The whole map was already decided in advance, so exploring does not invent land. It just uncovers what was hiding there, and it pays the people who get there first. Here is exactly how, step by step.
You pick a hidden tile on the edge of the explored area and pay to explore it, in $ATLAS. The tile lights up, the survey runs, and the land underneath appears, exactly as it always was.
Nothing is random. The land is already set. The only race is to be the first to look.
A tile you explore is yours. You give it a name, and the name and its location are written on the blockchain in the same step. From then on, every map of this world shows your name for that place.
A name cannot be changed. The first explorer keeps it.
When someone explores a tile that touches yours, half of what they spend is paid straight to you. The more tiles you own, the more edges you touch, and the more the map pays you for being early and well placed.
Owning the middle of a continent is quiet. Owning its edges is an income.
When a chunk of the map is fully explored, it is turned into a single one of a kind Chart, drawn on the blockchain by the same engine you see across this site. Holding that Chart pays you a share of the trading fees, in ETH.
The map keeps growing. The finished chunk is done forever.
A land grab rewards whoever shows up with the most money and shuts everyone else out. Meridian does the opposite. Because half of every expedition pays the neighbours, the people who explored before you are the ones who earn when you arrive. Early explorers are not gatekeepers. They only earn when more people keep exploring, so they actually want you here.
Yes. One fixed number, set when the project launches, decides every tile before anyone explores. Exploring just reads that number for a tile and saves the result. Two people exploring the same spot would always find the same land, which is why nothing has to be made in advance.
You own the on-chain record of that tile: where it is, what land it is, and the name you gave it. That ownership is what earns you money when neighbours explore nearby, and your share when the chunk becomes a Chart.
Half of every expedition's cost is shared among the owners of the tiles it touches, based on how much edge each one shares with the new tile. The other half funds the treasury and the trading pool.
Every $ATLAS trade pays a 5% fee in ETH, collected by a Uniswap V4 hook. Half goes to Chart holders, half to $ATLAS stakers. It is paid in ETH, not in the token, so it never waters down the fixed supply. The Customs House page shows exactly how it flows.
The world is huge but it does have an end. In practice it fills up in chunks. Each finished chunk becomes a Chart, and a new edge opens past it, so there is always somewhere new to explore.