FAQ

tl;dr Tessera is a platform that invites anyone to own and govern NFTs together 💚

Tessera is a platform where people can come together to participate in collective ownership and governance of digital collectibles native to the internet. Tessera enables unique ownership experiences via a hand-curated collection of culturally significant and historic NFTs, inviting anyone to own and govern NFTs, together.

Tessera is powered by the Tessera Protocol, a piece of public infrastructure on the Ethereum blockchain that enables users to transfer an NFT to a non-custodial smart contract wallet (Vault) and mint NFTs that represent collective ownership and governance over the Vault (Raes). Because the Tessera Protocol is public infrastructure, anyone is welcome to contribute to and build on it.

Check out our guide to get started collectively owning dope NFTs on Tessera.

Collective ownership is exactly what it sounds like, owning cool stuff on the internet with other people. We believe collective ownership unlocks not only accessibility into otherwise inaccessible pieces of internet history, but also governance, community and user experiences in ways never thought possible.

Rae, short for the plural form of Tessera (Tesserae), is a type of NFT that represents collective ownership and governance of a Vaulted NFT. Raes help us create unique experiences and enable Tessera users to recognize, form, join, and participate in communities and causes they care about. Visit our blog to learn more about how to get the most out of your Rae.

A Vault is a non-custodial smart contract wallet that is part of the Tessera Protocol. Vaults are trustless, permissionless, and decentralized.

No centralized person or group can directly access or control the NFTs in a Tessera Vault, including Tessera. Transferring an NFT to a Vault triggers an auction of Raes that represent ownership and governance of the Vaulted NFT.

Visit our blog to learn more about Vaults and their lifecycle.

There are no custodians. Vaults are decentralized, non-custodial smart contract wallets powered by the Tessera Protocol.

Yes! Well, sorta… we built a no frills, zero fee marketplace that allows anyone to buy and sell Raes on tessera.co as well as all other NFTs through aggregators.

What this means is Rae owners can buy and sell Raes on Tessera’s Secondary Marketplace with 0% marketplace fees (excluding gas fees). You can find the Secondary Market for Raes within the vault page of each NFT on tessera.co.

You can also buy and list any other types of NFTs on Tessera’s Marketplace through select NFT marketplace aggregators.

Yes, the Tessera Marketplace honors the royalties set by all collections.

Royalties for all Rae transactions on the secondary market are currently set to 0%.

On distribution of Raes we plan to honor the royalties set by collections for non-PFPs. For example, if someone were to vault a Chromie Squiggle, 7.5% of the sale will go to royalties.

We do, but we wanted to focus our fees on the places we feel we uniquely create value to the Web3 ecosystem.

The fees we charge vaulters on the distribution of Raes will be dynamic. This means distributions that sell for a premium will pay a slightly higher fee and distributions that sell closer to the minimum price will pay a lower fee.

At launch, all vaults on tessera.co will use what we call a Last Price Dutch Auction (LPDA).

Once a Vault’s auction begins, the price per Rae will decrease over time. Collectors can decide to purchase a Rae at any time during the auction while supply lasts. Regardless of the price you initially pay, all collectors will pay the price of the last Rae sold. Once the auction has finished, anyone can settle the auction which will distribute Raes and ETH to collectors who paid more than the price of the last Rae sold.

Check out our blog for more in-depth details on how our LPDA mechanisms work.

We have plans to incorporate additional auction mechanisms as we further build upon the Tessera Protocol.

Congrats - you’re now the proud collective owner of a special piece of internet history. There are a few things you can do with your Rae:

Reconstitution is the process of buying the original NFT from the Vault, and Rae owners can claim their respective amount of ETH from the sale. Similar to buying a Rae, reconstitution will also differ between Vaults.

At launch, all Vaults will use what we’re calling Optimistic Buyouts (OBs). OBs start when a user creates a proposal to buy the Vaulted NFT. This user will propose a price and put up their Raes AND ETH as collateral, Raes will be valued based on the price they are proposing.

Rae owners will have a 4 day period to reject this proposal if they feel it is too low of an offer. In order to reject the listing, someone will need to purchase the Raes from the proposal at the price listed. If all of the Raes are not purchased at the end of 4 days, the proposal will be accepted and the NFT will be purchased. Rae owners will be able to claim their respective amount of ETH from the Vault by burning their Raes. OBs include a 5% fee paid to Tessera on a successful buyout.

We take Vault quality very seriously, and if there isn’t enough demand for a given Vault, we don’t want to support it on our platform. If Raes don’t sell out during an auction, all bids will be refunded and the auction will be canceled.

We work directly with artists, collectors, and curators to vault only the most exciting digital collectibles the internet can provide. We’re always on the lookout for NFTs that are rare, historic, and just fucking cool.

If that sounds like your NFT, you can apply to vault your digital collectible via this form on our website. If you are selected, someone from our team will work with you directly to vault your NFT and have it featured on tessera.co.

If tessera.co isn’t the right forum for your NFT but you’d still like your community to have a collective NFT ownership experience via the Tessera Protocol, visit our developer docs.

Please note that direct interaction with the Tessera Protocol is highly risky and can result in total loss of the NFT. It should only be undertaken by extremely sophisticated users who understand and accept such risks.

No. But anything can happen 😏

We love this question! View our path to tokenization roadmap HERE.

Yes! There are token-gated channels in our Discord specific to the Raes you have purchased. All you need to do is join our Discord, verify your wallet, and start vibing with your Rae community. While our Discord channels are available to each community of vaulted NFTs, we are excited to see the various other ways Rae holders come together and form communities around collective ownership.

We would love to hear your contributions! Please use the link below to offer feedback, bugs, and ideas on our Discord or you can fill out the form HERE.

NO! We will never DM you first. It is most likely a scammer. You can report DMs, scammers, and other suspicious Discord activity like that to our mods.

The Tessera Protocol smart contracts underwent full Code Arena Audit. You can view the audit report here.