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DispatchAccountDiplomacy

by The Second Best of Noahs Second Country. . 1,370 reads.

The auction that lasted forever


Noahs Second Country Dispatch Office

Special Edition: The Auction That Lasted Forever

April 10, 2020

Bringing you your NSC developments since 2/22/2222




The art in question



Preconditions
Oftentimes when valuable art goes for sale, auctions may last for many hours, such as the recent auctions on Old Tyrannia, where Noahs Second Country profited greatly from smart bidding, and the five hour auction ultimately led to a purchase costing 301.11 for 448 deck value. What a deal! However, this auction was different. Art from Valentine Z, prior to this auction, had not garnered any interest since the 27th of February, which resulted in a sale of only 2.5. Valentine Z is a popular and well liked member of the NS Cards discord, a public forum designed for discussion in regards to art acquisition, and to encourage art deals between nations looking for particular styles and types of art. As a result of this positive reputation, both among art traders and in other communities, the art in question already had respectable value, with purchases as high as 9.99. Another important thing to note is that art auctions, when bid upon, increase in time for one minute, and this number cannot be manually lowered, mandated by international law. This is intended to prevent last second 'snipes' on art, where both the buyer and seller may be caught off guard by a low ask or higher bid. With this in mind, in the past some traders have intentionally extended auctions for their own convenience, by increasing their bid by a penny over and over again, adding minutes to the total auction time.


Early events
Sometime around 3:53PM CST on the 28th day of March 2020, Destructive Government Economic System matched a bid with Frisbeeteria for 9.99, starting the auction for 1 hour. DGES then began to painfully increase the auction timer, minute by minute, penny by penny, by outbidding themselves over and over again. At some point, approximately a day into the auction, nations began to mention and notice the long auction extension on the Cards Discord. It is also notable that many nations began to ask for lower prices in early attempts to acquire the increasingly large sum that DGES was offering, including Love and Nature and Valentine Z. Little did they know how long the auction would actually last... At this time, other nations joined the effort to extend the auction. While DGES was the primary extender of the auction, smaller contributions were made from 9003, Inven, Pangurstan, and Noahs Second Country, who added 222 minutes twice in two separate segments. At this point, the 72 hours point was achieved in the auction, already a record. With distractions created by Sec-Gen elections, the auction time and participation briefly stagnated, with the time only being replenished by the efforts of DGES.


The maximum possible auction timer

100 hours
While 72 hours was a record-setting milestone in itself, members of the discord wanted to see what would happen if the auction reached 100 hours, since the auction timer only supported double digit hour amounts. With this goal in mind, 100 hours was achieved quickly through bids from Racoda, Evrigenis, 9003, Pangurstan, Giovanniland, Recuecn, Noahs Second Country, Inven, and of course, Destructive Government Economic System. Due to large numbers of matches, multiple nations could extend the auction at once, speeding up the process. The result? The timer simply rolled over, as demonstrated by the below graphic, where the time simply ticks down back to 99:59:59.



An image depicting the auction bids and asks towards the end

Further Extension
At this point, the milestone was achieved, and users began to let the auction tick down. Perhaps the most notable event was Ballotonia announcing a change in international law... auction timers could not be extended past 1 hour, 1 minute. This was directly a result of the auction, as many nations had trouble changing bids since the recent happenings was so long (more than 10000 events at times). This led to the realization that this auction would be the last one to ever have a timer over 1 hour 1 minute, reinvigorating various members of the art community to have the auction last as long as possible. After the timer ticked down below 1 hour, initial bids from Racoda were competitive, designed to cheaply purchase the three art pieces with asks of .01. However, upon the realization that the auction was not going to end anytime soon, this was the last involvement of Racoda in the auction. Three nations were primarily responsible for extension at this phase, Alia Atreides, Recuecn, and Evrigenis. Other bidders also contributed in smaller amounts or as a result of trying to 'win' the auction. Bidders included Darmen, Rain Delay, ROM, SecoNd beSt card colleCtor / Noahs Second Country, Giovanniland, Evrigenis, Blackthorn shade, Love and Nature, Wocu Holdings, Ashaie, Qwerty-112230, Pollaetorian (seemingly a nation with ties to Warzone Codger), Marxist germany, and others. Nations scrambled to match the three lowest asks from Mushet, Axixic, and Valentine Z, while other simply kept bidding up in order to extend the auction. The auction was a lot more volatile, since nations kept having to extend within an hour of previous extension, a tedious and time consuming task, especially considering it had to happen 24 hours a day. At the bottom of the asks, nations struggled to match the bid of Destructive Government Economic System, including Catilia, Erickt, Gondet, Refuge Isle, Valentine Z, Wocu Holdings, and others. Meanwhile, nations such as Ter Voland (and many more) just tried to cash out for around the predicted market value.


The recent happenings page following the auction's end

The trades graph of the artwork

End of Auction and Aftermath
The auction suddenly ended at 2:20AM PST on April 10th, 18,027 minutes after the auction was started. The notable final buyers and sellers were Wocu Holdings, who received the most money; Noahs Second Country, who acquired 5 total copies, including the 3 cheap copies; and Valentine Z, who sold 5 copies of their own artwork. The new market value of the art has increased to 21, four times the initial value. One notable event is that Wocu Holdings immediately sold another copy to Noahs Second Country for 22.22, and Port Starboard sold their copy to Marxist germany to 22.21, increasing the market value slightly. These were unintentional buys as the bids remained following the auction, since it resolved while many nations were sleeping. It seems that many buyers, including Recuecn, Rain Delay, Blackthorn shade, and Evrigenis have no intention of ever selling the artwork again, and the art will likely remain a staple in their respective displays. Noahs Second Country gifted two copies of the artwork back to Valentine Z, one to Giovanniland and put 2 copies up for sale at 22.22, while keeping one copy permanently.

A few records were broken in this auction, primarily pertaining to time. Unfortunately, we do not have exact numbers, but here are the unofficial records observed by this reporting service:

Longest Auction: 18,027 minutes (12.5 days!)
This was the primary record, and will likely stand forever, unless international policy is changed to allow further extension of auction timers. Based on the previous statements of Ballotonia, this is unlikely. Perhaps the primary nation that should receive credit is Destructive Government Economic System, additionally, many other nations made significant and intentional contributions; including, but not limited to: Noahs Second Country, Evrigenis, 9003, Racoda, Recuecn, Giovanniland, Pangurstan, Alia Atreides and Inven.

Longest unchanged, matched bid: At least 150 hours
This record goes to a bid of 22.22 placed shortly before the 100 hour milestone from Noahs Second Country. DGES changed their bid shortly after before leaving it at 141.77, however, they did have the longest involvement in an auction as the initiator of it.

Most bids on one auction
This obviously goes to Destructive Government Economic System, as they likely contributed to more than half of the auction time.

Most matches on a non-transfer artwork
With 21 simultaneous matches, all of them being competitive bids, this is probably the most serious matches we will see on a artwork for a while.

Highest auction timer
While the total time remaining was as high as 101 hours, the highest timer value shown was 99:59:59 due to limitations in the user interface.



Conclusions
This event was a great example of the international art community working together to achieve something cool, and many members of the community expressed their happiness with the event. Even those not directly involved took interest in the auction, such as Ransium, The Salaxalans, and others. Ultimately, this auction will likely be a highly cited event in the international art community, hence the reason why this report was written, so that the event could be archived permanently for future generations to learn about.



Thank you for reading, and if you enjoyed this, please upvote it! Let me know if I made any mistakes, since I barely proofread this (lol).

- Noahs Second Country

The Second Best of Noahs Second Country

Edited:

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