Last updated 2 September 2026

The Rules

The mechanic should be explainable in one sentence: one owner controls the button, the next open takeover costs at least 2× the current value plus 5%, and a buyer can pay more for a Time Shield that temporarily closes all takeovers.

One button, one owner

1. The public page has exactly one active owner at a time.
2. The server—not the browser—calculates the live takeover price.
3. A verified Stripe payment transfers ownership atomically.
4. The previous owner moves into the permanent public archive.
5. Every verified takeover can receive a shareable receipt with its initial takeover price, current or final button value, boosts, rank, dates, clicks, and submitted destination.
6. The new destination receives button clicks until a higher takeover completes or the placement is removed under the Terms.

The Takeover Tape

• Every verified takeover after the founding owner permanently records the exact active ownership receipt it displaced inside the same atomic transaction.
• The public Tape links both receipts and publishes the new takeover's verified pre-tax price and activation time. Opening, abandoning, or failing checkout never creates a rivalry.
• One defeated receipt can have only one direct successor. A receipt can name at most one direct predecessor, so the public sequence cannot branch or be rewritten later.
• Submitted owner names are public receipt labels. A matchup does not verify legal identity, prove common ownership or affiliation, accuse either party of wrongdoing, create an endorsement, or promise any result.

Price and payment

• The next minimum is 2× the current value plus 5% of that doubled amount, rounded up to a whole cent. A configured absolute increase also applies as a low-value floor.
• Examples: a $2 value requires at least $4.20; a $4.20 value requires at least $8.82.
• A buyer may choose an exact higher amount through Raise the Floor. If that payment wins, the full verified amount becomes the new current value.
• All displayed amounts use the configured currency. Stripe Checkout shows the final charge before payment.
• Opening checkout does not reserve the button. Verified payment is what counts.
• If competing buyers pay against the same old price, the first valid payment wins; later stale payments are reviewed for refund.
• You cannot pay below the live minimum, change the exact server-created amount inside Stripe Checkout, or bypass checkout to claim ownership.

Time Shields

• Every takeover chooses either “Until outbid” or one published Time Shield: 24 hours, 3 days, or 7 days.
• “Until outbid” adds no time premium and can be replaced by the next valid takeover immediately after activation.
• A Time Shield costs the greater of its published minimum premium or its percentage premium: 24 hours adds at least $10 or 50% of the open takeover price; 3 days adds at least $25 or 100%; 7 days adds at least $75 or 200%.
• The full verified payment—including the Time Shield premium and any voluntary Raise the Floor amount—becomes the owner's public Button value. Once the shield expires, the next minimum is calculated from that full value.
• Protected time starts only when the signed Stripe payment is verified and the atomic takeover commits. During that exact period, no competing takeover can replace the owner.
• A Defense Boost raises value but does not extend or restart a Time Shield. Paying above a selected takeover option raises the value but does not add time.
• Time Shield protection concerns competing takeovers only. It does not guarantee traffic, clicks, uninterrupted site availability, embedded distribution, or immunity from removal required for legal, safety, payment, or rules enforcement.

Back the owner

• While an owner is active, a visitor may buy a Defense Boost of at least the displayed minimum, normally $1 in a USD deployment.
• A verified boost keeps the same owner in control and adds the paid pre-tax amount to that owner's public button value. Applied boosts stack, so the next takeover minimum is recalculated from the higher value.
• A Defense Boost is not a cheaper takeover. It never transfers ownership or changes the Button destination.
• A backer may add an optional public name or brand and short message. Anonymous boosts still show their real paid amount.
• A boost does not give the backer ownership, a destination link, button clicks, guaranteed visibility, a refund when the owner is later outbid, or any financial interest. It is not a donation, investment, security, or prize.
• If the named owner has already lost control when the signed payment event is fulfilled, the boost is not applied and the payment is marked for refund review.
• Touristas Technologies may hide a backer name or message for moderation while retaining the verified payment and button-value record.

The Founding 100

• Takeover sequence numbers 1 through 100 receive a numbered Founding 100 mark on supported public receipts and share assets.
• A slot is assigned only when a still-valid Stripe payment is verified and the atomic ownership transfer commits. Checkout never reserves a slot.
• The mark recognizes an early takeover record inside this experiment. It is not equity, a security, a prize, an endorsement, or a promise of financial value.
• The same buyer may earn more than one mark through separate verified takeovers. Marks remain subject to legal, safety, moderation, and service-availability limits.

The Daily Crown

• Each Daily Crown runs from 00:00:00 through 23:59:59 UTC. The active day remains live until it closes.
• The owner with the greatest verified control time during that UTC day wins. If control time ties exactly, the owner whose overlapping reign began first ranks higher.
• A closed day records its winner, control time, end-of-reign value, verified spend, takeover and boost counts, and deduplicated button clicks for that day. Later activity does not recalculate it.
• The Daily Crown is a derived public archive, not a separate purchase, prize, endorsement, financial interest, or guarantee of results. A day with no owner has no winner.

The 24H Arena

• The 24H Arena is a rolling ranking derived from verified payments in the immediately preceding 24 hours. It does not use a fixed UTC day.
• Each owner's verified takeover price enters that owner's Arena score when the takeover begins. Each verified Defense Boost enters the same owner's score when the boost applies. Every payment leaves the score exactly 24 hours after its own qualifying time.
• Qualifying payments are grouped by ownership receipt. A later takeover by the same name or brand is a separate Arena entry because it creates a separate verified reign and receipt.
• Owners rank by total qualifying spend. Exact spend ties favor the owner whose earliest still-qualifying payment occurred first, followed by the earlier verified reign and a stable internal record order if still tied.
• Displayed Arena clicks are deduplicated button clicks delivered during the same rolling window. They do not affect rank.
• The Arena is a derived live scoreboard, not a separate purchase, prize, endorsement, audited advertising result, property right, or financial interest. It can change whenever a payment arrives or expires, and it remains honestly empty until a real payment qualifies.

The Hall of Fame record books

• The public Hall of Fame maintains four derived all-time rankings: highest final button value, longest uninterrupted verified reign, most deduplicated tracked clicks during one reign, and most applied Defense Boosts during one reign.
• Value includes the verified takeover price plus applied Defense Boosts. Reign time runs from the atomic takeover until the next atomic takeover, or the current server time while an owner remains active.
• A zero-click owner does not hold a click record, and an owner with no applied boost does not hold a defense record. Those boards remain empty until a real qualifying event exists.
• Defense rank is decided first by boost count, then verified boost total. Other rankings use their named metric. Exact ties favor the earlier verified reign, followed by a stable internal record order if still tied.
• Record ranks can change as a live reign, click count, or defense count grows. They are public recognition inside the experiment, not a separate purchase, prize, endorsement, audited advertising claim, or guarantee of results.

Comeback Chains

• An archived ownership receipt can start a linked reclaim checkout. The server validates that exact predecessor receipt before creating checkout.
• If the reclaim payment remains valid and wins, its new ownership receipt permanently records the predecessor ID. Opening or abandoning checkout never creates a chain link.
• A receipt's chain follows only its explicit predecessor path. Similar names, logos, domains, categories, payment details, or browser activity are never used to merge separate owners automatically.
• Cumulative chain value is the sum of each linked receipt's current or final verified button value, including applied Defense Boosts. Chain clicks, defenses, reigns, and control time are sums of those linked public receipts.
• A Comeback Chain proves receipt-to-receipt paid lineage, not the legal identity of a buyer, common ownership of submitted brands, endorsement, affiliation, a prize, property right, or guaranteed result.

Category champions

• Every takeover must choose exactly one supported public category. The selected category is validated on the server, stored with the payment attempt, and fixed on the verified ownership record created by that payment.
• Each category ranks its owners by current or final verified button value. Exact ties favor the earlier verified reign, followed by a stable internal record order if still tied.
• A category is not a separate button, placement, product, or payment. Entering or retaking a category requires winning the single global button at its live server-calculated minimum.
• Category labels describe a promotional lane, not regulatory status, endorsement, affiliation, factual certification, or permission to promote content otherwise prohibited by these Rules.
• A category rank can change after a later owner chooses the same lane or a verified Defense Boost changes a qualifying owner's value. Category titles are public recognition, not prizes, property rights, or guarantees of results.

What you may promote

You may promote a lawful public website, product, company, creator profile, campaign, or project that you own or are authorized to represent. Your destination must identify its responsible operator and provide legally required contact, company, consumer, and privacy information.

Your button label is public advertising copy. It must be accurate, lawful, non-deceptive, and comply with the same content restrictions as your name, message, logo, and destination.

Outbound attribution

For ordinary destinations, the Service adds missing UTM source, medium, campaign, and content values so an owner can recognize button traffic. Existing UTM values are preserved. Signed or tokenized URLs are left unchanged to avoid invalidating them. Attribution is a convenience, not a guarantee that a third-party analytics service will record or classify every visit.

Verified Reach

• Recorded Reach counts accepted human-browser heartbeats on the main Button page and official live Button iframe after known-bot and origin checks.
• The same salted visitor fingerprint can create at most one impression per surface in a thirty-minute bucket. A later bucket can count again, so this is deduplicated reach delivery—not lifetime unique people.
• When an owner is active, a newly accepted reach event is attributed to that exact ownership receipt. Reach recorded while the position is open remains only in the Service-wide total.
• The public click-to-reach rate is tracked clicks divided by Recorded Reach impressions. Different measurement and deduplication rules can make it differ from third-party analytics or exceed ordinary campaign expectations.
• Reach and click-to-reach are first-party operational estimates, not audited advertising metrics, guarantees, invoices, endorsements, prizes, or evidence that a visitor actually saw every pixel or read the placement.

The live Button embed

• The official live Button iframe displays the same current verified owner, public value, call to action, and destination as the main Service. A publisher installs it once; later verified takeovers update its contents automatically.
• A legitimate owner-button click inside the widget uses the same tracked redirect, short-window deduplication, outbound safety rules, and public owner click count as a click on the main page.
• Publishers may place the unmodified official iframe on lawful websites. They must not cover its paid-placement label, intercept or replace its destination, simulate clicks, misrepresent endorsement, or use it in content prohibited by these Rules.
• An embed is voluntary and can be removed by its publisher or disabled by Touristas Technologies. Ownership does not guarantee that any publisher installs or keeps the widget, any number of embedded impressions or clicks, or any commercial result.
• The widget is not a partnership, syndication agreement, endorsement, affiliate relationship, or separate paid placement between the owner and an embedding publisher.

Personalized challenges

• Challenge pages may name a public-facing brand, creator, organization, or project.
• Submitting the composer can add that public-facing name and its aggregate count to the public Most Wanted board.
• A challenge count records explicit submissions—not page views, votes, accusations, endorsements, or affiliation. Obvious repeat submissions for the same target are deduplicated within a UTC day.
• Do not enter private contact details, sensitive information, confidential information, or information about a child.
• Do not use a challenge for impersonation, threats, defamation, targeted harassment, discrimination, or misleading claims.
• A challenge is a visitor-created invitation. It never implies that the named party created it, agreed to participate, or endorses the Service.
• Touristas Technologies may hide a target, disable its challenge page, stop new submissions, or remove it from the public ranking for safety, legal, rights, or integrity reasons.

What is not allowed

• Malware, phishing, credential theft, scams, deceptive redirects, or impersonation.
• Illegal goods or services, counterfeit products, or infringement of copyright, trademark, privacy, or publicity rights.
• Explicit sexual content, exploitation, hate, targeted harassment, or incitement to violence.
• Unlicensed gambling, financial, medical, weapons, or other regulated offers.
• Private-network destinations, URLs containing credentials, or link shorteners intended to hide the true destination.
• Fake clicks, automated clicking, rate-limit bypass, webhook interference, or other manipulation of public counts.

Public record

Owner name, logo, message, button label, destination, initial takeover price, current or final button value, dates, exact displaced and successor receipt relationships, Takeover Tape matchups, all-time, category, and rolling Arena ranks, daily control time, qualifying payment times, rolling spend, Recorded Reach, click-to-reach rate, and deduplicated click count are public. Optional backer names and messages, verified boost amounts, and boost counts can also be public. Ownership history, receipt pages, record books, Takeover Tape entries, and closed Daily Crown scorecards remain visible after an outbid, subject to moderation and legal requirements. Reach and clicks are operational estimates, not audited ad metrics.

No guaranteed outcome

A takeover buys temporary advertising placement. A selected Time Shield blocks competing takeovers only for its exact purchased period; it does not promise uninterrupted availability or any audience or commercial result. A Defense Boost buys immediate public participation in the owner's value record. No purchase guarantees traffic, conversions, sales, press, social reach, or investment return. The challenge is public; the outcome is yours.

Moderation

Touristas Technologies may refuse or remove content that breaks these rules, creates security or legal risk, or harms the integrity of the experiment. Rights holders and affected people can use the route in the Legal Notice to report a listing.

These Rules are a readable operational summary. The Terms of Service control if there is a conflict.