BlockchainAuction

Team 4 Auction dApp

Project Idea

BlockchainAuction is a Web App for aunctioning Products using Blockchain coupled with ethereum accounts running on a ropsten server. Users can auction off anything on the chain that is available to them. The smart contract holds the auctioned asset and thereafter it manages bids associated in a seamless fashion.

The reason why Blockchain forms such a great platform is the promise of accuracy and guarantee of payment thanks to immutability of Blocks and allows for a more transparent, strict and fair auction experience.

More platforms like E-Bay are considering Blockchain as a next step to secure their transactions.

• Read more about this: https://news.bitcoin.com/ebay-can-stop-fraud-overnight-using-blockchain/

User Flow

User Stories

Priorities: High (must have) - * * *, Medium (nice to have) - * *, Low (unlikely to have) - *

Priority	As a …​	I want to …​	So that I can…​
***	seller	begin a product auction with a name, description and deadline.
***	seller	set a lower bound for the product	prevent buyers from bidding too low.
***	seller	view all my active products	have an overview of my products and manage them.
***	seller	close active auctions and notify them	return ether back to those who bidded.
***	buyer	view all products and its lower bound price	easily have an overview of everything that is available to bid for.
***	buyer	place bids before a specified deadline	be aware of when the auction will end.
***	buyer	see all my placed bids	remember my initial bid and adjust accordingly.
***	buyer	see the number of bids for a product	roughly understand the popularity of a product and adjust my bid.
***	buyer	see the highest bid	place a new bid that is higher than the current highest bid.
***	buyer	avoid placing bids after a deadline	prevent my ether from going to waste for an auction that is already over.
**	seller	upload pictures for the products.
**	seller	see my previous list of auctions and winners.
**	buyer	sort products by category	easily navigate through the products and find what I’m looking for.

Setting up the development environment

Once you clone the repository, you will find two main folders - /app which contains the frontend code and /backend which contains the smart contract.

Frontend

Pre-requisites: node.js and npm

Since the web app uses web3, and metamask only injects web3 on websites that are stood up on a server (and not just html files), we need serve the /app directory.

1. Install http-server globally: npm install -g http-server
2. From the /app directory, run http-server . to serve the web app.

You can also use any web server like Web Server for Chrome

Smart Contract

Pre-requisites: node.js and npm

1. Install the necessary dependencies (truffle) globally: npm install -g truffle
2. Install the dev dependecies for the smart contract by running npm install in the /backend directory.
3. Run truffle develop to start a local blockchain network and view the addresses
4. Once you are in the develop console, run migrate to deploy the contract on your local blockchain network.
5. Run let instance = await Products.deployed() to have an instance of the deployed contract and call the contract using the instance.

Deployment

Currently, the contract is configured to be deployed on the Ropsten test network. Add the extra configurations in the /backend/truffle-config.js if you need to deploy to another network.

1. Add your mnemonic or seed phrase into /backend/.secret file.
2. From the /backend directory, run truffle migrate --network ropsten to deploy the contract on ropsten. Replace ropsten with your own network if you're deploying to another network (use the same name as in the truffle-config.js file).

Current Address of the Smart Contract on Ropsten: 0xD2b9cdEBe48f924C452C1507E2a2b942Ce5861ca