Ceird

Devnet

Commission a person, not a prompt.

What it is

Ceird is how you commission an artist. You find someone whose work you want, look at what they've made, and commission them from their profile. The request goes to them by name — nobody else can take it, and it isn't a listing that strangers bid on. You say what you want made, what it should look like, and what you'll pay. They make it and deliver it.

If it isn't right first time, that's a revision rather than a rejection: same artist, same commission, another round. And a commission can't be left hanging — if the requester goes quiet, the payment can be released without them after a week.

The word is Old Irish. Cerd meant the craft and the person practising it in the same breath — you couldn't say one without the other. That's the idea. You won't learn their legal name, and neither will we; nobody here holds that. What you do know is that they are one person, the same one behind everything they have made here, carrying a standing they built and can lose.

How it works

You've already proven you're a unique human (your Anam) — these are the steps that follow.

1
Find someone whose work you want
Artists keep a portfolio on their profile. You commission from there, looking at what they've actually made, rather than describing into a void and hoping.
2
Send them the brief
What you want, what it should look like, and what you'll pay — with reference images if words aren't enough. The request goes to that artist by name. Nobody else can take it, and it never appears as a listing for strangers to bid on.
3
They stake, and they make it
Taking the commission costs the artist half of what it pays. That's their skin in it, and it's why nobody accepts a brief they don't intend to finish.
4
Delivered, and minted as theirs
The finished work is registered to the artist the moment it lands — before anyone, you included, has seen it.
5
A jury reads it against the brief
Eight peers decide one question: does this answer what was asked? Not whether it's to your taste. If it doesn't, the artist loses their stake; if it does, it comes to you to accept.
6
Accepted, and paid
The piece transfers to you. 80% goes to the artist, 20% to the community vault that funds everyone's weekly payout, and your stake comes back. If you'd rather not, you say why in writing and the round begins again — four times at most, and each one costs you a quarter of the fee.

Which side you're on

If you're the artist

You put up a stake to take the commission — half of what it pays you — and it comes back when the jury agrees the work answers what was asked. If they find it doesn't, you lose it. That's the only way to lose it. Each revision stakes again, so keep it free rather than spending it between rounds.

Then you make it, and your work is minted as yours the moment you deliver it, before anyone judges it. That ordering is deliberate: a juror who copies what they're reviewing is stealing a registered piece rather than an image off a screen.

Being turned down is not the same as losing your stake. If the requester doesn't want the piece after the jury has cleared it, you keep 20% of the commission and they lose a quarter of their stake for the trouble — so a rejection costs them, not you. They have to give a reason in writing, and the next round's jury sees it beside your previous version, which makes a moving target expensive to hold. Four rejections is the limit.

And nobody can leave you hanging. If they go silent, the payment can be released without them after a week.

If you're commissioning

You lock the fee and the same amount again as a stake — so 5,000 $BONN sits in escrow for a 2,500 commission, and the stake comes back to you when it settles. The contract holds it, not us.

Before you're asked to accept anything, a jury checks that the work genuinely answers what you asked for. That is a check on the brief, not on taste: whether you actually like it stays yours alone to say. When you accept, the piece transfers to you — the artist keeps the credit for making it, you own the thing.

You can turn a piece down, up to four times, and each time you have to say why, in writing. It isn't free — a rejection costs you a quarter of the fee, and the artist keeps 20% of it for the work they did. That is the price of changing your mind, and it is what makes a written reason worth reading rather than a box to clear.

Don't go quiet. If you say nothing for a week after delivery, the artist can take the payment without you.

The loop

What you gain

80% of every commission you complete, in $BONN.
20% for each round of adjustments, up to four times — the work was done either way.
Standing, each time a jury agrees your work answered the brief. It won't rival the commission itself; what it buys is being the artist people come back to.
Every piece you make stays credited to you as its creator. The one that gets accepted goes to the person who commissioned it; if a commission never completes, the last version you made stays yours outright, to sell or show as you like.

What $BONN is for

Commissioning other artists — the thing you can't make yourself.
Asking on Eolas, when what you need is an answer rather than an image.
Boosting a post on Gairm, so a piece reaches past the people who already follow you.
Staking it, which raises your standing every week it stays locked.

The 20% that leaves every commission goes to the community vault, and the vault is what pays out weekly against everyone's standing. So a commission isn't only money moving between two people — it tops up the pot that pays whoever has actually shown up, including you in the weeks you make nothing.

Know the risks

This is real, staked participation — not a feed you can throw away. Before you take part, understand what you can lose.

Your stake is real money. Taking a commission locks half of what it pays, before you've delivered anything. It comes back as soon as the jury agrees the work answers the brief — before the requester has even said whether they want it, which is why their rejection can never cost you it. Each revision stakes again, so keep it free rather than spending it between rounds.
Rejecting is not free, and it is not cheap. Every rejection moves 25% of the fee out of the requester's stake — 20% to the artist, 5% to the community vault. The fee itself is untouched, so an artist accepted on the third round still receives the full 80%. Four rejections exhaust that stake exactly. At that point the commission ends: the requester gets the fee back and no artwork, and the artist has been paid 20% four times over — 80% of the fee, the same as acceptance would have paid. Changing your mind repeatedly is priced like buying the work.
Contesting a ruling means backing yourself. If you think a jury got it wrong you can contest, by staking twice what you staked to take the commission — returned if you're right. A contest asks eight more people to re-read a ruling, so it's meant to be reached for rarely and only when you're sure.
Going quiet has a deadline. A week after delivery, the artist can take the payment without you. If you are going to be away, accept or reject before you go.

The principles

What people ask for

A commission is one person's attention on one specific work.

Writing. A literature review by someone who has actually read the field, not a summary of abstracts. A translation by a person who speaks both languages and knows the subject. A second opinion on a contract clause, written out properly. Copy for a product page by someone who asked what it does. A poem for an occasion. Lyrics. Someone's honest read on a primary source you can't get to yourself.

Images. Character art, an album cover, a tattoo design. A diagram of something complicated, drawn by a person who understands it. An illustration for a paper. A map of somewhere real or somewhere invented.

Audio. Narration for an audiobook or a documentary. A voice for a character. A score, a theme, a jingle. A clean transcription of a recording nobody else can make out.

Some of that is art and some of it is scholarship, and the mechanism doesn't care. What it's for is the cases where you need a particular person on a particular problem — and to be able to tell afterwards that it was them.

Where the money actually goes

A commission at the minimum, turned down once and accepted on the second attempt. Every figure here is the live configuration; the arithmetic is small enough to check.

The requester locks 5,000 $BONN — 2,500 as the fee, and 2,500 again as a stake.
The artist locks 1,000 to take it: half of the 2,000 they stand to be paid.
Round one. They deliver. The jury agrees it answers the brief, so their 1,000 comes straight back. The requester doesn't want it, says why, and 625 moves out of their stake — 500 to the artist, 125 to the community vault.
Round two. The artist stakes 1,000 again, delivers again, and this time it's accepted.
Settled: 2,000 to the artist, 500 to the community vault, and the requester's remaining 1,875 stake returns to them.

The artist ends the job with 2,500 — the full fee, because the rejected round paid too. The requester has spent 3,125 and owns the piece. The community vault has taken 625, which is what funds everyone's weekly payout, including theirs.

Why a second jury is shown the first attempt

A jury seated on a revision doesn't only see the new piece. They see the version that came before it and the reason the requester gave for sending it back — because does this answer what was asked cannot be judged from the submission alone.

That is what stops a brief becoming a moving target. If someone rejects a piece for missing the palette they asked for, and then rejects the next one for a palette they never mentioned, the second jury is reading both refusals side by side. The cost of shifting the brief is that eight people can see you shifting it.

The reason itself is prose, and prose can be edited by whoever holds the database. So it is written against a hash the chain will not let stand empty, and checked before it is shown. If the text no longer matches the commitment, the jury is shown nothing at all rather than something unverifiable — because a reason nobody can vouch for, put in front of people deciding whether you were treated fairly, is worse than no reason.

Why register text at all

Not to prove the exact words are yours — change one and the hash differs. It's about priority. Someone reposting your poem with a word swapped can't produce an earlier mint, and the transaction that made yours is timestamped on a public chain nobody here can edit.

Every number behind this — costs, splits and payouts

Ready to take part?

On your first visit you'll confirm you've read this page and understand the risks before you can act.

Open Ceird →