Acquire domain

To buy a domain name, you should participate in the auction at https://app.waves.domains/. The procedure for acquiring names may be changed later.

What domains are offered

You can buy a domain like your-name.waves.

The name can contain:

  • Latin letters in lowercase (a–z),

  • numbers,

  • hyphen.

The name MUST NOT start or end with a "-" (hyphen).

The name and MUST NOT contain "--" (two consecutive hyphens) in the third and fourth character positions.

The length of the name is from 6 to 63 characters.

How the auction works

  • The auction follows Vickrey protocol: it is a sealed-bid second-price auction.

  • The auction is cyclic: a bid period is followed by a reveal period, then a new auction begins.

  • During the bid period, each participant specifies a lot (desired domain name), a bid size in WAVES, a secret and attaches a deposit of at least their bid. The lot and the bid are stored on the user's device, the transaction contains only the data hash and the deposit.

  • During the bid period, there is no way to know lots and bids of other participants. Participants are encouraged to set the price that they consider fair (see the optimal strategy described below).

  • The minimum bid is:

    • 20 WAVES for a name of 6 characters,

    • 10 WAVES for a name of 7 or more characters.

  • The placed bid cannot be canceled or changed.

  • During the reveal period, bids cannot be placed.

  • During the reveal period, each participant submits their lot, bid, and secret publicly, and the smart contract checks them against the hash.

  • The highest bidder for each lot wins. In case of equal bids, the one who revealed their bid earlier wins.

  • The winner pays the second highest bid: the bid is deducted from their deposit. If there is only one bid, the winner pays the minimum bid.

  • To be able to get the deposit back after the end of the auction, the participant must disclose their bid before the reveal period is over.

  • If the parameters of the revealed bid are incorrect (bid higher than the deposit, invalid name, etc.), such a bid does not participate in the auction, and 10% of the deposit is withheld upon return.

Optimal strategy

The best strategy for a Vickrey auction is to bid true value of the lot, i.e. the highest price you are really willing to pay.

Why not overbid to increase your chance of winning? Let's say you believe your desired domain name is worth exactly 100 WAVES and you wouldn't want to pay more. However, you bid 120 WAVES. If your closest competitor bids, for example, 110 WAVES for the same lot, you win the auction and pay 110 WAVES, that is 10 WAVES more than you feel you should, so you incur a loss.

Why not underbid to save money? Let's say you bid 80 WAVES, which is below your own estimate of 100 WAVES. If all other bids are below 80 WAVES, you pay the highest of them — no matter you bid 100 WAVES or 80. However, if someone bids 90 WAVES, you lose when you could win.

It makes no sense to make several bids on the same name, because the highest one wins anyway. You will have to reveal all the bids in order to get back your deposits, so don't bother yourself in vain.

There is no point in making several bets on the same name, because the largest one will win anyway. In this case it will not be profitable for the user, but there will only be more difficulties with the disclosure of a large number of bets.

💡 We recommend depositing more than your bid by an arbitrary amount so that competitors cannot guess what bid you have placed and do not try to “outbid” it.

Backup your bid

Your bid parameters are stored in your browser on a certain device. We strongly recommend that you back up your bid and move the file to a safe place. Use the Backup button to save not only the name and the bid size, but also the secret.

If you delete your browser data or lose access to your device, you can use the backup to reveal your bid.

Follow the auction

During the reveal period, you can see other bids on the same name as the participants reveal them. After the auction is over, the bids are displayed until participants get their deposits back.

When you have claimed your NFT or refunded your deposit, the statistics view is closed.

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