Ranks: The Coins Under Your Name

Every Bitcointalk user has a rank. It's shown as a row of coins (or other symbols) under their username. New users start at the bottom; long-time contributors are at the top.

The ranks, in order:

1. Brand new — the position a profile shows immediately after registration
2. Newbie — the first rank above Brand new
3. Jr. Member — 30 activity + 1 merit
4. Member — 60 activity + 10 merit
5. Full Member — 120 activity + 100 merit
6. Sr. Member — 240 activity + 250 merit
7. Hero Member — 480 activity + 500 merit
8. Legendary — 1000 merit, plus an activity threshold assigned at random to each account somewhere between 775 and 1030

Legendary is not permanent. Activity can fall if posts that counted toward it are deleted.

There are also special ranks:

• Donator — those who donated to the forum
• VIP — manually assigned
• Staff — moderators and admin

Copper Membership is not a rank. It is a paid membership bought with a Bitcoin payment. It lifts some of the limits that normally come with a low rank, and it leaves your rank itself unchanged — check the current membership thread for exactly what it includes.

What is Activity?

Activity measures sustained participation over time, capped by how much you have actually posted. Both halves matter: time alone will not raise it, and posting volume alone will not either.

The formula is activity = min(time × 14, total posts), where time is the number of two-week periods in which you have posted. Activity updates in two-week periods. Posting more than fourteen times inside one period does not add more than fourteen activity.

This is important: posting 100 times in a day doesn't increase your activity faster than posting fourteen times across the same period. The forum is designed for steady participation, not bursts.

What is Merit?

Merit is a separate measurement, introduced in January 2018 to fight spam. We'll cover it in detail in the next lesson, but for now: Merit is given by other users when they think your post deserves recognition. It's the harder of the two requirements to reach higher ranks.

Why ranks matter

• Higher ranks = higher signature campaign rates. A Legendary often earns 5-10x what a Newbie earns from the same campaign.
• Trust signals. People are more willing to do business with higher-ranked users.
• Features. Rank affects signature length and styling, avatar and image permissions, and how often you can post. Copper Membership lifts some of these limits without changing rank.
• Reputation. A Legendary username carries weight that takes years to build.

But:

Reading a profile

Click any username. You'll see:

• Their activity number
• Their merit number
• Their rank
• Their post count
• Their join date
• Their trust profile (we'll cover this later)
• Their signature campaign (if any)
• Recent posts

This is your toolkit for evaluating anyone before interacting with them.