I feel like Marketplace.tf should be able to be used as primary proof because it is literally the same thing from outpost

but on a different website and more secure and safe.

If polar states that marketplace can't be used as only proof then it can't be used as only proof, rule #1 of basically everything: Don't disagree with the people making the rules.

My suggestion includes mutliple valid sellers @0.10 which shows that you can easily buy refined metal for 0.10, if people decide to buy their ref on marketplace.tf @0.12 only for convenience's sake then that is them paying 2 extra cents for nothing.

Here's my personal opinion on this situation: People don't want ref to drop and instead want it to raise which leads to them agreeing with the suggestion that is raising it.

Yeah, the difference between the two suggestions is a big deal, so, some thoughts.

The problem with pricing refined metal is that we base the prices for all other items on a safe, reliable system for exchanging goods (steam trading). For ref, though, we're relying on relatively small transactions, in a very insecure system. Trading with paypal or other currencies for steam items is risky, and even a big sale of 1000 ref is just $100 (and that's a rare buy). It is not really worth the time for most cash traders to fully and carefully vet a seller or buyer for, say, 100 ref, which is just a $10 trade. That means there's a huge time cost to making small transactions. It's just not a very good market to buy or sell in. Very low liquidity.

And now that there is a fairly reliable and safe way to actually exchange ref/paypal, you can tell that the shitty market is almost certainly why there was so little ref trading volume on Outpost. Marketplace is absolutely dominating Outpost trades on metal sales volume, probably because it's convenient and they handle chargebacks and fraud accusations. You'd expect that with a less risky and more convenient trading option, there's going to be more demand (particularly among new people), though I'm still a little surprised at just how much more.

I mean, you can still argue that we should ignore Marketplace because the approved sellers are a limited group, but you've got to be practical at some point: they're just doing so much volume. Outpost sellers, even Little (the one selling at $0.095), who has a long trading history and well-documented trust, don't sell much ref. Doing a cursory history check on the total for most of the sellers at $0.10 or less, we're talking maybe 200, 300 ref a day max, if I'm generous, for all sellers on Outpost. They just aren't doing anywhere near enough business to argue that $0.12 is a big outlier, or the most common trading point. Marketplace is moving 2000+ ref every day, with more than a quarter of the sales at $0.12.

So yeah, it looks to me like using Marketplace sales for the high end on refined metal is a good response to the fact that (from what I can tell) they account for over half of all metal trading. They made it way easier to safely buy, and now people are buying.

To be honest, my main concern with these suggestions lies within the fact that people buying from marketplace pay fees. Ive never traded metal for cash, so Im probably not going to handle this as my insight in this kind of market is limited, thus my judgment is probably not the most representative for suggestion purposes.

From a business point of view I would say it is only logical that most trades happen on a site like marketplace. For services like this, credibility and the convenience of a fast and easy exchange is the key to a successful market. Shady traders, traders with no rep or traders with (very) low stock will be eluded. The more prolific metal traders found on outpost can be used, as they evidently commonly exchange metal as well, so in that essence, the $0.1 sellers there are not "useless" [but they seem to be in the range, so I digress].

As opposed to most items, I would say the quanity here should refer to the sales volume rather than to the amount of buyers/sellers, so in that essence Im not against determining a common trading point based on marketplace if they embody the largest part of the sales volume, as long as the fees are taken into consideration (similar to how in the financial statements of wholesalers and retailers, the displayed value of their goods is excluding value added tax, as that displays the selling value of their products to them, even though a customer pays more for them). I dont know if the 0.12 in the suggestion is including or excluding tax. (as, once again, I never trade metal for cash)

An additional concern Id like to point out is that prices on marketplace seem to fluctuate a lot, since sellers get undercut by people that are allowed to sell there without having to pay the fees. Metal is currently abundantly available for 0.10 as sweetstakes.tf is selling it there, and to my knowledge they are excluded from paying the fees.

Out of the two open suggestions, I would support this one rather than the other one, solely because the evidence he provided does not indicate a drop but a refresh (unsolds dont work the way he displays them for refined). Again, I probably wont be the one to handle this, but this is my stance on the matter.

My credit card info was stolen from marketplace, I lost all my trust in that site when that happened.

When the marketplace added the beta seller its kinda bad/not because a lot of people would make a profit money in their !!!

Up-dooted, good use of proof, fam.

I completely agree with you on this situation.

Great proof... No reason why metal should go down any longer

Up-Voted Good Sir!

Refined metal suggestions cannot be considered the same way as any other suggestion. Because the dollar value on every time is based on this, it's all the more reason to consider very carefully the difference between the intrinsic value on an item and what it gets bought and sold for. It's most important here to do our best to identify the intrinsic value. What do I mean by that? Let's consider a few different things.

(1) The vast majority of cash transactions happen in keys which trade at 1.80-1.90 USD, putting refined solidly around 0.09 USD. The difference isn't a small one. Refined moves very slowly. It's easily possible to move thousands of keys at 1.90 per key before moving even a few hundred refined at 0.10 per ref. When considering the intrinsic dollar value of all items, you have to keep these values in consideration - that the intrinsic refined value of all items is around 0.09 USD per ref.

(2) Because refined moves so slowly, it's just not worth it from a time and energy perspective for highly reputable people to trade in refined. Refined moves most commonly on highly reputable sites. People are willing to pay more for the convenience and added security. This additional value added is not part of the intrinsic value of the item itself and it certainly is not a value that gets transferred to all other items in the tf2 community, even keys.

Yes, it would be best if we could base dollar values off keys, but that's just not possible with they way the website is hard-coded. So we have to work with what we have to give our best possible estimate of intrinsic value here. Your sellers at 0.11 USD seem to have had little to no luck. In fact, the only comment in the last three months from your sellers at 0.11+ is from someone willing to sell at 0.08. All things considered, refined is easily available from multiple sources at 0.10 and I don't see a need to change its value.