Amateur Analysis: TF2-conomy is Heading for a Massive Crash

[ajdislikesyournamingpolicy]

Um what I'm reading is blasphemy.

 

Keys aren't commonly traded at 1.8 - 2.2$,steam community funds is not real money. Cash is king

[SoranoGuardias]

I'm using the values listed on Backpack.

Even if we were to devaluate the keys in this equation down to the region of $1.40 as you suggest, the numbers are still astronomically disproportionate ($1.54M / $275K) in value and a correction needs to begin.

[ajdislikesyournamingpolicy]

YOU HEARD IT HERE LADS, BIBLE.TF

[FeelZ]

11 minutes ago, SoranoGuardias said:

Okay. Gimme a second to change into the purple dinosaur suit so I can break it down BARNEY STYLE.

KEYS are trading at 45 REFINED or traded at cash value between $1.80 and $2.20 through most common markets, IGNORING OUTLIERS, with a market supply of around 1.1 MILLION UNITS. 
REFINED METAL is trading at 4 CENTS with a market supply of 5.5 MILLION UNITS.

 

For a key to equal a refined in trading: 45 REF / KEY

In monetary trading value: 45-54 REF / KEY

 

However, let's look at the actual values for these item totals based on supply.

Keys: 1.1M Units ranging from $1.80-$2.20 per unit: $1.98M - $2.42M
Ref: 5.5M Units at 4 cents per unit: $275,000

The values being assigned to items do not correlate.

So it just means that the refined market is small and worthless compared to the key market? For what reason do they need to correlate? Some sort of cosmic sense of fairness?

 

All keys came into existence because somebody, somewhere, paid 2.49 USD. Metal comes into existence only at the cost of the electricity needed to run TF2 during the weekly drop period. To put it bluntly, keys have some basis of value in cash, while metal comes into existence for basically free, and because of this has basically no value.

[appy]

why should metal and key values be correlated?

 

If we extend your logic to say the Dollar and British Pound, there is 1.7 trillion $ in circulation but only 50 billion $ in pounds but the exchange rate is only 1$ = 1.25 pound, so clearly we are in for a major financial meltdown soon right?

[Danny | QB Backpacks/Spell]

I advice you talk barney style more often
 

[Smartieshehe]

really amateur analysis

[Joeg]

Watch out boys, someone took a gcse in business studies and now they're here to fuck our shit

 

[RogerDodger]

This thread lmao

[xxBonsai99xx]

 

[flirganovski]

Oh man! Again thread "it's over, economy is dying". Can someone stop post's like this? Honestly i'm only interested in real money price of keys. Stupid, worthless refined metal, who cares about that? Keys are king! Buy keys with real money and get into unusual trading.  Forget about from scrap to unusual and accept the truth that you need to invest some money and start from better position. If you don't like it then just quit, stop crying and for Christs sake stop with this panic threads "its dying, aaaa, blah, blah".   

[Scott Bakula]

There is a thing in economics called supply and demand.

 

Metal is high in supply, but low in demand. As such, it has an incredibly low value on the market.

[Adolf Storms]

since when did 'amateur' = totally moronic?

 

hey chicken little, the sky isn't falling. if i had a $1 for every time over 9 years i'd heard some rant about this... i'd have a $10k backpack. oh wait lol i do XD seriously no one should care. if you're simply in it for the money... get a job. the time u waste trying to make profit u could earn an hourly wage at the golden armpits. anyone who views tf2 anything other than entertainment i think missed the boat. (missed the boat for get-a-life island)

[The Tea Overlord]

The key is the gold standard.

 

The key has a fixed value. The refined doesn't, and it isn't the base currency in TF2. The key is.

 

The refined depends on the key, and the refined is worth as much as how much is someone willing to pay for a key.

 

As you can see at the moment, refined is "losing" value because people are willing to pay more and more for keys with their refined. It's a natural process.

[Quesamo]

You don't explain why this "unbalance" is gonna directly cause a market crash. And SCM is still a perfectly valid place to check prices on stuff like skins and kits. This really isn't a case of "omg everyone is just a dumb sheep who don't realise the vast logical arcs here", it's just you being plain wrong. There's a reason why literally everyone more experienced than you disagrees with what you're trying to say here.

[Quesamo]

Oh yeah, here's a video i made a while ago covering mostly the same topics this thread does. bon apetit 

 

[Big Ol Bessie]

If keys are selling for 1.50 usd and refined are selling for 0.40. That means it takes 37.5 ref to buy a key.

 

price it at 1.50 usd a key and if there selling for 0.30 than it would cost 50 refined. 

 

Am I missing something? Why are keys inflated to 45 refined?

 

im high as fuck that’s what I’m missing. Miscalculated 

[a1ex]

This is painful. your argument is worse than the economy lol

[LSO]

4 hours ago, SoranoGuardias said:

You cannot have an item whose total value exceeds the total value of the items with which it is based on. (1)

 

I'm not arguing for immediate 5 REF again. Stop assuming you know what I am thinking. That would just be dumb and crash it all the same. There needs to be a steady reduction in the amount of keys followed by a steady increase in the available metal supply. (2)

 

Response to (1):

 

Only a key isn't worth 45 refined. A refined is worth 1/45 of a key, that is the crucial bit that everyone making these posts seems to forget. When I hear "keys are rising" I die inside at the total lack of basic economics. Since keys are more desired and more restricted in supply, refined metal will continue LOSING value. I did the maths on one of these cliche economy-is-dying posts where I laid out the SIMPLE explanation for refined inflation vs keys.

 

I'm not going to bother trying to find it, but feel free. In short with some conservative extrapolation I showed that with the current player base and the drop-rate for metal there needed to be a minimum number of keys purchased from MANN CO. STORE every week forever, and since the number was definitely not likely to be purchased then refined will continue depreciating to infinity unless Valve implements a metal-sink into the game.

 

Furthermore, unlike purely fiat currencies, keys and metal don't have equivalent utilities in the TF2 universe so it's only natural the values require no real parity in the first place.

 

 

Response to (2):

 

That is the most stupid argument I've ever seen regarding this topic. As I hope you can figure out from my response to (1), you literally have the solution the wrong way around. More ref = lower inflation? This ain't it chief.

[BlastFM]

Ah it's another one of these

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

:deletthis:

[senpi0]

Due to the nature of Metal and Keys, Metal will always be in constant inflation.

I for one think that to stop metal inflation, it would be necessary to either:

Make a lot of metal invalid, by trade banning them or deleting;

Making Mann Co. Crate Keys Craftable in a "dynamic" way e.g.: Last month you'd need ~35 ref to craft a key, whereas now you'd need ~45 ref.

Both solutions are gay and would require Valve to work with the community for once, so yeah I don't believe it's happening.

TL;DR: Metal is always gonna go down in price due to it's nature and we can't do much to help it.

[SoranoGuardias]

29 minutes ago, senpi0 said:

Due to the nature of Metal and keys, Metal will always be in constant inflation.

I for one think that to stop metal inflation, it would be necessary to either:

Make a lot of metal invalid, by trade banning them or deleting;

Making Mann Co. Crate Keys Craftable in a "dynamic" way e.g.: Last month you'd need ~35 ref to craft a key, whereas now you'd need ~45 ref.

Both solutions are gay and would require Valve to work with the community for once, so yeah I don't believe it's happening.

TL;DR: Metal is always gonna go up in price due to it's nature and we can't do much to help it.

Except metal is going down?

[senpi0]

38 minutes ago, SoranoGuardias said:

Except metal is going down?

Okay that was a typo sorry, I meant to say that Metal is always gonna inflate.

[Gren]

8 hours ago, SoranoGuardias said:

To directly quote a point I made in another thread:

The entire economics of the situation do not make sense. If a key is "worth" 45 refined metal, then there has to be some sort of equivalency between the two items.

Value of Item A  /  Value of Item B   =   Total number of A to equal B

In order for there to be equivalency each value has to be absolute and equivalent, and each equivalent value must be based off of the other.

 

Drawing from stats here, out of approximately 7 million accounts there are approximately 5.5 million ref.

Out of the same number of accounts there are approximately 1.1 million keys.

So if each of these keys is worth 45 refined, the total value of estimated keys in circulation exceeds the total value of estimated refined metal by a factor of nearly 900%.

If anything, the trading value of keys needs to be frozen and allow time for the value of TF2's base currency, which is the refined, to catch up to the "gold standard" or we are going to have another crash like when the buds devalued.

Stop using Steam Marketplace as a means of determining value. These are sellers trying to get rid of items quicker to get some cash quickly. These are outliers that should not be used to normalize trends.

 

Keys didn't get more valuable.  Keys cost $2.49 at the Mann Co store, so if anything - factoring in inflation - they've become cheaper over the years.  Also important to note, literally the only way a key can come into existence is via the Mann  Co store, i.e. via a cash transaction.  Refined on the other hand is literally free.  The reason why we use refined at all as a currency is for buying items worth less than a key and because it's craftable.  But considering that crafting is essentially a worthless activity now, and that every single day the number of items worth less than a key increases, refined becomes less and less valuable.  Also today, as opposed to a few years ago, you can buy hats and miscs from SCM.  This makes ref even less useful.  

 

TLDR: Keys are based on cash, refined is an imaginary currency obtained for free via weapon drops, and it's becoming less and less relevant as its uses become more and more limited.