The event is over and I completed my final open trade last night. Thank you all, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience to contribute to the server, pad my own inventory, and get many of you some additional perks as VIP and VIP+. Apologies to those still wanting to trade because I finished so quickly after starting the thread but I had to stop at some point before getting committed to too many people. I honestly didn't realize how many were out there interested in this kind of deal.

As a side note, I learned a few things regarding the state of the server's economy while doing this, regarding the availability of items and corresponding values of different items. This was an interesting showing of what everyone was willing to trade for, for VIP statuses, worth actual money. Diamond blocks, especially. While I thought 15 DBs took a lot of time to gather (I priced everything on here based on what I thought 3 hrs of my time would yield at max efficiency), people were more than happy to part with their diamond blocks and even tipped me in additional blocks and shulker boxes. If I was motivated enough, I'd use this to estimate and fine-tune the exchange rates between diamonds and all other items listed.

Anyways, I digress, thanks everyone for the trades!

- Valgys

@Derndeff Back on the core topic of the thread, the only way to have a working currency system is to use something that has practically no value (like emeralds), but there would need to be an agreement among a majority of suppliers of how much an emerald is worth to start out with. However, this "system" would quickly collapse from the lack of trust present in anarchy.

I think this suggestion has merit. There could be a merchant alliance to form a loose value of currency. In real life situations this was done by creating the value between the merchants. IE, merchant X makes the diamond to emerald trade worth a certain value to merchant Y. Then the merchants are free to obtain the emeralds however they see fit through trades with players outside the alliance at their own rates. In a way it would be similiar to setting a prime interest rate in real life and then banks tacking on an additional, smaller fee to keep more profitable and competitive with the other banks.

I agree with the point that the diamond is too high a value to use as the basic currency unit, and indirectly inflates the value of everything else.

I think it just takes one merchant with the resources and time to establish a baseline price of diamonds to emeralds. Then the value of emeralds would become tangible. In the past the npc Spawn merchants did this, now the active player-sellers would need to step up if this is what all the players want.

Merchants with an assortment of book vendors and a strong business are in a great position to take this on as the emeralds seem to mostly get consumed buying book enchantments.

Heh this is just like a stock market report. Good stuff.

Alright, I hit my cash quota and then some. No more new trades, the gates have closed lol. I'll be finishing on my trades still in work and that'll be it. I'm actually surprised I didn't get more raw materials out of this but this activity definitely saved me over a day of searching for them if I had tried.

@SharpSerac so i can buy vip+ with 7 shulker boxes?

Yep!

Sorry guys I've run out of time for this evening but will let those of you know who's already sent me a PM when I'm on again.

@gilbertboys I would like to purchase VIP using solely diamond blocks. I will be able to trade on Friday January 7th,

I should be able to get on in the evening. Just send me a PM and we can figure out a time to do the trade.
=====

@Jordi223b If I buy VIP it would upgrade me to vip +, right?

Correct. $15 for a VIP gets them to VIP+ status for 30(ish?) days. $15 for a VIP+ prepays you for another month.
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@thegoldsmith does me asking nicely equate to VIP? @Valgys

(please?)

Unfortunately, no. Let's just stick with the list :P
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@Rybye Dragon heads?

Sorry no, not at this time.

In celebration of my recent 2 year anniversary on CraftyMynes, I want to donate in a useful way. My personal life affords me only a few good long sessions of play each week right now, and I find myself using it all scrounging for resources. My solution for both is to sell VIP, VIP+ upgrades, and VIP+ for in-game items for a limited time.

I'll take the following items in bulk for a VIP/ VIP+ upgrade/extra month of VIP+ ($15 value) and will provide a straight-to-VIP+ upgrade for all you normies out there ($25 value) for a discounted value, see below:

[BULK]
{Item: VIP/VIP+ upgrade price | VIP+ price}
=====
Diamond Blocks: 15 each | 24 each
Sand (any type): 5 double chests | 7 double chests
Gunpowder: 3 stacks | 5 stacks
Logs (any type): 2 double chests | 3 double chests
Redstone Blocks: 2 double chests | 3 double chests
Nether Quartz: 1 double chest |1.5 double chests [edit: reduced from 2 | 3 double chests]
Leather: 15 stacks | 27 stacks
Iron Blocks: 7 stacks | 10 stacks
Gold Blocks: 3 stacks | 5 stacks
Slime Blocks: 3 stacks | 5 stacks
Shulker Boxes: 5 each | 7 each
Blaze Rods: 1 double chest | 1.5 double chests
Glowstone: 1 double chest | 1.5 double chests
Sea Lanterns: 1 double chest | 1.5 double chests
Obsidian: 15 stacks | 27 stacks
Elytra (will take 50%+ durability, any enchants on it doesn't affect its value to me): 3 each | 5 each
Beacon: 2 ea | 3 ea
=====

OR, for those of you who have a smattering of random items, you can do it a la carte. The way it works is you just provide me the units equivalent to what you're wanting (rounded down to nearest cent), either $15 for VIP/VIP+ upgrade, or $25 for the VIP+.

[A LA CARTE]
{Item: Cost per unit}
=====
Diamond Block: $0.75 / ea
Sand: $0.0008 / ea
Gunpowder: $0.10 / ea
Logs: $0.002 / ea
Redstone Blocks: $0.002 / ea
Nether Quartz: $0.004 / ea [edit: increased from $0.002 / ea]
Leather: $0.015 / ea
Iron Block: $0.03 / ea
Gold Block: $0.10 / ea
Slime Block: $0.07 / ea
Shulker Box: $2.50 / ea
Blaze Rod: $0.004 / ea
Glowstone Lamp: $0.004 / ea
Sea Lantern: $0.004 / ea
Obsidian: $0.015 / ea
Elytra: $5 / ea
Beacon: $7 / ea

=====
Process:
If you're interested, please send me a PM with the trade offer, and we can arrange for a meeting. My availability is mostly limited to short 5-15 minute sessions lately, so please be aware it may take a little time to perform the trade. In game, you provide me the items to trade at the Spawn's Trade Post and then I'll immediately make the store purchase on your behalf. It takes somewhere like 5-10 minutes (online or offline) for the rank update to push through to the game. Afterwards, all purchasers will have their names posted to this thread as an addendum as a public record for my tracking purposes.

If you want to keep your name and the items you traded private and off the public record, I can do that for a fee of 1 diamond block for making me use a pencil and paper instead.

=====
Limitations:

1. I'm trying to fill my inventory with a mix of desired items. For example, I'm obviously not going to need 100 double chests of sand. To that end, I've made a list of the maximum items. Once that quota is filled, I'll update this thread to cross it out.
2. Limit 2 purchases per player. Let's try to spread the wealth.
3. I'm a simple man; I only handle one trade/purchase at a time. Once that status upgrade goes through, I'll move on to the next trade.
4. Trade offer ends on Thursday, 1/12, or once I use up $200, whichever comes first. When that happens, I'll finalize any open trades still in work and update this thread.

=====
Purchaser List:

1. Agent on behalf of Shiba_Ina, VIP+ upgrade [1x SBox, 1x Elytra, 6x Dblocks, 4 stacks of redstone blocks, 25 gunpowder]
2. Fingerbib, VIP+ upgrade [15 diamond blocks]
3. R4iscool1, VIP+ upgrade x2 [30 diamond blocks]
4. W98, VIP+ [25 diamond blocks]
5. Jordi223b, VIP+ upgrade [2x SBox, 4 stacks of blaze rods, 15 stacks of logs, 1x beacon]
6. Agent on behalf of Angel_Dust_, VIP+ [7x SBoxes]
7. Cellexya, VIP+ upgrade [2x beacons, 1x SBox]
8. Weevils, VIP+ [7x SBoxes]
9. SharpSerac, VIP [5x SBoxes]
10. Rybye, VIP+ [7x SBoxes]
11. KatcheD, VIP+ upgrade [88x gunpowder, 1x beacon]
12. OPtimusjag, VIP [3x Elytra]
13. gilbertboys, VIP [a double chest split with nether quartz and glowstone blocks]
14. Mayorga, VIP+ [6x Sboxes and 2x elytra]
15. Fluxated, VIP+ [5x Elytras, 5 stacks of gunpowder]
16. Sofatroll, VIP+ x2 [7x SBoxes]
17. Acetonee, VIP+ x2 aka 1/4 server bill [10x iron blocks, 1 double chest of logs, and 18x stacks of Obsidian]
18. CreeperLord170, VIP+ x2 aka 1/4 server bill [20x iron blocks]

=============================END OF LIST=============================

Really cool incentive! Very nice for swag for the regular player base. Thank you! But of course I always enjoy understanding the details surrounding this new reward. I apologize in advance.

My questions:
1)

@CraftyMyner Note: You can't stack loot crates, you must claim it before you can claim another.

- Crafty

Does this mean you must claim the crate before the votecounter starts for the next one? Ie: 100 votes unlocks the crate, then needs to be claimed before counter resets?

2) Will the vote loot crate differ from the CraftyCrate?

3) Is the CraftyCredit the vote score? Or a new currency?

4) So if you miss a day in a 25 day period for voting, your counter goes to zero again and you have to vote for another consecutive 25 days before unlocking the crate?

5) What about after the 25 days: when the reward is unlocked, but before you claim your crate? Does the reward latch until the player claims it? Example: voting for 27 days straight but then unable to vote or log in to claim the crate for the next 7 days.