User:1Maven/Currency exchange historic data analysis

This analysis of the Black Lion Trading Company service Currency exchange includes price fluctuations using historic data from external websites.

Disclaimer: While historic data is often used to predict future price fluctuations, there is an inherent risk in doing so.

Definitions

• The Currency exchange service enables in-game trading of coin for gems and vice versa. Karma and other in-game currencies cannot be traded.

• The Exchange rate is determined by supply and demand from players. Since supply and demand affects the rate, the ratio can shift rapidly depending on market conditions. Due to incompatibilities, the three server groups: North American, European and Chinese, maintain separate pools of currency to determine the exchange rate. {{verify}}

• The Buy More Gems service enables in-game purchase of gems for real-world currencies accepted by ArenaNet. The cost has historically remained constant. Gems may be purchased on North American, European and Chinese servers using the American Dollar ($ or USD), the Euro (€), the British Pound Sterling (£) and the Chinese Yuan (¥ or Renminbi).

• Daily moving average is the average of exchange rates during a 24-hour period.

Inflation

Currency Exchange 10-Sep-2012 thru 14-May-2015

The graphs on the right display data specific to the North American servers. The first day of recorded data was September 10, 2012:

• 100  cost 27  47 
• 100  sold for 19  65 

As of May 14, 2015 (about 32 months), the daily moving average:

• 100  cost 20  66  17  to buy, a 8313% increase or roughly 260% per month or 8.66% per day.
• 100  sold for 11  60  11 , a 5905% increase or roughly 184% per month or 6.15% per day.

Currency Exchange 14-Mar-2015 thru 14-May-2015

This is not representative of the recent rate of inflation. For example, the daily moving average during the 2 month period ending 14-May-2015:

• 100  cost 14  12  34  to buy, a 146% increase or roughly 73% per month or 2.43% per day.
• 100  sold for 8  72  7 , a 133% increase or roughly 67% per month or 2.12% per day.

Currency Exchange 01-Dec-2014 thru 28-Feb-2015

There have been periods of deflation. For example, the daily moving average during the 3 month period ending 28-Feb-2015:

• 100  cost changed from 17  83  70  to 13  81  98 , a 23%% decrease or roughly 7.51% per month or 0.25% per day.
• 100  sell changed from 11  71  71  to 8  63  81 , a 26% decrease or roughly 8.76% per month or 0.37% per day.

Future price fluctuations are dependent on market forces:

• When the Gem Store adds new offerings.
• When ArenaNet releases new content.
• Player population and activity.

Purchasing power

Due to currency exchange inflation, the value of purchased gems has increased over time. Conversely, the value of in-game gold used to purchase items in the gem store has decreased. For example, to increase your storage, it is now less expensive to create a personal guild vault than to purchasing an equivalent number of new account vault tabs from the gem store.

Speculation

Even adjusting for losses from the transaction fee, purchasing gems with excess gold, holding those gems for weeks or months, then purchasing gold with gems may result in an increase of in-game gold. It is important to recognize the risk, if there is a significant change in the currency exchange inflation rates then a loss may result.