earth.tattoo
Tattoo the Earth, one pixel at a time.
An interactive art project where anyone can claim a patch of Earth and paint it. Your artwork becomes visible to the entire world on a shared, live globe.
🗺️ How the globe is divided
The entire surface of the Earth is divided into approximately 510 million tiles, each representing a roughly ~1 km² patch. Tiles use the standard Web Mercator coordinate grid, so they appear as perfect squares on the map at every latitude.
Each tile contains a 16×16 grid of 256 pixels. Every pixel stores a full RGBA colour - red, green, blue, and opacity - so you can create transparent or semi-transparent artwork that blends with the map beneath.
🏳️ Claiming tiles
Every registered user gets exactly one free tile every 1 hour. Click any unclaimed tile on the globe, claim it, and start painting. You have 1 hour to paint at least 10 pixels or the tile is released back to the public and your free claim is restored.
Once secured, you can repaint your tile as many times as you like at no extra cost.
💰 Paid claims & outbidding
After your free claim is used, additional unclaimed tiles cost $1 each. You can also outbid the current owner of any claimed tile - the price doubles with each successive claim:
| Owner # | Price |
|---|---|
| 1st | Free |
| 2nd | $1 |
| 3rd | $2 |
| 4th | $4 |
| 5th | $8 |
| 6th | $16 |
| nth | $2^(n−2) |
When outbid, the previous owner is notified by email. Their pixel art and a record of their ownership is preserved permanently in the tile's public history. Former owners can even restore their old design if they reclaim the tile later.
🎨 Pixel editor
The pixel editor gives you a 16×16 canvas. Pick a colour (including opacity), then click or drag across cells to paint. You can also upload an image - the browser automatically downsamples it to 16×16 pixels on your device before saving. No image data is sent to our servers.
Edits are unlimited - repaint as often as you like while you own the tile.
💳 Payments
Only crypto is accepted as a payment method right now. All payments are processed via NowPayments, which accepts all major cryptocurrencies. No fiat payment methods are accepted. All sales are final.
🔐 Accounts
Sign in with email only - we send a one-time code, no passwords. Your display name is the only public identifier; your email address is never shown to other users.