BIP-93: Implementing a Dynamic Auction Reserve Price

Note: Snapshot is only a summary and may leave ambiguities that are covered in the full BIP in the forum which takes precedent.

Summary

This proposal establishes a 1 ETH minimum reserve price for Botto’s weekly SuperRare auctions, ensuring no work is sold below that level. On top of this floor, a dynamic reserve mechanism will adjust the price by 0.1 ETH each week based on the previous auction’s outcome: increasing if the work sold and decreasing if it did not.

Works that do not meet the reserve will not be sold. They will remain in the treasury and be open to secondary offers that significantly exceed the reserve price at the time of the auction.

The weekly auction remains the only opportunity to acquire works at the reserve price. The goal is to protect the perceived value of Botto’s output during a slow market cycle while introducing a transparent and predictable framework for managing auction pricing.

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Proposal Specification

Part 1 — Dynamic Reserve Price

A reserve price will be applied to every weekly Botto auction on SuperRare starting the first auction cycle following approval of this proposal.

Reserve calculation:

• If the previous week’s work sold above the reserve, the reserve increases by 0.1 ETH for the following auction.

• If the previous week’s work did not sell, the reserve decreases by 0.1 ETH for the following auction.

• Floor: 1 ETH minimum at all times.

Example: If the current reserve is 1.5 ETH and the work sells for 1.5 ETH, the next week’s reserve becomes 1.6 ETH. If the following week the work does not sell, the reserve returns to 1.5 ETH.

The core team is responsible for configuring and updating the reserve on SuperRare each week based on these parameters.

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Part 2 — Policy for Unsold Works

Works that do not meet the reserve price will be open to offers on SuperRare. At the beginning, the DAO can choose whether or not to accept offers. As a reasonable price rule, an offer in the secondary market should be at least 2x higher than the original reserve price of that work at the time of the auction.

This approach serves three goals simultaneously:

• Preserves the primacy and urgency of the weekly auction as the primary collecting event.

• Keeps works available to collectors who were not present in real time, without requiring active DAO intervention to release them.

• Passively captures improvements in market conditions.

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Part 3 — Reporting to the DAO

A report will be shared with the DAO every cycle including:

• Average sale price

• Sale rate (% of works sold at auction)

• Reserve range achieved (min/max)

• Number of works accumulated

• Secondary market performance

• Comparison with the previous period (even without dynamic reserve)

• A conclusion about the data and overall performance

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Budget

No additional budget required. Implementation involves parameter configuration on SuperRare and management of secondary market listings, both within existing operational capacity.

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Criteria of Success

• No work sold below 1 ETH

• Average sale price above 1 ETH at the end of the period

• Secondary market sales

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Disadvantages/Risks

• Accumulation of unsold works if the market remains slow

• Reduced auction activity and visibility

• Potential lower voter engagement if reserved works do not sell

• Market conditions may not improve; this is a protective measure during a slow cycle, not a demand-generation strategy

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📚 Read the full discussion on the forum: