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Quick start for bidders

This guide walks you through placing your first sealed bid on a SealedIP auction. You should finish in under three minutes.

What you need​

  1. A browser wallet that supports custom EVM chains (MetaMask, Rabby, Frame, or any RainbowKit-compatible wallet).
  2. A small amount of test IP for gas. Grab some from the Story Aeneid faucet.
  3. WIP tokens to bid with. Wrap test IP into WIP via the WIP contract (or any wrapper UI on Aeneid).

Step 1 — Browse open auctions​

Open the marketplace at sealedip.com. You'll see a grid of active lots. Filter by Open to hide auctions that have already closed; use the category strip above the grid to narrow by content type (Music, Art, Characters, Worlds, Code).

Each card shows:

  • The IP title and collection
  • Reserve: Sealed — the seller's reserve is encrypted; you can't see the floor before settlement
  • The current state (Open / Settled / Ended)
  • The countdown to the deadline
  • How many sealed bids have been placed so far (counts are public; amounts are not)

Click a card to open its full detail page.

Step 2 — Inspect what you're buying​

On the auction detail page, look at:

  • License terms — click the #N chip to open the full PIL terms dialog. This is the license that will be minted to your wallet if you win.
  • Seller — click the seller chip to view their wallet on Storyscan.
  • Reserve — shows Sealed. The floor is encrypted in its own CDR vault. You won't know the minimum until the auction settles.
  • Deadline — hover the countdown to see the absolute time in your local timezone.

Look at the wax seal to the right. It's a visual indicator of the auction's privacy state — closed and sealed while bidding is open, half-broken while validators are decrypting, fully broken after settlement.

Step 3 — Place your sealed bid​

Click Place sealed bid. The bid dialog walks you through five steps backed by two on-chain calls:

  1. Approve WIP — give the SealedAuction contract permission to pull your deposit
  2. Reserve a vault slot (allocateBidSlot) — the contract pulls your deposit and assigns your bid a unique ciphertext uuid
  3. Sign sealed bid — your wallet signs the bid amount + nonce off-chain
  4. Encrypt under TDH2 — the SealedIP server runs threshold encryption
  5. Submit ciphertext (submitEncryptedBid) — the encrypted payload lands on-chain

You'll see a license preview at the top of the dialog ("You'll receive: Story PIL license #1 · flavor") so you know exactly what you're buying.

The deposit pulled equals the amount you bid. If you lose, or if no valid bid clears the revealed reserve, the full deposit is refunded automatically when the auction settles. There's no claim button to click.

Bid what the license is worth to you

The reserve is sealed, so there's no public floor to anchor on. Bid the amount you'd genuinely pay for the license. If you lose by being under the reserve, you get your deposit back automatically.

Over-deposit to obscure your maximum

The deposit amount is public on-chain — anyone watching can see "this wallet deposited X WIP". The actual bid amount stays encrypted. If you want to hide the upper bound of your bid, escrow more than you intend to bid; the contract refunds the difference at settle.

Step 4 — Wait, or watch​

You can close the tab now. The auction will settle on its own when the deadline passes and someone (anyone) calls trigger. Validators handle the decryption automatically.

If you want to be reminded, click Watch this auction on the auction detail page. The auction shows up in your My bids dashboard under the Watching section until it closes.

Step 5 — Check the outcome​

After settlement, the auction page shows the winning bid amount and the reserve that was revealed. Go to My bids and filter by:

  • Settled — auctions you won. The PIL license token is in your wallet.
  • Refunded — auctions you bid on but lost, or where no bid cleared the revealed reserve. Your full deposit is back.

There's no claim action required — the contract did it atomically at settle.

Next steps​