Learn · How the city works
City Coin and your account balance
Where CC comes from, why some of it is reserved, and how it connects to account equity.
Last updated: 2026-09-20
The currency stays inside the city
City Coin (CC) is the unit used for stock prices, account balances, collateral and Lifestyle purchases in MockTradeCity. It has no real monetary value. You cannot deposit money to purchase CC, withdraw it, redeem it for real assets or turn an account's simulated performance into cash. A share priced at 25 CC is a claim within this fictional market, not a security priced in dollars under another label.
Starting CC is claimed after registration through Account. The current amount appears in the product, so there is no need to rely on a remembered figure from an older guide. Every credited amount has a corresponding account record. Trading then moves CC between participants through settlement. The same accounting discipline applies to virtual institutions and market makers; their ability to trade is limited by their resources and the city's rules.
Credits outside trading
Daily check-in uses the New York calendar date. Consecutive check-ins move through seven reward levels, staying at the highest level after the seventh day while the streak continues. A missed day starts the progression again. The check-in panel displays the current reward and progression. Because the date boundary is in New York, your local midnight may not be the moment a new claim becomes available in the city.
Email verification has a one-time reward. Invitations can also credit CC when an invited friend registers and verifies their email, subject to the inviter's daily reward limit. City relief is different: eligible accounts below a displayed equity threshold can request a top-up toward a target, followed by a cooldown. The panels give the current amounts and conditions. These mechanisms are not deposits, and creating extra accounts to farm credits is prohibited.
Available does not mean total
Available CC is the amount currently free for another use. A pending purchase can move part of that amount into reserved CC. For a cash-funded Limit order, the initial reservation is based on the limit price times the quantity. A Market order uses its protective price for this purpose. Reserving CC does not destroy it; it prevents the same coins from funding two different commitments at the same time.
Consider an otherwise unencumbered cash account with 10,000 CC. A Limit order to buy 100 shares at 20 CC reserves 2,000 CC, leaving 8,000 CC available. If the order is canceled without any fills, that reservation returns to available funds. If part fills, settlement uses the corresponding amount and the remaining order keeps its required reservation. Canceling afterward releases only the unfinished part; it cannot erase the shares already purchased.
Equity includes assets and obligations
Account equity combines Available CC, reserved CC, collateral and long-position Market value, then subtracts short liabilities and any outstanding margin debt. Long positions are valued using the latest traded prices. A short liability reflects the value of the shares that must be bought back. This is why equity can move while you place no new orders: changing prices revalue an existing position even though the number of shares stays the same.
A reservation by itself normally changes the location of funds, not account equity. Borrowing CC is different from receiving a reward because the borrowed amount comes with a liability. Likewise, cash received from a short sale is accompanied by an obligation to return shares. Looking at cash alone can therefore give an incomplete picture. Lifestyle assets are presented separately from trading equity and do not become trading collateral merely because they contribute to total wealth.
Where to check CC in the city
Account brings the balance components together. If Available CC is lower than expected, the open-order list helps identify pending reservations; the collateral and debt figures explain other commitments. The funds history records changes to available and reserved amounts. Reading the order status beside the account entry connects a movement of CC to a concrete event such as acceptance, a fill, cancellation or release, rather than treating every decrease as a trading loss.
The check-in, invitation and relief panels answer a different set of questions: whether a claim is available, what amount applies and when a limit or cooldown ends. Their displayed conditions take precedence over examples in an article. For a completed trade, Positions and order history show what was acquired or closed. For the overall account, equity includes the liabilities as well as the assets. All of these numbers remain fictional CC inside MockTradeCity.