You don’t buy a rank.
You buy a balance — and it burns down every day.
1 · Stake
Put money on a link. Whole dollars, $5 minimum. Rank is just every stake on the board, sorted.
2 · Burn
2% of your stake goes up in smoke daily. About 50 days of runway, whether you staked $50 or $5,000.
3 · Top up
Add to your balance any time — you only ever pay the difference. Stop, and you fade off the board.
First place costs $5 right now. Tomorrow it will cost less, because whoever is up there is losing ground while they sleep.
Nobody is on the board.
First place costs $5 and there is nobody to outbid. That will never be true again once someone takes it — but their stake starts burning the moment they do.