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What is Auction House

AuctionHouse is a protocol for marketplaces to implement a decentralized sales contract. It is simple, fast and very cheap. AuctionHouse is a Solana program available on Mainnet Beta and Devnet. Anyone can create an AuctionHouse and accept any SPL token they wish.

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The AuctionHouse Solana program resides within the Metaplex Program Library here:

https://github.com/metaplex-foundation/metaplex-program-library

The AuctionHouse CLI resides in the Metaplex monorepo here:

https://github.com/metaplex-foundation/metaplex/blob/master/js/packages/cli/src/auction-house-cli.ts

The MPL Js SDK (low level web3 sdk) lives here and is a great starting point for advanced web3 devs

https://www.npmjs.com/package/@metaplex-foundation/mpl-auction-house

The High Level Javascript SDK (coming soon) which has highlevel Auction House functions resides here:

https://github.com/metaplex-foundation/js

Let's dive into AuctionHouse's main features.

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AuctionHouse is a completely separate program than the storefront Auction program.

Escrowless

For the NFT Seller the NFT doesn't leave their wallet until the sale completes. This is due to the use of Solana Token Delegates, and it allows them to list their NFT on other Marketplaces that implement the AuctionHouse protocol. The AuctionHouse program is the delegate, so whichever marketplace has a matching bid can execute the sale, and they get their fee, the buyer gets the NFT and the seller gets the money. This is all done in the execution of the sale. The buyer and seller never need to claim anything like in our other auction system.

AuctionHouse Authority Features

When you create an AuctionHouse a new Instance of an AuctionHouse is made. This Instance is owned and oprated by an Authority. Meaning the Public Key you set in the authority section of the CreateAuctionHouse instruction is the Authority that can update the auction house. Metaplex uses this Authority pattern in many contracts to create Access Control on certain features and functions. When you create an auction house, you can set the following parameters:

  • Treasury Withdraw Destination - The wallet that receives the AuctionHouse fees.
  • Fee Withdraw Destination - A wallet that is used to pay for Solana fees for the seller and buyer if the marketplace choses to execute the sale in the background.
  • Seller Fee Basis Points - The share of the sale the auction house takes on all NFTs.
  • Requires Sign Off - The auction house must sign all sales orders.
  • Can Change Sale Price - If the buyer intentionally lists their NFT for a price of 0 the Auction House can change the sale price to match a matching Bid that is greater than 0. This allows the Auction house to do complicated order matching to find the best price for the seller.
  • Treasury Mint - The SPL token you accept as the purchase currency
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Can Change Sale Price is only intended to be used with AuctionHouses that Requires Sign Off

Requires Sign Off Feature

This feature allows a marketplace to restrict which NFTs get sold on their platform. It is useful for more centralized marketplaces or a marketplace that has order matching algorithms that the user has allowed them to use (enabled by listing the NFT at the price of 0).

Marketplaces who want to stay decentralized and not require signoff may restrict what their user interfaces show via other means, but behind the scenes, someone can still list an NFT on your Auction House. You may in this scenario build Allow Lists using merkele trees or chose to restrict what your UI shows via other means.

Any SPL Token

AuctionHouse allows you to accept any SPL token as the tender that the buyer deposits into their Buyer Escrow in order to accomplish a sale.

Now that you know what the AuctionHouse is, take a look at our Getting Started guide.

Auction House Receipts

To aid transaction tracking, Auction House supports the generation of receipts for listings, bids, and sales. To generate these receipts, the receipt printing function should be called immediately after the corresponding transaction (PrintListingReceipt, PrintBidReceipt, and PrintPurchaseReceipt). Additionally, the CancelListingReceipt and CancelBidReceipt instructions should be called in the case of canceled listing add bids. Calling these two instructions will fill the canceled_at fields of the ListingReceipt and BidReceipt accounts.

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While the receipts can be retrieved using the standard getProgramAccounts data flow, the official recommendation is to use Solana's AccountsDB plug-in to index and track the generated receipts.