Originally posted by Kahgro:

What do you mean by future crates holding value? Only they are salvaged crates, they're pretty much worthless.

He means, that whatever you get out of any (future) crate in Refined Metal has to determine the price of a Key.

His main problem is, that he thinks everything has to evolve around Refined. But that is only true, for the most part, for items you can craft and use to craft again.

But it works the other way around for the other items. The price of a Key in Refined determines what the price of that item is in Refined (esp. Promos, Stranges, Vintages).

Why that is? Mostly because there is no inherent link of those items to Metal, unlike craftables.

Finding the correct / fair value of Metal in $ is not easy. The thing is, that that price cannot be converted without taking additional extra costs into account.

The Metal for $ market is relatively small, and it is not very accessible too. So, form the price tag you see for 1 Refined in $ PayPal, you also have to subtract indirect costs (convenience, access, fees, risk, etc.).

To have those effects as small as possible and give a fair estimate for the real value (not price) of Metal in terms of $, you may try to find the easiest way to exploit possible arbitrage, compare that to the going rate, and also draw your conclusions from there (in addition to what norby said).

1 Refined in $ PayPal: $0.36 (bptf)
1 Key in $ PayPal: $1.30 (tf2finance)
1 Bud in PayPal: $33 (tf2finance)

Buy 1 Bud for PayPal $:
1 Bud in Keys: 26.5
=> Value of 1 Key: $33 / 26.5 = $1.25
=> Possible profit: $1.30 / $1.25 -1 = 4%
1 Key in Refined: 4
1 Bud in Refined: 106
=> Value of 1 Refined in $: $33 / 106 = $0.315
=> Possible profit: $0.36 / $0.315 -1 = 14%

The possible profit has to cover the indirect costs. The gap for arbitrage has been pretty much closed for Keys. But no one likes Metal, not even exploiting arbitrage possibilities.

This has been suggested in the "suggestions" section. There was even a short time it was possible to search in closed trades.

Not only would it be helpful for pricing suggestions at bptf, but also to be independent from those sites, or to verify them yourself.

I would love that feature too - searching for deleted items and closed trades only - but I guess there must be technical obstacles (or opposing opinions from Sneeza).

Originally posted by F | CHARLIE:

[...] lots of other posts [...]

Originally posted by F | CHARLIE:

Also, since Jan 22 of this year there has been in increase in amount of keys in the market (steam store purchase) by a number approaching 100,000. But that has not stoped the rise in trade value of the key and odly hasnt effected the 1.40 price u see on tf2finance. I think the increase is around 20% from the number on Jan 22.

For someone that claims to have 2 bachelors in economics, you seem to draw a lot of unfounded / wrong conclusions.


What you don't seem to want to understand is, that converting Bill's (or other items not craftable / droppable) to their value in Refined is irrelevant. Refined is just a short lived exchange "currency" we use to break down Keys, nothing more in this case.

There is nothing wrong with, and certainly no need to "re-value" the price of a Bill's Hat. The market has found a very stable equilibrium of supply and demand at a price of 8 Keys.

That you now can buy more Craft Hats with your Bill's, is just the way the TF2 economy works, because Valve has set the rules, and with good intention too!

Originally posted by F | CHARLIE:

Time to re-value the Bills hat. [...] Keys have increased in Metal: Based on that I see no reason that the Bills Hat should remain at its lofty price and should instead be something closer to 5 keys.

It should be immediately obvious to anyone having a basic education (in economics) and understanding of the TF2 economy how absurd that claim is.

I don't know where you got your degrees, but at my University you would fail miserably.

(sorry for being so blunt, but looking at this discussion, I see no other way)

Except, that's not it. You know it can take more than a day for mods to respond to a report? Maybe you should ask yourself what your trade looked like then. Just because you remove a "c/o" when someone calls you out to provide proof, does not make it right / less fake / less trolling.

Closing your trade was your warning. Your trade didn't get closed just because you "forgot to edit" out your "c/o".
If you even don't understand why, I don't see how any other form of a less impacting warning would've helped to make you understand and keep you from doing what you did again.

Originally posted by ;864961175564136276:

You cant compare hats and other limited items with tux. TUX and BUDs were awarded to those who tried new OS. Now considering the amount of these 2 items out there, TUX probably will be more expensive not now but in near future. Just give it more time.
However 1 thing i don't understand is that number of buds and tuxs are still increasing when looking at stat.tf. Does anyone know why?

I hope there are many like you around when I sell my Tux as soon as possible!

The number is still increasing because buds still appear from private backpacks and get duped to an uncertain amount by Steam Support.
The number of Tux is also increasing because stats.tf needs about 5 days to scan every backpack and not all backpacks containing the Tux are discovered yet.

Here's a head scratcher: If people think the Tux will increase in value faster than Earbuds, wouldn't a lot of people sell their Buds now for Keys to buy Tux, assuming the Tux will be worth less when first traded? And wouldn't that lead to a crash in the Earbud price?

Originally posted by oG | Frank |S|:

sorry, im kinda new to posting ;/ but do you know the price?

You can research on OP yourself and/or use a guideline like http://backpack.tf/pricelist/spreadsheet or http://tf2spreadsheet.traderempire.com/spreadsheet/

∎

Originally posted by A Distinctive Lack Of Ponies:

And I'm not talking about myself, I just think that 12-hour ban was hilarious.

You are the best example. You have a permanent ban and still don't get it.