thx

I mostly agree with samhudson333.

But I am not sure if it's the grey market that sells it's keys in the Steam Market now. Because there is a relatively low annual limit on how much you can sell in the Steam Market ($200 if I am not mistaken). And then you would also have trouble getting your money out, even if you manage to have multiple alts.

Keys for PayPal money is surprisingly stable compared to the Metal value. My guess, that is because wholesalers (grey market) practically can't use the Steam Market, where the (consumer) price of a Key is about the same as in the Mann Co. Store. At least for €, I think in terms of $ they are even a little more expensive than in Mann Co.

I think it's more likely that Keys get sold in the Steam Market by the large user base itself that has the dominant effect on the Supply.

And maybe the new security measures like trade restriction and Steam Guard also have an effect by cutting down the supply of fraudulently bought keys for the grey market.

I thought the Key price was at around $1.20 when this all started, my mistake. Maybe you could ask your Russian or Ukrainian wholesalers why they had to raise their prices. ;-)

After all, they also compete. And as I understand it never had to rely on the supply within the Steam trading economy anyway. But something must have driven their price up as well, because of lower supply I suppose. But it could also be that their price predominantly went up because of higher demand. The higher demand coming from a lot of normal users recycling Keys in the Steam Market instead of supplying new Mann Co. Keys.

I seriously doubt that they use the steam market themselves, but I could be very wrong here of course.

As always, it's a combination of all factors. Determining which has the most effect, is probably impossible for us to tell. Only Valve and their Greek professor may know a little more, I guess.

Did your turnover in terms of number of Keys increase as well?

Also the halloween unboxing buzz