If he has an account restriction that won't show up on his profile.

I doubt the majority of key holders care about opening crates. Keys ARE currency, they can be used to trade for items, games, RL cash and recently they can be sold on the market for Steam Wallet which in turn can be used to buy games or items. It'll be interesting to see what happens when (or if) Valve decides to make metal marketable since then Ref would suddenly become useful.

No, they're probably for admins/mods.

Just try again until it works, there's nothing you can do about it. Steam API has been down very often lately.

Originally posted by F | CHARLIE:

Than there is a problem because people used to use metal to buy even higher valued items.

And people still do that, at the right rate.

Originally posted by F | CHARLIE:

The bills would only have been 19 some ref last Sept. Now it would be 32 for no apparent reason. It does effect mid range items around a few keys that wouldn't have been that many ref before.

So let's lay it down. Back then Bill's were 19 Ref or 8 Keys and now they are 32 Ref or 8 Keys. Conclusion? Either Bill's and Keys have increased in value and as a consequence they cost more in terms of refined OR metal simply doesn't have as much buying power as before.

How can you decide which is the real answer? By looking at it from a different perspective. Since RL money plays a major role in the TF2 economy, you simply have to look at a Bill's Hat/Key's value now and back then and draw the conclusion yourself.

Originally posted by F | CHARLIE:

The ratios don't match the trading differences.

If there's a difference in the ratio it'll probably stabilize soon. Also have a read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage

Originally posted by F | CHARLIE:

Isn't the crafting of one of the many carftable items just exchanging the metal for an item you want. This is also known as purchasing. Im not contradicting myself.

Nope, because you are destroying the metal in exchange for the desired item. It's like using a key to open a crate or burning the money you used for buying a bread. ^^

Originally posted by F | CHARLIE:

Buds are mistakenly attached to keys.

Alright, forget about Buds and *insert any item valued more than a couple of keys here*.

Originally posted by F | CHARLIE:

The point of low tier and higher tier is frustrating and has been made more so by the value increase of the key.

If you stay in your low tier realm this price increase won't affect you. Nor will it affect you if you stick to trading for mid-high tier items. It will benefit you if you want to buy hats and small stuff, on the other hand you will need more hats/ref to buy keys or more expensive items.

Keys did not increase in value, I don't know where people are getting this from. Keys have risen in price in terms of metal, their value remained pretty much the same. As a consequence metal has devalued and so did all the low tier items along with it (crafts hats, miscs, weapons etc). Just because metal holds less value there's no need to increase the price of the rest of the low tier items since nothing has changed. It still takes 2 weapons to craft a Scrap or 3 Ref to craft a hat.

Only thing that changed is that the transition from low tier to mid-high tier now requires a bigger investment of low tier items. This is the reason why Bill's Hats still are and should be the same price, keys didn't increase in value. But that's not all, now if you buy Keys from the Mann Co Store/Market you can get more bang for your buck since you can trade that key for more metal than before thus ending up with more items.

Originally posted by F | CHARLIE:

I will state this here as well. Keys by deffinition can not be currency. Currency has only the one function of being a medium of exchange. The key's primary function is to open crates. Because of that they are increase in value and for no other reason.

And the primary function of metal is to craft items. Aren't you contradicting yourself here?

Originally posted by F | CHARLIE:

I am making the argument that metal has not devulued at all. The next link shows the price voting history for the vint stokebroker scarf.

Well if metal has maintained the same buying power then try to find somebody who'd sell you Buds for 70 Ref. *spoiler*you won't*spoiler*

Originally posted by F | CHARLIE:

If metal is devaluing then whatever it buys is effected. These two items would have to show an increase in price by 50% in order to say that metal (the only true currency in the game) has devalued.

That did not happen. Metal has maintained its value and the key, independantly, has increase in value.

Low tier items and Mid-High tier items, 2 entirely different worlds. Please read my previous posts.

Originally posted by FmAh Jed:

Key hoarder's defiantly make a profit, 3 months ago keys cost ~$1.20, now they are ~$1.40, thats insanely huge gains, if you invested in keys as a general money then over a year at this rate would lead to ~$0.80 gains per key, thats over 50% per annum (doubling money).....

That doesn't have anything to do with metal devaluing. You can thank the all new Steam Market for that.