An eviction (on Square Town) is taking an occupied square by paying double what its current owner paid, with a $1 minimum — squares are free to claim, so the first eviction is $1. The evicted site is removed from town and announced in the live feed, the evictor's favicon appears in the same cell, and the price to evict them is double again. Square Town (square.pov.town) has no bidding, no negotiation and no refund to the evicted — just the rule: 2× the last price, never less than $1.
TL;DR: free → $1 → $2 → $4 → $8 → … Ten evictions turn a free square into a $512 square. Popular spots price themselves.
How it works on Square Town
Click any favicon in town and choose evict. The price shown is twice what the current owner paid, or $1 if they claimed for free; you take their exact footprint. Payment is by card through Stripe — the only time an ordinary square costs anything. When it completes, their listing is marked evicted, their /go/ link answers "Gone (probably evicted 💀)", and the feed posts a line like "💀 newsite.com evicted oldsite.com for $1" — pushed over WebSockets to every open browser. Their deed page still exists and shows the status, views, clicks and kisses they collected.
Eviction also has an anonymous variant: bulldozing pays the same price but places nothing — the square is emptied and reopens at $0. Only live listings can be evicted, and only one eviction at a time: if someone else is mid-checkout on the same square, you're told so ("Vultures everywhere"). The Throne follows the same rule from a $100 base: $200, $400, $800 and so on. There is no protection window and no way to pay for immunity — kissing an icon is affection, not armour. Full rules at How Square Town works — the complete rulebook.
Where else it appears
Pay-more-to-take-over is an old idea. As of August 2026: earth.tattoo evicts geographic tiles at $1 → $2 → $4 → $8 (crypto only, prior owner emailed); TymeSqr doubles the price but pays the evicted owner 1.5×; Tocka raises a pixel by 1¢ per takeover; Satoshi's Place lets anyone overpaint for one satoshi; TabRush adds 40 % per sale "until someone steals it"; Ethereum Pixels (2017) auto-incremented the price on every ownership change. Harberger-tax sites (Sherwood, This Artwork Is Always On Sale) keep everything permanently for sale at an owner-set price. Square Town's version is the plainest: fixed 2×, on a favicon wall, with the eviction shouted to everyone.
Example
You claim the cell next to the Throne's aura for free. A competitor evicts you for $1. You take it back for $2. They come back at $4. At this point the square has earned Square Town $7 and both of you have been publicly deposed twice. The feed enjoyed it. See The economics of eviction: what doubling prices actually do for when to stop.
FAQ
How much does it cost to evict someone?
Double what the current owner paid for that square, $1 minimum. A free square costs $1 to evict, the next owner $2; the Throne starts at $100 so the first eviction costs $200.
Do I get my money back if I'm evicted?
No. Square Town pays out nothing to the evicted owner (and a free claim has nothing to refund). You get a warning email at the address you claimed with. Your deed still shows the analytics your square collected.
Can I protect my square from eviction?
No. The only defence is that evicting you costs double what you paid ($1 minimum) — so if you were evicted and take the square back, the next attacker pays double again.
Is an evicted site announced?
Yes. Every eviction appears in the live feed for everyone watching, naming both domains and the price.