I have thought about this same type of auction.... I think this would work well with a third party Auctioneer.
Funding an address with the coins as a bid could work somehow??
I could send each person who bids an unique bidding address.
At the end of the auction, I could transfer all of the bids to my 1MiNeR address.
Keep the winning bid and send the rest back to the original address they came from.
I would then post the list of unique bidding address and txids.
That way all bids could be traced from being placed to transfer, then back to owner, and no one would know who's bid is who's unless you know someone's
BTC address...
And the winner's name/id would not even be known unless the person would want to post it.
People would only know the winning bid.
![Huh](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/huh.gif)
Thanks
There will always be people who won't want to send funds for something they may not win. For something popular, there may be lots of bidders. The amount of funds sent would be far in excess of the value of item. I don't think it's a runner.
What is really needed is a forum with good auction functionality. It would be good if there were options for a number of different auction types .... Normal auctions, buy it now or best offer, auction also with buy it now, Dutch auction with descending offer price by time, and closed bid auction like you are trying to do.
If we can wipe out the need to trust, it would help that auction types work, and it could work well