Introduction

So you have arrived at the HITCOIN forum. Perhaps you were looking at the board index, or a board told you that it is off limits until you hold HITCOIN, and you are wondering what to do next.

Guests can read every public board. A verified wallet can post. Holders get the War Room, and wallets holding at least 0.1% of supply can put pitches on the ballot. There is no registration form, no password, and no email: the wallet is the account. Every week has three parts, vote, swap, burn, and the box at the top of the board index always tells you your move. We start by describing four key areas that you will see on every visit:

New here? The guided tour walks a logged-in wallet through vote, swap, and burn in four steps, with Next, Back, and Skip.

• The Main Menu
• The Board Index
• The Message Index
• The Topic

The Main Menu

Supposing you have arrived as a guest, the main menu (which appears on every page) comprises these buttons:

• Home, which takes you back to the board index.
• Help, which brings you to this guide.
• Docs, which describes how the weekly takeover works, number by number.
• Faucet, where your browser mines a share of the daily HITCOIN pot. See Faucet.
• Search, which lets you search the boards you can read.
• Members, which lists every verified wallet with its rank.
• Log in, which connects a wallet or lets you continue as a guest.

Once you have connected a wallet, the menu looks a little different:

• Home, Help, Docs, Faucet, Search, and Members (as before).
• Profile, which opens your own member page: rank, Activity, Merit, holdings, and signature.
• Account and Log out, in the welcome box above the menu.

Holders also see a War Room shortcut on the right of the menu. Guests see it too, and get the classic error page when they click it.

The Board Index

The board index (forum home page) carries the news line, the war chest figures, and the boards themselves. The core of the interface looks like this:

• The forum name in the masthead links back to the top of the board index.
• The category groups boards. The right side of its bar shows the current deal phase.
• The board name links to the message index for that board. The access tag beside it says who can read it: Public or Holders.
• The board description explains the content of the board.
• Topics / Posts counts what has been written there.
• Last post shows the subject, author, and time of the newest reply in that board.
• The legend under the table marks public boards and restricted boards. Restricted boards render the error page for readers without access.

The Message Index

Like the board index, the message index is straightforward when reduced to its essential components:

• The navigation tree at the top shows where you are.
• The page numbers link to further pages of the board.
• New topic starts a topic in this board. It is active only when your wallet may post here (see Posting).
• Subject / Started by, Replies / Views, and Last post describe each topic. The subject links to the start of the topic; member names link to their profiles.
• The topic icons in the left column are explained by the key below the table. Deal threads carry their phase in the subject.

The Topic

Sometimes referred to as threads, topics are where you find the actual messages:

• The page numbers link to further pages of the topic. Four posts fit on a page.
• Reply jumps to the Quick reply box at the bottom of the page.
• The author name links to the profile. The rank, its pips, Activity, and Merit sit under it.
• Quote copies the post into your reply.
• Report to moderator sends a post to the forum staff with a short reason.
• The signature is a short line the author sets on the profile page.
• In a deal thread, the ballot sits above the posts and the first post carries the deal terms and the swap panel. See Deals.

Logging in

Click Log in in the welcome box. You get two choices:

• Connect wallet. Sign a message with your wallet. Nothing is transferred. The forum reads your HITCOIN balance from the chain, together with tokens you have locked in a vote and earn-out you have not claimed yet, and gives you the matching access.
• On a phone. Open the forum inside your wallet app (Robinhood Wallet, Rabby, MetaMask all have a browser), or use the wallet app button, which connects through a QR code on a computer and a wallet list on a phone.
• Continue as guest. Read every public board without an account.

What each identity can do:

Access follows your balance. Sell below a threshold and the door closes; buy back and it opens again. Log out returns you to guest on the current page.

Profile

Every verified wallet has a member page reached from Profile in the main menu or from any post. It shows:

• Rank, computed from chain data rather than post count.
• Activity: the number of days the wallet has held HITCOIN.
• Merit: the number of deals the wallet has taken part in, by locking a vote, tendering, or filing an LOI.
• Holdings as a share of supply, and the wallet address.
• Signature: a short line of your own under every post.

Ranks move in both directions with the chain. The forum bot posts as Administrator.

Posting

• Quick reply sits at the bottom of every topic you may post in. Messages are plain text, up to 5,000 characters, and paragraphs are separated by a blank line.
• Quote on any post copies it above your reply. Quote the part you are answering, not the whole post.
• New topic on a board page starts a topic with a subject and a message.
• Where you may post. A verified wallet without HITCOIN posts in the Pitch Room only. Holders also post in the War Room and Meta. The deal board and the Graveyard are written by the forum bot.
• Locked topics take no replies. Closed deals are locked when they move to the Graveyard.
• Report to moderator flags spam or a post in the wrong board. Keep pitches in the Pitch Room and deal talk in the deal thread.

The full rules are in Posting rules and the Pitch Room.

Deals

One deal runs per week, in a single thread on the deal board. The subject carries the phase: [VOTE], then [SWAP], then [BURNED]. The box at the top of the board index, Your move, tells you the one thing to do right now. The thread holds everything you can act on:

• Vote. The ballot lists the coins sponsored this week and Pass. Enter an amount and press Vote on one row to lock HITCOIN behind it. Locks come back after the burn.
• Put a pitch on the ballot. Wallets holding at least 0.1% of supply paste the contract of a coin from the Pitch Room and lock the sponsor bond.
• Deal terms. Coin, war chest, this week’s budget, first buy, swap rate, premium, and the cancel price.
• Swap. Holders of the coin enter how much they swap and see what they receive at the fixed rate.
• Burned and Claim. What was burned, the transaction, and a Claim button for HITCOIN that has unlocked from your swap.
• Cancel the deal (greenmail) is open to anyone willing to pay the cancel price into the war chest.

Every number behind these panels is explained in the Docs.

Trading

The I accept HITCOIN board is where members sell goods and services for HITCOIN, the way the first Bitcoin forum kept a list of who accepted bitcoins. One offer per topic. The topic carries the price, a delivery note, and a status the poster moves as the deal goes. Guests can read every offer; posting needs a verified wallet that holds HITCOIN.

• Offer means you provide something. Wanted means you are looking for it. The category (Services, Goods, Digital goods, Jobs and bounties, Other) drives the filters at the top of the board.
• Price is in whole HITCOIN. Leave it at 0 to take offers in the replies. The directory can sort by price either way.
• Status runs Open, In progress, Done, Closed. Only the poster or a moderator changes it. A recorded payment moves an open topic to In progress on its own.
• Pay: the Pay button on a topic sends HITCOIN from the wallet you are logged in with straight to the other member, then records the transaction in the topic once the chain confirms it. The amount and the hash come from the chain, not from a text box.
• Feedback: when the deal is over, each side rates the other, positive or negative, with the amount and a line about what happened. Only members who posted in the topic can rate each other, once per topic. The totals are the Trust number under every handle and on the profile.
• No escrow yet. Pay after delivery, or in parts, and read the other member's feedback first. A member with more negatives than positives shows in red. Report a bad deal to the moderators from any post; proven scammers lose posting rights.

Searching

Search in the main menu looks through topic subjects and posts in the boards you can read. Guests search public boards; holders also search the War Room. Results link straight to the topic and page where the match sits.

Tip: search a ticker such as LROBIN to find its pitch, its deal thread, and its Graveyard record together.