The Dusk Auction
The darker it gets, the lower the price. The price at the moment it sells out is everyone's price.
The Dusk Auction is the only way bulls and bears are born. It's paid in $SRANCH, and every $SRANCH paid is burned.
How one auction works
- Each batch has two lots, bulls and bears, which open together and run on the same clock.
- The price starts high and falls 3% every 10 minutes until it reaches the floor ("dusk").
- At any moment you can bid for some animals at the current price (up to 10 per bid), depositing that amount of $SRANCH.
- The moment bids add up to the whole lot, it's sold. That moment's price is the clearing price, and everyone pays it: the difference from what you deposited is refunded.
- Bidding early costs nothing extra, so there's no reason to rush and no edge for bots.
- If dusk arrives before the lot sells out, every bid fills at the floor price and the rest of the lot is voided forever. Supply can only end up lower than planned, never higher.
- After it closes, you claim your animals and any refund yourself. Claiming never expires.
The genesis batch
| Animals | 550 bulls + 550 bears (1,100 total) |
| Start price | 1,000,000 $SRANCH per animal |
| Floor price | 100,000 $SRANCH per animal |
| Time to dusk | 76 steps × 10 min = 12 h 40 min |
Prices are in $SRANCH only. The contract reads no prices and never knows what a token is worth in dollars; the app shows a dollar estimate for display only. The start price is high on purpose: if it were low, everyone would bid at the first second and it would become a race.
Later batches
| Animals | 55 bulls + 55 bears per batch |
| Prices | Anchored on the same side's last clearing price: start = anchor × 5, floor = anchor ÷ 5 |
| Time to dusk | About 17 h 40 min |
A later batch can only start when all of these hold:
- Fees: every $5,000 of fence fees paid into the Harvest pool unlocks one batch. Token trading fees don't count.
- Well fed: over the last 4 weeks, the Harvest each animal was entitled to averaged at least $1.5 a week.
- Cap: the season's total (genesis included) stays within 3,300 animals.
- Timing: at least one Harvest week after the last batch, and only within 24 hours after Friday's close.
Anyone can press start once these hold. At the fastest, batch 1 comes about 4 weeks after the first Harvest week, and the season cap is reached after about 24 weeks. In practice it's usually slower, and the cap may never be reached.
Reading the auction
Which lot sells out first, bulls or bears, and how far apart their prices land, is the ranch's first sentiment reading before anything else opens.