Tribul is a digital platform that hosts auctions for big-ticket physical art with immense cultural value otherwise unavailable to most people. We provide the best possible value to both buyers and sellers by letting anyone bid with any amount of money and taking significantly lower fees than traditional auction houses. Our mission is to break open the traditional art market for the modern collector and artist.

a. Blockchain powers our entire platform. Using blockchain technology, we have built an automated system that facilitates ownership and trade of auctioned items.

b. By using public protocols like Zora and Gnosis Safe, the blockchain allows us to securely represent irrefutable ownership of an item while allowing people to trade physical items digitally.

Tribul manually adds an unclonable NFC chip to each artwork tying the piece to a corresponding non-fungible token (NFT). An NFT is essentially a digital certificate that is stored on the blockchain, making it so that ownership of a particular asset can be provably verified.

By linking a physical piece to the blockchain, ownership of the piece can exchange hands through the trade of its corresponding digital NFT, without requiring the physical asset to be moved. The winning bidder at a Tribul auction now has the option to have the physical artwork shipped to them or store it with us while holding onto a digital NFT that can be traded and displayed.

Moreover, the blockchain creates a tamper-proof record of authenticity and provenance for each artwork. This paves the way for the quick and confident trade of physical art.

NFTs make it easy to display your artwork 24/7 with others worldwide. Showcase your art on digital galleries such as OnCyber or share on social media. Sell the NFT (and physical piece) on any Ethereum-compatible marketplace such as Opensea, or auction it to the highest bidder on Tribul (coming soon).

We work with third-party experts to ensure that all items sold on the platform are authenticated and appraised appropriately. Specific details about an artwork's provenance and authenticity can be found on its item page.

Tribul works with a leading art storage facility in New York City to ensure that pieces are stored in a temperature and humidity-controlled secure environment.

Yes. You can choose to ship your artwork over to you at any time.

If you choose to have the physical art shipped to you, the "tradeable" NFT is burned and replaced with a "soul-bound" NFT. A soul-bound NFT is a non-transferable NFT with no financial value but allows you to continue to display the physical artwork online and in digital galleries.

If you’re the winning bidder of an auction, click on "claim NFT" which will transfer the NFT of the artwork to your wallet. Tribul NFTs are able to be listed on any Ethereum-based marketplace (i.e. Opensea). We are currently building out the infrastructure for a Tribul secondary market, which will enable collectors to re-auction art on our platform.

Unlike typical auction houses which require KYC, all you need to do on Tribul in order to create an account is to connect your Metamask wallet.

Once your wallet is connected, you can create a user profile by providing your email and a username. Verify your email and agree to the terms and conditions to finalize your account.

a. We currently accept credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express) as well as most cryptocurrencies, all through our Stripe on-ramp.

b. Whether paying by credit or cryptocurrency, your contributions will be converted to USDC, which is a fully regulated digital dollar stablecoin. USDC is trusted by millions of users worldwide and enables non-volatile trade and interacting with the blockchain. Every USDC = 1 US Dollar.

a. Sellers set a “reserve price” for all items they list. Each auction lasts 7 days, starting when a bid is first placed at or above the reserve price. Each subsequent bid must be at least 5% greater than the previous bid.

b. Bids can be made by an individual or a tribe, and they can be placed at any time by any party that did not place the current highest bid.

c. If you are part of a tribe that’s still raising funds or has been outbid, you can increase your contribution toward a future bid.

d. If a bid is placed within the last 15 minutes, the countdown will reset back to 15 minutes. This 15-minute reset window can continue as many times as necessary until the timer has expired.

e. Once the auction ends, an NFT representing the piece will be sent to the wallet address of the winning bidder. You can choose to redeem the physical piece or hold onto it digitally.

By creating an account and verifying your email, you will receive emails notifying you of the status of your bids as well as next steps if you win an auction.

You can withdraw funds if you have been outbid. If your bid is the current highest bid, the funds are escrowed and you cannot withdraw.

Tribes are groups of up to 20 collectors who dramatically increase their buying power by pooling funds and bidding as a group. If a tribe wins an auction, members of the tribe become co-owners of the work. The work is then added to the tribe’s ongoing art collection. It can either be stored with Tribul or be shipped elsewhere, depending on what the tribe decides.

The concept of collective ownership is already native to both the traditional art world (art buying syndicates) as well as Web3 (DAOs). Tribul is simply the first platform to enable collectives to consistently and securely build a collection of physical art.

Tribe wallets on Tribul are Gnosis Safe multi-signature wallets layered with Tribul’s user-friendly interface. Gnosis Safe is the most-trusted protocol for multi-signature wallets and features a secure wallet protocol that requires multiple signatures for a transaction to pass. Over 2.5 million Safe wallets have been created with over $39B in assets.

Always be sure that you are creating or joining a tribe with collectors you trust.

Creating a tribe is simple and easy with Tribul’s user interface. Navigate to an auction page for an item your tribe desires, select “Bid With A Tribe,” click on “Create New Tribe,” and customize your tribe’s name, bio, and profile picture. To add members, input all desired wallet addresses into the given field and choose a voter threshold for easy decision-making. Every member will have one vote.

To join an active tribe, request a current member to create an “Add Member” proposal. If the proposal passes, your wallet address will automatically be added to the tribe.

Freely change your tribe’s profile information via the account dashboard.

Yes.

For a tribe to bid in an auction, funds must first be added to the tribe wallet. To add funds, navigate to the “Assets” section of your tribe dashboard and click on “Purchase Crypto.” Use our Stripe on-ramp to load USDC into your tribe’s wallet.

To place a tribe bid, navigate to the desired auction, click on “Bid With A Tribe,” select the tribe you wish to bid with, and specify the bid amount to create a bid proposal. Tribe members will now have the opportunity to vote on the proposal and if it passes, will be able to successfully place a tribe bid.

Absolutely. We’ve enabled and envision an environment in which tribes on Tribul spark and grow a collection of renowned physical art. Tribes can bid in multiple auctions at a time and tribe wallets can hold multiple assets at a time.

All decisions are made with Tribul’s proposal functionality in order to ensure that they are truly representative of the members’ interests. Any member can create a proposal and all members have one vote. The creator of a tribe is the de-facto leader and will choose the voter threshold for proposals. If the voter threshold is reached, the proposal passes.

Decisions supported by proposals include adding and removing members, placing and increasing bids, changing the voter threshold, transferring the tradable NFT, and taking physical possession of the art. Tribul is currently building functionality that will eventually enable tribes to make more wide-ranging decisions on the art, including listing it for auction and exhibiting IRL

Equity ownership tracking is not currently possible on-chain with Gnosis Safe. We are actively working on a solution.

Yes. To take physical possession, a tribe member must create a “Redeem Physical Item” proposal in the tribe dashboard. If the proposal passes, Tribul will get in touch with the tribe creator to determine next steps.

To leave a tribe, request another member to create a “Remove Member” proposal with your wallet address. If the proposal passes, you will be removed from the tribe.

The Artist or seller receives 82% of the hammer price. In total, 15% of the hammer price goes to Tribul as an auction premium and an additional 3% as an infrastructure fee.

No. Tribul is doing all we can to accelerate the digitization and democratization of physical art. To advance that mission, we’ve decided to absorb all storage costs so that individual and tribe owners of physical pieces can enjoy free secure storage.

Yes. If you decide to have your item shipped out of the Tribul storage facility, you are responsible for all shipping fees.

Sales tax is only administered if you or your tribe decides to redeem the tradable NFT for the physical item and take possession. If the item remains in Tribul’s secure storage facility, no sales tax will be applied.