This Artwork Is Always On Sale (TAIAOS)

Updates:

February 2026: Refactor and mild UI/UX improvements.

January-March 2021.

• v1 Restored along with a subgraph and design improvements.

New Release: June 2020.

• Launched new artwork with 100% patronage rate.
• Fixed bugs for v2.
• V1 Artwork is still for sale, but has a warning caution on edge cases that could stop it from functioning properly (front-running attacks can steal deposits + a contract buying it can block from it being sold in perpetuity). More details here: #18

About

TAIAOS is an art project that showcases a digital artwork that is always on sale through Harberger Tax property rights. The owner of the artwork always has to set a sale price, upon which it can be bought by anyone at any time. A continuous tax is levied as patronage towards the artist calculated on the owner's price they set. If the deposit does not cover the patronage owed, the smart contract steward can foreclose the artwork and take back ownership.

ArtSteward.sol

This smart contract is responsible for managing ownership over the artwork. It takes in a deposit and sets the price for the artwork (by the owner). Over time, it collects patronage towards the artist and forecloses the artwork in case the owner can't pay anymore.

Development & Testing

February 2026 Note: I have not tested the refactored code for a full local system install (including a Docker-ified Graph node) and the recommendations are generated by Claude Code. It's unlikely that I'll try testing this (for now). Tests were ported to Foundry, but Hardhat is still used for the deploy scripts and etherscan verifications.

Prerequisites

• Node >= 18.18
• Yarn 1.x
• Docker (for optional local Graph node)

Install dependencies

yarn install

Environment variables

cp packages/nextjs/.env.example packages/nextjs/.env.local

• NEXT_PUBLIC_GRAPH_API_KEY — required for mainnet data
• NEXT_PUBLIC_WALLET_CONNECT_PROJECT_ID — optional, enables mobile wallet QR

Next.js dev server

yarn dev

Opens at http://localhost:3000.

Local

As noted above. These have not been tested as of February 2026.

Local EVM node

yarn chain

Runs Foundry's anvil on localhost:8545.

Deploy contracts

yarn deploy:local

Runs the Hardhat deploy script against the local node.

Local Graph node (optional)

Run a Docker-based Graph node pointed at localhost:8545, then clone and deploy taiaos-subgraph with local contract addresses.

Contract tests

yarn test
yarn test:v

New Markets In The Arts

This is inspired by the book & idea, called Radical Markets by Glen Weyl & Eric Posner. Some references to work detailing some of these ideas for implementation in the arts:

https://medium.com/radicalxchange/radical-markets-in-the-arts-13c27d3b7283
https://blog.simondlr.com/posts/patronage-as-an-asset-class
https://blog.simondlr.com/posts/exploring-harberger-tax-in-patronage-markets
https://blog.simondlr.com/posts/new-markets-in-the-arts-property-rights

Feel free to fork this code and create your own artwork in this manner.

Thanks

The initial ArtSteward.sol code was inspired by code from Billy Rennekamp: https://github.com/okwme/harberger-ads-contracts & Todd Proebsting: https://programtheblockchain.com/posts/2018/09/19/implementing-harberger-tax-deeds/.

License

Code License: MIT