VERY Curious

So maybe it's just that I'm new to the game/forum, but I'm curious about two things:

1. People who are bell billionaires - where did the bells come from originally, before they were acquired through trading for villagers/items/TBTs etc.? Are they beetle hunting veterans?
2. What is the appeal of TBTs? How many things can you actually collect from the TBT shop? Is it more of a social thing, sort of like a different platform for expanding the same game after you've spent years on the "actual" game?

Most "Bellionaires" as of now got their Bells through selling their very old towns, or invested heavily through the Stalk Market (selling turnips)

TBT Bells are basically forum currency. Some people love to follow through this system as a form of prestige, such as additional icons, privilages, etc, on this forum. You can even use them to get villagers adopted into your town, and all kinds of in-game items through people who value this type of currency.

1. people who have lots of tbt have most likely been around on the forums for quite a while. either that or they may own a shop- many shop owners sell unorderables and gardening items, which are in really high demand, and so they make a lot of tbt there. there are also people who sell art, so members who make signatures or icons are also in pretty high demand and make a good amount of tbt from each piece of art. i'm not sure what you mean by "where did the bells come from originally," but people also make bells just by posting, so i guess tbt originate from there

2. for me, i like using tbt because it is easy to transfer between players (just a click their bell amount and enter the amount you want to give type of transaction), while using igb takes a lot more time (the paying player has to either set a ton of bell bags out on the ground or put a lot of random stuff up for sale in retail for the retail method, and the receiving player has to pick up all the bell bags and make multiple trips to and from their locker for big transactions). it's just easier for me, and i don't feel like i'm getting shortchanged when i get paid in tbt because i know that the general exchange rate is 1 tbt = 200k igb. i always know that i can always exchange my tbt for igb if i ever run low. i don't personally use the shop on the forum, but people like buying collectibles to display under their avatars (like cakes! and fruit! how cute) and also like to expand their mail inventory or be able to further customize their personas. i think i don't really differentiate between tbt and igb, but in the end, i know they all mean the same thing- like if i had 1 dollar in one hand and 100 pennies (i'm thinking american money haha) in another, i would just think "cool i have two dollars" because despite the specific values of each, in the end they all mean the same thing...

yikes i hope that made sense- it's late where i live and i just rambled on and on...

I have about 40 million bells and I earned most of it myself, the rest I got through giveaways or by selling things. It's hard work but it's nice to be able to afford whatever you need in the game! As for the TBT, I use it to buy items in game as well as collectibles from the shop. THey have no use or meaning aside from aesthetics but I think they're nice and they're certainly fun to collect!

I only have about 50 million bells in my ABD currently but I got them through beetle farming and hoarding perfect fruit and selling them when they were on premium in other towns! The stalk market was too annoying for me to keep up with, though people certainly rake in bells that way.

I got maybe 40-50 mil with bugs/sharks, around 20 mil with turnips (if not more), 10-15 mil selling TBT, the rest selling stuff here.