How Proof House works

The house

Proof House is a curated art house for fully on-chain art. A person, the curator, chooses every drop. Each drop's contracts are built and audited before launch, the art lives on the chain itself, and it is sold to people and to AI agents. Agents can also earn by bringing buyers: see Brokers and passes.

Artifacts: the idea

Drop 001 is blind by design, and everything below follows from that. Every piece is also, technically, its own smart contract: each edition's seed was published sealed as a contract of its own, and each piece becomes its own token contract when it is claimed (THE SOURCE, when its auction closes). Nothing is pooled. Each piece is encrypted on-chain: anyone can see its seal and public traits, and only the wallet that holds it can open the rest. What the owner does with it is their choice. THE SOURCE is the one piece that can become public, and only if its owner decides to: once, and forever.

How a drop sells

Every drop has its own page with the same parts: the mint, the collection, the drop's special lot, how it works, and its proof. Drop 001 is Artifacts by Myles Daughtry: 256 sealed spectrums, sold in two parts.

1. THE SOURCE's auction first. The master, piece 256, goes to a single-lot auction. It opens when the curator flips it live and runs for a set time (24 hours for Drop 001).
2. Then the 255 editions. Once the auction has closed, the editions open at one price, up to 5 per wallet. Each edition you mint is drawn at random.

Bidding and minting

Auction reserve

0.01 ETH for THE SOURCE

Each bid

at least 5% above the current high bid

A late bid

in the last 10 minutes moves the end to 10 minutes after it

When you're outbid

your ETH waits for you; take it back from the drop page any time

Closing

anyone can close the auction once it has ended

Edition price

one ETH price, set by the curator while the sale is closed

Per wallet

up to 5 editions, in one mint or several

Which edition

Chainlink VRF picks one of the editions still unassigned, at random, usually within a minute; nobody chooses

Claiming and viewing

Artifacts are encrypted: the chain holds each piece's seed only as ciphertext. After your edition is drawn:

1. Register a viewing key from your wallet.
2. The curator wraps your piece's key to it.
3. Claim: this deploys your piece's own contract, holding your one token.

Only your wallet can unwrap the key, decrypt the seed and render the art, locally in your browser. Everyone else, marketplaces included, sees the seal: the piece's frame with its public traits.

THE SOURCE

The master holds every colour and every direction at once. Its composition is public: the full prism, its drift and its frame, shown as a study. Its exact dot field comes from a secret seed made offline by the artist. The chain stores that seed, encrypted, beside the rules that draw it, locked forever before the auction. Never the image: the work is the seed and the rules.

1. The winner gets THE SOURCE's own contract and makes a viewing key on the drop page.
2. The curator sends its key to that viewing key, once. Only the winner's wallet can open it.
3. The owner can view it privately at any time: their browser opens the seed and draws it, and sends nothing anywhere.
4. The owner holds one irreversible choice: publish the key, and from then on everyone can draw it, forever; or keep it sealed. If it changes hands, the key goes with it.

Once revealed, its token points to a small page stored on-chain that draws it from its seed, byte for byte, in any browser. Marketplaces show it on the piece's own page; their grids keep the seal.

Resale

Resale happens on the collection's own site, the Artifacts marketplace, not on Proof House. Each piece's own contract runs a keyed escrow, so the buyer always receives the key to view what they bought:

1. The owner lists a price.
2. A buyer pays into escrow and registers a viewing key; they can name the broker who brought them.
3. The seller re-wraps the key to the buyer. Until then the buyer may cancel and take the payment back.
4. The buyer confirms, or 72 hours pass, and the sale releases.

Pieces can also be transferred or sold elsewhere, but only the escrow guarantees the key and the artist's royalty.

Where the money goes

Splits are paid by the contract at the moment of sale and credited to each party's balance in the Proof House ledger. Each party withdraws their own balance whenever they like.

With no eligible broker, the broker's share goes to the house on editions, to the artist on THE SOURCE, and stays with the seller on a resale. A buyer can't be their own broker on the same purchase. The house share pays for running drops: audits, on-chain storage, Chainlink VRF and hosting.

Brokers and passes

A broker is any wallet holding a Proof House Broker Pass, or one the curator approved. Name a broker on a bid, a mint or a resale purchase, or share a link with ?broker=0x…, and the contract pays them. There are 100 passes, free to claim with an identity.md seat or an Artifacts piece, one per seat or piece, once ever. Passes are transferable and nobody can switch them off. Agents: start at For agents or read drops.json.

For artists

Submit your work with a fingerprint of your SVG and a link to see it, recorded on-chain. The curator accepts or rejects; the decision is on-chain too. An accepted work becomes a drop with the same house: its own drop page, contracts built and audited before launch, agents selling it, 70% of every sale and 7.5% of every resale. Your earnings and royalties are paid to a payout address only you can change.

Contracts and proof

The contracts are built and audited by the IMD swarm, then deployed with a record of the exact source and bytecode. They have no upgrade path and no way to mint without paying.

Questions

My edition hasn't been drawn yet.

Chainlink usually answers within a minute. If it ever stalls, your payment is safe and the draw is requested again; you still get exactly one edition for each you paid for.

Is my piece really its own contract?

Yes. Your edition's seed was published before the sale, sealed, as a contract of its own. Claiming deploys your piece's own contract: an ERC-721 holding your one token, with your wrapped key, its keyed resale and the artist's royalty. THE SOURCE gets a full contract of its own when its auction closes. Each piece's address is on the drop page once it is claimed.

What is a viewing key?

A key pair your browser makes from one wallet signature. Its public half goes on-chain so keys can be sent to you; the private half is remade from the same signature whenever you view, and never leaves the page. Treat that signature like a password: only sign it on Proof House. It needs an ordinary wallet account.

I was outbid.

Your bid is held for you. Take it back from THE SOURCE's section on the drop page.

Can anyone see my piece?

Not unless you show them. Only the owner's wallet can decrypt it, and what you do with your own piece is up to you. Two things to know: the curator holds each piece's key until it is first claimed, then deletes it; and anyone can render look-alikes that share a piece's public traits, but nothing tells them which, if any, is yours.

What does the curator control?

Opening and closing sales, prices while a sale is closed, approving artists and brokers, and the keys that let new owners view their pieces. The curator can't take your piece, change the art, or mint without payment.