Rules of the ArenaOfficial
How rankings work, war chest mechanics, whale attribution, and board governance.
How Ranking Works (Cumulative Pools)
- Rank is determined solely by the total accumulated dollar amount in an entity's war chest. There is no separate bidding mode, decay, or time-weighted score.
- Micro-bids stack. The minimum contribution is $1, and every dollar is added to the same cumulative pool.
- To reclaim rank #1, a challenger only needs to pay (current #1 pool − your pool) + $1.
- If two war chests are equal, the earlier listing keeps the higher rank.
Reclaim #1
(current #1 pool − your pool) + $1
Chief Whale & Patron Status
- The single highest financial backer of an entity is crowned Chief Whale.
- The Chief Whale's X handle and website are highlighted on the homepage spotlight and on arena leaderboard cards.
- Each entity page shows a public Top 50 patrons breakdown so the war chest is attributable, not anonymous.
Traffic & Click Tracking
- All outbound clicks from names, avatars, and patron links route through /r/[slug] (or /r/patron/[id]).
- That hop atomically increments a public click counter, then issues a 307 redirect to the destination website. No personal user cookies are stored for this count.
- Referral and affiliate tracking parameters (utm_*, ref, gclid, fbclid, and similar) are stripped from the destination URL so outbound links stay clean.
Category Governance & Relocation
- Entities must be submitted to the arena that actually describes them — AI models in AI Models, chains in Crypto, and so on.
- ontop.bot reserves the right to move a misplaced listing to its correct category.
- Relocated entities keep 100% of their accumulated war chest, backer rankings, Chief Whale status, and click history.
Prohibited Submissions
- Zero tolerance for adult or NSFW content, malware, phishing, hate speech, or invite-only spam (Discord/Telegram invite links used as the destination).
- Violating listings are removed permanently. Contributions and spawn bounties tied to those listings are not refunded.
Payments & Finality
- Card payments and digital wallets are processed by Polar.sh as merchant of record. Crypto payments settle on-chain via processors such as NOWPayments or Helio.
- Boosts and arena-creation bounties (currently $5) are captured immediately and are non-refundable once settled.
- A completed payment is the source of truth for rank. Chargebacks or failed on-chain settlements do not keep a listing on the board.