$RENO 101 for New Forum Members: Quest Categories, Tier Ladder, and How to Reach Bronze in Your First Week

If you have just signed up to home.renovation.reviews and are wondering what $RENO is and how you actually earn it, this is the practical walkthrough. The full mechanics are at Welcome to $RENO — Quests, Rewards, Leaderboard and the public payout record is at $RENO Payment Ledger — this topic covers what new members need to know in their first week.

What $RENO is, briefly

$RENO is the community currency for the forum. It is contribution-only — you do not buy it, there is no presale, and there is no claim button. Your balance grows automatically as you participate in ways the forum already rewards: posting, replying, getting likes, visiting on consecutive days, completing trust-level milestones, and engaging with the leaderboard. The score is server-side and updates in the background. You will never see a “claim” prompt because there is nothing to claim — the score itself is the record.

The 15 quest categories

The gamification engine credits $RENO automatically against 15 categories:

  • Onboarding (8 quests) — completing your profile, adding a Solana wallet, reading the welcome topic
  • Reviewer (24 quests) — posting reviews, replies, and follow-ups in the contractor-review categories
  • Topic Starter (15 quests) — starting new threads and seeing them gather replies
  • Helper (16 quests) — answering questions in the homeowner help categories
  • Beloved (16 quests) — receiving likes on your posts at increasing thresholds
  • Days Visited (18 quests) — visiting the forum on consecutive days
  • Reader (13 quests) — reading topics from start to finish
  • Voyager (13 quests) — visiting different categories
  • Time Read (12 quests) — cumulative time spent on topics
  • Trust Level (4 quests) — promotions through Discourse trust levels
  • Charity (5 quests) — participating in charity threads (Samm Simon 251 KM run for cancer research)
  • $RENO Holder (20 quests) — crossing balance thresholds and holding for streaks
  • Leaderboard (11 quests) — placing on the daily, weekly, and monthly leaderboard
  • Streaks (14 quests) — daily-visit and posting streaks
  • Milestones (20 quests) — major contribution milestones (100th post and similar)

Most members hit several categories every week without trying. The point of the breakdown is to show you which contribution shapes count — there is no single “main” activity.

The tier ladder

Your forum title is set automatically by your $RENO balance:

  • Beginner — 0
  • Bronze — 100
  • Silver — 1,000
  • Gold — 5,000
  • Platinum — 25,000
  • Diamond — 50,000

The title is granted by a Discourse badge tied to your server-side $RENO score, not stored client-side, so it cannot be manipulated by editing the page in devtools. When you cross a tier threshold, the badge granter (a SQL pass that runs hourly) re-grades your title in the next sweep — usually within an hour, sometimes sooner.

What to focus on in your first week

The fastest path from Beginner (0) to Bronze (100) for most new members:

  1. Complete your profile, add your Solana wallet, read the welcome topic — Onboarding category covers ~30 $RENO right there.
  2. Visit the forum on 7 consecutive days — Days Visited category adds another ~20-40 $RENO over the week.
  3. Answer one homeowner question substantively — Helper category adds ~15-30 depending on how the answer is received.
  4. Get one of your posts liked — Beloved + leaderboard ripple usually adds another ~10-25 over the next few days.

That puts most active new members at Bronze within their first week. Silver (1,000) is achievable in 3-4 weeks of regular contribution. Gold and above are for long-term members.

A note on the Solana wallet field

When you sign up, the form has a Solana wallet field. Filling this in is what makes you eligible for on-chain settlement when $RENO mints to mainnet. Pre-mint, your balance is recorded forum-side; post-mint, the same balance settles to the wallet you linked here. The payment ledger at $RENO Payment Ledger has columns for both pre-mint and post-mint rows, so the audit trail carries through the on-chain handoff.

If you signed up without adding a wallet, you can add or update it later in your Discourse user settings.

Common questions

  • Do I lose $RENO if I stop posting? No. The score is monotonic — it only goes up. Tier titles persist.
  • Can I send $RENO to other users? Not pre-mint. Post-mint, on-chain transfer will be the mechanism.
  • What is the payment ledger? A public, append-only forum thread that records every $RENO payout event. Anyone can audit it: $RENO Payment Ledger
  • Where is the leaderboard? /leaderboard/1 — top 100 active contributors by $RENO score.

Track your $RENO progress on this topic as you work through your first month. Top contributors at the homeowner-and-trades intersection are tier-up candidates. Drop a reply with your first-week numbers.