Why are TBT bells worth so much?

[Sara?]

Do you know how many in-game bells you can get for 10 TBT bells ? Millions...

I don't understand. TBT bells are generated by commenting posts, or posting on the forum. A few "amazing " here and there, and BAM! 10TBT.

Do you know how long I have to grind in-game for 1 million bells? Days ! I don't understand it, and it feels broken. Is it just me that does not get it?

I can give u bells if you ever need and you can give me TBTs ! The worth of tbt currency been higher than bells is because bells are easy to come around if you play long enough, i mean i have plenty of bells and tbts are harder to come by if what you want is to buy collectives some go as far as 10.000 tbt lol it just depends how demanded, popular and scare that collective is

 

[Bluebellie]

I don’t know. I feel like tbt are harder to come by for me. That’s mainly because I’m always spending though. I like collectibles, I like bells, and I never have enough of either.

 

[Miss Misty]

Like others have said, TBT is more versatile and once you're done with paying off your house, bells accumulate super quickly because there's nothing left to spend them on. I have over 20m right now and that's with not even trying (I don't save up fish/bugs for CJ/Flick in particular - if I catch things while they're in town, I sell to them, but I only stockpile 3 of each type for models anymore; I also don't go to other peoples' towns to sell turnips, I want to get the 10m achievement using my own town's stalk market alone). I just dump bells in my ADB when having bags in my inventory gets annoying. Where most people are in the game, they also don't need IGB anymore and many people also already have their dreamies so there is limited interest in NMTs as well.

 

[Livia]

But you'd have to cheat, and time travel to do so? I don't time travel, so in-game bells are much more work to accumulate than dropping comments here and there on this forum.

I don't time travel and I have over 30 million bells in the abd on my main island. I also have over 1 million on my second island with no time travel.

 

[UglyMonsterFace]

But you'd have to cheat, and time travel to do so? I don't time travel, so in-game bells are much more work to accumulate than dropping comments here and there on this forum.

You wouldn't have to time travel or "cheat" to play the stalk market. I don't time travel either. You just need to go to another island with high turnip prices and sell there I've never time travelled a single time. I understand for some, this is more difficult if they don't have online. But unfortunately, the majority of players are what determines the market value of things. Because for the majority, bells are now inconsequential, tbt is what is valued more *on this forum*. Meanwhile, it's probably different on other platforms.

 

[tessa grace]

Not to be like bragging or anything, but I find it quite easy to get bells in game. If I just go fishing and stuff for a while I can make hundreds of thousands of bells. I think that the worth of bells has gone down during the past couple games (example, what would've been 2000 bells for a bathtub is now like 64000) so I think that also something to do with it. So I think that the worth of IGB has gone down over the years which is why the worth of TBT bells is so high. Just my opinion though. Hope this helps!

 

[StephOnACNL]

Wow. I once gave someone 100tbt to come to their island and sell my turnips and I only made 3 trips. That was like 2 months ago? Did they play me?

 

[tessa grace]

Wow. I once gave someone 100tbt to come to their island and sell my turnips and I only made 3 trips. That was like 2 months ago? Did they play me?

absolutely. i usually pay around 10-15 tbt for turnips.

 

[Serabee]

TBH, I don't really get it, either. But I stopped really trying to earn IGBs after paying off all my loans on all my characters. So I've been hovering around 1.5-2 mil. IGBs at any given time. On the other hand, I love chatting on here, so I have no shortage of TBT. So... while I don't quite get why they're worth as much as they are, DANG am I glad they are

Post automatically merged: Jan 8, 2021

absolutely. i usually pay around 10-15 tbt for turnips.

TBF, they could've also been unaware about the value. When I first started buying villagers I'd be like "I'll pay you 250 TBT" and people were like Fortunately they were experienced users who were able to tell me that was nuts (I still overpaid for that first one, but I was fully aware of it and had no problems doing so since they were so nice). But TBT isn't exactly an intuitive currency, so there is a chance they weren't aware that that was too much.

 

[StephOnACNL]

absolutely. i usually pay around 10-15 tbt for turnips.

I guess I’m not that mad because I barely use my tbt so it doesn’t hold that much value to me, but that was rude of them

 

[tessa grace]

I guess I’m not that mad because I barely use my tbt so it doesn’t hold that much value to me, but that was rude of them

totally. i would give them bad feedback so other users know to steer clear.

 

[Halloqueen]

No complaints from me. TBT's high value helped me pay off some of my characters' houses by buying IGB, and has made it possible to acquire furniture, clothes, and other items I need. It's an understandably desirable currency due to a lot of members of the forum wanting to have nice collectible lineups, and more often than not you need TBT to acquire those from other members (though sometimes people accept alternative payment like Flight Rising stuff). It definitely beats having to save up hundreds of Nook Mile Tickets or a ton of IGB to buy items on Nookazon or some other place, in my opinion.

 

[LoyalDragonfly]

Thank you for asking this, OP, because it's been confusing me ever since I joined the forums. At first I thought it had to be too good to be true that the handful of TBTs I'd gotten for making a few posts talking about my favorite villagers were worth millions of IGB... I thought there had to be a twist, like 1 TBT is actually like 100 TBT or something weird like that in order for it to make sense in my head. I love it, though; I never thought I'd be able to ever get the 7-11 set without bankrupting myself IG, and and I was able to get all of it, plus other RV-exclusive furniture for NL, on the forums without needing to spend a single bell in game!

 

[Mikaiah]

you get tbt in increments of like 1-10, and collectibles cost thousands on the mid-high end
but the other reason is that we hit market saturation on both NH and NL since people just kept undercutting each other to get sales (too many sellers, not enough buyers), so that's what the situation is like in terms of that.

 

[That Marshal Fangirl]

There's a huge appeal of TBT beyond being able to trade it for IGB (in-game Bells). You can use it to buy art of your AC character or pretty much anything else in the Museum section, for starters. There are some very talented artists here who will work for TBT. Also, there are images known as "collectibles" that show up on people's profiles that are bought mostly with TBT. The collectibles are a huge motivator for a decent portion of members to accumulate TBT. Some are very rare or not often parted with and feel good to finally collect, while others are less exclusive but still nice additions to lineups (the term for the group of collectibles a user decides to display). TBT is versatile, which increases its desirability.

 

[Jacob]

Simply put, in game bells can be hacked, manipulated, or (previously) duplicated. TBT bells, not so much. For some, it's exponentially easier to get IGB than TBT, and while I think 1tbt for 1mil IGB is a bit crazy, it makes sense to need to offer extreme amounts of IGB that can be abused for TBT, which can't

 

[kikotoot]

Personally, I like to refrain from using TBT for in game things unless they're unorderable and I missed them or they're very grind and I've gotten most of the set (e.g. maybe I'll buy the last two or three mush DIYs I'm missing). If you want the ACNH economy to feel like the intended ACNH economy, barter! That's how I do most of my trades. That way TBT becomes something that you appreciate for how it lets you achieve things that you could've had but missed or don't have the time for (I'm fairly poor in game, but I haven't spent any TBT to get richer, because I like how you make bells in the game, for another example).

Part of what keeps TBT so valuable relative to in-game things is the fact that it's such a liquid and universal currency. You can spend it on just about anything that you and another user might share in common! Want a shiny hidden ability 5IV pokemon? TBT can get you that! On *top* of that, the forum has its own internal collectibles and other things like the beautiful backdrops that can only be obtained via TBT if not firsthand from events.

When ACNH first came out, very few people had star fragments or wands, so you could sell those for millions of IGB or 100 or so TBT. Now that they're more common amongst people, prices have dropped!

It's not so much that things in game aren't valuable, or that TBT is so incredibly valuable, but that TBT will always be something people want, whereas most video game things depreciate very quickly post-release as people become satisfied with what they have, or don't *need* to be the first one to show something off.

Really, I love what TBT lets you achieve in certain games when time might be a constraint! and I also limit myself with how I use it so games like ACNH can maintain an authenticity in certain aspects. The key thing is, TBT exists, it's *quite* powerful but what you let it do for you is up to you!

edit: just to edit what Jacob said, while TBT used to be exploitable in the past (I think people spam-created accounts to get 200 welcome bells or something like that), it's a very secure currency and has been for a decent number of years, so will retain its value against the depreciating video game things

 

[michealsmells]

People have said it above but it's the fluidity of TBT that makes it so valuable to me. I like that I can essentially take the work that I've spent in one game or one thing and reap the rewards in something else. Sometimes I'm just sitting on items or bells or have high turnip prices and I can turn that into some TBT. I can then use that TBT for collectibles or art, ooh I love buying art from the museum shop.

Sometimes I wanna draw and so I'll draw for TBT, and then I'll use that TBT to get Pokemon. @/Miharu helped me to complete my dex quickly in easily from a place I could trust. She also helped me get a bunch of competitively viable Pokemon to breed and really got me into competitive battling!

And someone also mentioned above- sometimes its just... nice to be nice. To give for cheap when, to some, its extraordinarily easy to get their hands on certain things like IGB or the art they can create whilst its harder to build up TBT.

Currency is arbitrary no matter where you find it, and its all about demand.

 

[Mick]

I don't think it's that TBT has a high value, it's more that in-game items are not worth a lot. Most of it is incredibly easy to obtain, and people on the trading boards like to undercut each other because the supply is enormous and the demand is usually not.

You'll find that people that post a lot also value their TBT a lot lower than those who don't. I often pay more than what people ask to avoid feeling like a criminal, and a while back I got tipped 100TBT once for explaining someone's math homework to them. Some people just don't like to sit on it.

 

[OswinOswald]

you get tbt in increments of like 1-10, and collectibles cost thousands on the mid-high end

Just to clarify, is 10 TBT the most you can get for a post? I think I had noticed that somewhere along the line 10 TBT was the most I was getting at a time, but I wasn’t totally sure. Anyway, Mikaiah’s point is quite correct then - in order to create enough lengthy posts on the forum (or even to create 10times the amount of small posts) to get enough for some of the higher end collectibles is a lot of typing!

And late game in ACNH, it’s easy to accumulate bells. Once your island is done, most of your catalog is completed, and your house upgrades have been paid off, the bells just start to accumulate. I think I have around 20mil sitting around right now, only a little of that was from doing a few weeks of turnips early on to get the Nook Miles achievement. Sometimes I would get a high price on my island and when you let people come over, they usually drop bells as a tip. So if you have a really good price, you can make a bunch of bells from that. Then I just get a bunch of daily chores. Or when I’m dreamy hunting, I run into a bunch of the money rock or tarantula/scorpion islands and then I just save those up and sell them to Flick later. Diving has been pretty lucrative too; since you can’t make models I just sell them all, and sometimes just looking for Pascal every day can nab me a good amount of bells.