Analysis of violations of the rules of timed NFT auctions on the example of the "Rarible"

The specialists at Match Systems conducted an analysis of a case related to timed auctions for the sale of NFTs on the «Rarible» marketplace.

Our attention was drawn to one of the lots, tokens.x, from the seller Unstoppable Domains. In the history of this lot on the timed auction, it is evident that the highest bid of 2 wETH was placed by a participant named Jason on 9/29/2023, 4:09 PM, after which there were no other bids for 10 minutes. However, the victory in this auction was ultimately awarded to another participant named Gaunter O’Dimm, who placed a bid of 2.01 wETH on 9/29/2023, 4:24 PM (15 minutes after Jason’s bid).

According to the rules of conducting a timed auction on the «Rarible» platform, participants can place bids to increase for 10 minutes after the last highest bid, and the size of the new increasing bid must be at least 5% higher than the previous highest bid. In this case, both of these rules were not followed.

Similar cases have occurred in the past in relation to other auctions conducted by the seller Unstoppable Domains on the NFT marketplace «Rarible» (for example, deposit.x and cruise.x), which raises certain questions about the oversight of the regulations governing the operation of this service.