Categories: curriculum badges (one per tier completed), challenge badges (one per challenge path completed), discipline badges (journaling streaks, no-revenge-trade streaks), social badges (helpful posts, accurate stock pitches), and rare special-event badges (released for community events or curriculum launches).
Why badges work as motivation: they provide visible incremental progress in a discipline (options trading) where tangible progress is otherwise slow and uncertain. The badge for completing 50 paper trades doesn't make you a better trader, but the discipline of accumulating those 50 trades does — and the badge is a record that you actually did the work.