NFT Button: An NFT Marketplace With Auctions And A Secondary Market For All Tezos-Based NFTs

NFT Button

We have several NFT marketplaces live on Tezos currently: the extremely popular and ever growing Hic Et Nunc, the curated NFT platform Kalamint which currently supports the Pangeaseed “Protect what you love” fundraiser.

Then, we have BazaarNFTs, which integrates external Open Minter contracts and enables large batch minting of NFT’s, then we have Acute Art, and the newly launched Truesy which is also highly curated and announced some high profile artists to launch collections.

So, a lot is already live. What can a new platform bring to the table? NFT Button has two main features that add new possibilities to the Tezos NFT ecosystem.

Selling NFT’s from any Tezos platform

On NFT Button users can sell NFT’s that are minted on NFT Button, but also NFT’s that are originally from other Tezos-platforms like HicEtNunc and Kalamint. This opens up a broader secondary market on one platform.

“There will be no restrictions for NFTs in our platform as long as they follow FA2 token standard. You can mint your NFT everywhere you want and sell it on our marketplace. For example, Tezos Mandalas are not minted on any existing marketplace, but you will be able to sell them on NFT Button.”

Auctions

Besides selling NFT’s for a fixed price, NFT Button will have an auction function. Auctions for NFT’s are highly anticipated and several platforms are working on integrating an auction function.

The first showcase of what NFT auctions on Tezos can do, was given by TZ Colors. TZ Colors is an NFT platform that auctions a limited number of NFT colors and sold some of these NFT colors for over 500 XTZ per NFT.

Since users can’t mint their own NFT’s on TZ Colors and can’t import other NFT’s, the use-case for TZ Colors is limited. But it does show how perfectly fit Tezos is for auctions. If transaction costs are high, placing a bid on an auction is risky.

If a bid is outbid by a higher bid, you paid your transaction fee for nothing. Low fees are key for successful auctions, and Tezos has one of the lowest fees in the decentralized industry.

NFT Button will launch with two auction types. The most well-known is the English auction. In an English auction, a starting price is set by the seller and the auction runs for a specific amount of time.

People can start bidding and in the end, the highest bidder buys the NFT.

The second auction type is called “Buttonist auction” and will be an exclusive feature of NFT Button. NFT Button started at a Tezos DeFi Hackathon and introduced the Buttonist auction there.

It was inspired by the Tzbutton experiment, and the idea was to apply this mechanic for developing a new type of all-pay auction.

In The Buttonist auction bidders will be able to buy high priced NFT’s for a very low price. It works as follows: you fixate a buyer’s spot by clicking on a button. Clicking on the button will cost a fixed amount of XTZ.

If no one else clicks the button within a certain amount of time that is pre-set by the auction creator, you have successfully bought the NFT. But if someone else does click the button, you lose your spot and the timer starts again but with reduced time on the clock. The reset timer decreases according to a fixed formula.  The timer decreases each time the bid button is pressed.

If we start from 60 minutes for example, and Alice press the button – the timer resets and decreases to 45 minutes (60 – (60*0.25)/1). After that Bob press the button and the timer resets and decreases to 37.5 minutes (45 – (60*0.25)/2). After Carrol  the timer resets and decreases to 32.5 minutes (37.5 – (60*0.25)/3) and so on.

If you want your buyer’s spot back, you have to click the button again. Only if no one else clicks the button within the set amount of time, you win the auction.

Example: the auction creator sets a fixed bid amount, for example, 1 XTZ. He sets the timer at 1 hour. If Alice clicks the button, she pays 1 XTZ to the auction pot and has the buyer’s spot.

If no one else clicks the button within an hour, she will own the NFT. No further costs. But if John clicks the button within an hour, he also pays 1 XTZ and will have the buyer’s spot.

Now John will own the NFT if no one else clicks the button again within 45 minutes.

If a hundred people clicked the button, the auction pot will be 100 XTZ. But anyone will still be able to buy that NFT for 1 XTZ.

This mechanic could be used not only for commercial sales, but also as a type of donation/charity.

Winning an amount of the auction pot

Buttonist auctions can be made even more interesting by adding a reward for bidders. An auction creator can set a share of the pot to go to the auction winner. This share could range from 0% to 100%.

Expected launch date

NFT Button is planned to launch in 4-6 weeks. The basic launch will include English auction, Buttonist auction, and fixed price sales for any FA2 NFT. More functionality will be added in the stages that follow.

The team is thinking about the issuance of the NFT Button token as a part of their roadmap, but its tokenomics is still under development. They are also working on collaborations with several artists and discussing a big NFT drop with Kumulus.