Rules

One #1 spot. Real money. Public record. Read this before you play.

01What you are buying

A takeover buys placement: your X identity displayed in the #1 position on this site, links routed to your X profile, the option to designate one link — a post from your own X account, or another destination of your choosing — as The Ruler's Decree, a promoted link on the throne card with first-party click counting — and inclusion in every public announcement of the takeover, for as long as your reign lasts.

You are buying the attention delivered during your reign. You are not buying a guaranteed reign length, a guaranteed number of profile visits, followers, a resale value, or the right not to be dethroned. Your reign can end sixty seconds after it starts.

02How the price moves

Purge Hour is a fixed daily event. For sixty minutes the normal decay rate doubles, then normal decay resumes. It affects only how fast the displayed price falls; the two-hour post-takeover hold is unaffected while it lasts.

Season finale: Season 1 ends at 00:00 UTC on January 1, 2027. The account holding #1 at that moment is recorded as the Emperor of Season 1 — a permanent, purely honorary title in the public record. The finale grants no payment, refund, or continued placement; the operator may open a new season afterward under posted rules.

When taking #1, a buyer may choose an opening reserve by setting a higher total opening investment. Stripe charges that full displayed total once. If the takeover succeeds, the dethrone price immediately opens at 115% of that total; if the buyer leaves the reserve at the base amount, only the live takeover price is charged.

The current ruler may later use Fortify Your Reign to prepay additional promotional-placement spend. The added payment increases that reign's total investment, immediately resets the dethrone price to 115% of the new total, and restarts the two-hour price hold without restarting the reign timer. After the hold, normal decay resumes.

An opening reserve or fortification is not an automatic bid, stored balance, refundable deposit, or permanent minimum price. It is completed placement spend. A challenger can still dethrone the ruler immediately by paying the displayed price, and the price can later decay below the ruler's total investment.

The price can and will fall below what the current ruler paid. This is intentional. A long reign becomes a cheap target. The ruler paid for the attention received while ruling — not for a protected position.

03Revenge credit

When you are dethroned, you bank 20% of the live takeover price that removed you as revenge credit. A challenger's voluntary opening reserve above that live price does not increase the prior ruler's credit. Revenge credit cannot be withdrawn, transferred, or refunded. It applies automatically the next time you take #1, reducing the cash required.

04Identity

Your verified X account is your identity here. Paid takeovers require Sign in with X, and the identity returned by X—not a browser-supplied handle—is used for placement. You may promote only an account you control or are authorized to represent. An X post promoted as The Ruler's Decree must be published by the ruler's own verified account; any other decree destination is the ruler's sole responsibility and must comply with these Rules. The operator may remove a decree that violates them, and the reign stands. Impersonation or deceptive identity use is grounds for rejection, removal, suspension, and loss of associated metrics or credits.

05The record

Every reign — who, what was paid, how long it lasted, who ended it, and the attention it generated — is intended to be a public record. Takeovers may be announced automatically from @dethronelive with both handles named. Sign in with X does not authorize DETHRONE to post from your account. Records may be corrected or removed when required by law, safety, X policy, third-party rights, or these Rules.

06Attention metrics

Profile visits are counted first-party: every outbound click to a ruler's X profile passes through this site and is recorded. Unique visitors are deduplicated per day; obvious bot traffic is filtered. Clicks on The Ruler's Decree are counted the same first-party way. We report what we can measure ourselves and label everything else as context, not attribution.

07The Court

The top ten of Most attention generated hold royal titles, in order: 👑 King, Prince, Duke, Marquess, Earl, Viscount, Baron, Knight, Squire, Page. Titles are held, not owned \u2014 they move the moment the leaderboard does. The King is whoever has delivered the most unique visitors this season, which is not necessarily whoever sits on the throne: the throne is bought, the crown is earned.

08Fair play

Use of DETHRONE must comply with the X Terms of Service, X Rules, and all policies that apply to your account and conduct. DETHRONE's own API and bot activity is also subject to the X Developer Policy and Automation Rules.

• No platform manipulation: no bots, click farms, artificial traffic, coordinated inauthentic activity, spam, mass automation, fake accounts, or attempts to inflate visits, rankings, or X engagement.
• No paid X engagement: a takeover buys placement on dethrone.live only. DETHRONE does not pay, require, or reward follows, likes, replies, reposts, posts, or other X actions.
• No impersonation or evasion: no deceptive identities, account misuse, ban evasion, or attempts to circumvent X or DETHRONE enforcement.
• No harmful or unlawful content: no threats, harassment, hateful conduct, doxxing, private information, non-consensual intimate media, exploitation, fraud, malware, illegal goods, or unlawful activity.
• Respect rights: no content that infringes copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other third-party rights.
• Trash talk is part of the game. Keep it aimed at the competition—not a person's protected traits, safety, family, private life, or right to use X.

DETHRONE may reject, remove, restrict, suspend, correct, or void any placement, message, metric, title, or credit that violates these Rules, the Terms, law, third-party rights, or platform policy.

09Payments

Live payments are processed by Stripe. A payment may be refunded when it loses a simultaneous-takeover race, is duplicated, cannot produce placement because of a verified technical failure, is rejected before fulfillment, or must be refunded by law. Test or sandbox payments do not create production placement. See the Terms of Service for the binding payment terms.

10The house

Takeover payments go to Attention Markets, LLC d/b/a 10X Companies, the operator of DETHRONE. This is a paid-placement product — not a wager, raffle, sweepstakes, prize, security, or investment. Nothing promises profit, followers, traffic, engagement, or outcomes. DETHRONE is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by X Corp.