a HashPack wallet to place mainnet bids. They are just for demo purposes - and do not remove any real hbar, so play around with it! We have run 2 successful digital auctions (on NFTs) using similar technology.

link

On ramp for Web2 to Web3

Trusted and transparent auctions are a great onramp for Web2 users. The technical details of Hedera, HCS can be explained without the need to cover Crypto and Tokens (seen as risky). We see this as a fantastic use case for Web2 on-ramps.