One Animal Crossing Exploit Can Provide Unlimited Bells, But Comes At A Cost (2024)

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, like other games in the franchise, uses Bells as its form of in-game currency. Bells are needed to buy items from merchants and to pay off the house that players buy from the iconic Tom Nook. As a result, players need to gather quite a few Bells to pay off their debt and design their island to their heart's content, and earning that many can be both difficult and time-consuming.

Living in the world of Animal Crossing is expensive, and the player generally can't move on to the next set of house upgrades until the previous one is paid off. In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the total cost to fully upgrade a house adds up to over five million Bells. Starting from a tent, there are seven upgrades that can be purchased. With such a hefty price tag, using exploits to get the maximum number of Bells can be a more tempting option compared to earning all those Bells through the usual options.

The Treasure Island Bell Exploit In ACNH

Getting Bells And Resources

The way this exploit works relies on a glitch that's usually turned on for Treasure Islands. This specific glitch has shopkeepers buying a single stack of turnips for a negative number of Bells. When the player sells the stack of turnips for a negative number of Bells, they'll return to their home and find that they now have the maximum number of Bells. However, this exploit comes with a fair share of downsides. So, while it's tempting to use, it might not be the best choice.

Using this exploit negates the player's Cornering the Stalk Market achievement, which makes those achievements unattainable from the point the exploit is used. Players who want to go the completionist route and earn every achievement will want to avoid using this exploit. The other downside is that having the maximum number of Bells removes a big challenge from the game, and as a result, playing can become boring and unfulfilling, since the biggest obstacle is no longer present.

How To Reach Treasure Islands In ACNH

Player And Community Built Locations

Treasure Islands are public locations that are most often hosted by streamers on platforms such as Twitch. Therefore, traveling to one requires going to Dodo's Airlines, speaking with Orville, and using the Dodo Code for the Treasure Island the player wants to visit. Then, the player has access to all the items on that island, many of which can be difficult to gather otherwise. Additionally, most islands have the glitch enabled that allows players to use the Bell exploit mentioned above, which becomes obvious when the player goes into a shop and tries to sell turnips.

It's important to be careful when looking for a Treasure Island to go to, and not just because it might be full of visitors and have a long wait to enter. Most of them allow players to visit and gather resources for free, but there are some that request that players pay a real money fee through a third-party site in order to access the island. Since these islands aren't run directly by Nintendo or the Animal Crossing team, it's important to be careful about which islands to visit, especially if one asks for real money.

With some resources being scarce in ACNH, Treasure Islands can be a nice resource to stock up on those items that might otherwise be limited. However, using them for exploits might come with more downsides than the rewards are worth. But if a player wants to visit one, they should be careful when deciding which one to travel to and be prepared to wait for a while if it's at full capacity. Also, going to a Treasure Island and gathering resources without using the Bell exploit won't cut off the player's ability to earn specific achievements.

Other Options To Earn Bells

Raising Money In ACNH

Exploits aren't the only way to earn Bells in ACNH, even if they might be the fastest option, especially when it takes over five million Bells to fully upgrade a house. However, players who want to earn Bells without help from glitches have plenty of other options to fill up their bank accounts. Selling items that are collected around the island and growing crops to sell the produce are just two standard ways to get started, but they're far from the only — or the most lucrative — options.

Aside from collecting items and farming, each island has one money rock each day that can be used to gather Bells. While rocks usually provide items like stone and iron, the money rock drops Bells when the player hits it. Just one money rock on the island can drop around 20,000 Bells per day. Considering how easy it is to hit a rock repeatedly each day, this rock provides a simple way to consistently earn Bells every day. Plus, even a few thousand Bells can add up quickly when combined with other income options.

Another lucrative option for income becomes available when the player has built Nook's Cranny Store, where daily Hot Items are purchased at higher prices than normal. The Hot Item varies each day, but if the player tends to have a variety of resources they can use to build items, selling that item at Nook's Cranny Store when it's the Hot Item nets the most profit. At that time, the amount that it's purchased for tends to be quite a bit higher than normal. Hot Items will always be chosen from recipes that the player knows.

So, while exploits and glitches can be tempting options to gain rewards that might otherwise be difficult to achieve, they can end up coming with downsides that players aren't willing to deal with. That's especially true if the wrong Treasure Island is chosen, and it asks the player for real money in exchange for items that may or may not be given in the end. While it might not be the same as earning the maximum number of Bells in one transaction, there are plenty of other ways to accumulate Bells over time in Animal Crossing New Horizons.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Franchise

Animal Crossing

Platform(s)

Switch

Released

March 20, 2020

Developer(s)

Nintendo EPD

Publisher(s)

Nintendo

Genre(s)

Simulation

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer , Local Multiplayer

ESRB

E for Everyone: Comic Mischief