2011 Gold Trader Power Rankings!!

Alright 2011 has obviously come and gone so let's do a review of the most powerful gold traders on the blackmarket. Please keep in mind, that this is a holistic review of the entire year. Some people achieved powerful positions for only a few months at a time. I believe I have a very accurate view of what happened as I was a full time trader (16+ hours a day), every day for the entirety of 2011.

THE TOP 10.

Criteria:
- Trust
- Vouches
- Profit made
- Amount of gold/money traded/handled on a yearly basis
- Focused on the gold buying section
- Accessibility
- Variety of payment methods offered
- Customer Service
- Able to buy the biggest bulks
- Number of seller clients

Now, to the average trader, trading with any of the people below will result in equally fine trades for near equal prices.

However, the ability to handle and maintain very large sellers at good prices is really where the power element comes in. As one large seller can undermine the bulk market and block off other traders from competing. Hence, the most powerful traders were simply those who had the best sellers. As anyone who competed against me knows, I was quite good at doing this.

Objectively and subjectively, counting down.

Honorable Mention
KMJT
Dorianking
Just un dude

10. Arcus Isidar
A latecomer to the game, who, despite suffering through numerous pardons, bans, and problems, eventually rose to become the second most powerful gold trader at the end of the year. However, as he was most learning up until and through october/november, he receives a low ranking for the 2011 list.

9. Nick
For much of the year, Nick was a very competitive trader in the Sythe market. He was very active, and combined with his head OMM position, he was able to win over many sellers and offer competitive prices. However, I would argue that when he left to go on Army training (?) and later returned, his activity suffered and as a result, so did his overall power ranking for the year. I do want to make it clear though that for much of the year he was in the top 5 and definitely a powerful player in the Sythe marketplace.

8. Punkerpunk13
The infamous. While he probably would not win a "most loved" award if that did exist, he was quite a prolific trader on the Sythe marketplace. He conducted a significant portion of his trades via playerauctions and he was very active throughout the course of 2011 due to his homeschooling. However, he suffered a few setbacks throughout the year. To start, he was hacked for around 10b and lost motivation for quite a while. Additionally, I believe his paypal was limited which contributed to a lack in his overall purchases. Overall, Punkerpunk13 was definitely a mainstay of the 2011 gold trading scene, but he never really competed for the top and in his own words, "I was happy trading 2-3B a day."

7. King Tijn2
I have nothing but respect for King Tijn2. He always handled himself professionally and he had been a large trader in the runescape gold market prior to free trade. I do believe that he was slightly less powerful than h1j2q3, but both of these chinese traders offered the same high prices and purchased large amounts of gold.

6. h1j2q3
The second of the chinese gold traders to make the list, h1 has been a sythe fixture for years. His clients love him because he offers fair prices and he is quite active when not working his second job as a doctor in China. While he was online for almost everyday, he was never able to command a significant portion of the overall volume of gold trade.

5. Video
Video rose quickly to prominence after the free trade announcement. While he had been on sythe for several years, he had never really committed himself so fully to the market until 2011. From approximately March through August, he was among the top 3 most powerful gold traders. His high activity combined with his great reputation enabled him to buy up a huge volume of gold, with sales of around 100B a month during this time. However, his paypal was limited in the Fall and he has suffered a severe drop in the power rankings since then. He also suffered an unfortunate TWC setback which was another contributer to his decline.

4. Busta305
Busta305 was a complete newcomer to the market in 2011. For a while I dismissed him as a noncompetitor, but in reality he was online for almost as much time as I was during the course of the year. It took him a long time to build the trust and reputation needed to succeed in the sythe marketplace, but upon doing so he has established himself as one of the top options for bulk sellers. I would argue that this power ranking still holds through the first quarter in 2012 as I am now writing this.

3. R2Pleasant
Arguably the most established gold trader coming in to free trade during 2011, R2Pleasant actually suffered a decline from his past prowess during the year. He focused mainly on smaller gold sales through his website and was relatively inactive, compared to the past atleast, for a significant portion of the year. At times he did buy gold in large amounts, even overcutting me at one point for a 25B sale. However, the volume he moved on a daily basis was just quite simply not large enough to push for the top. If this was the a profit ranking, he would most certainly rank #2 on this list.

2. Kevin001/Jevon001 (Count as 1 person)
Kevin001 and Jevon001 work at the same company and as such they are counted as one entity for the purposes of this thread. They were very active during the time they were online, and could always be counted on to offer very competitive prices. They have purchased an enormous amount of gold during 2011, running to the tune of 1.5-2 trillion gp. They are online for most of the day, however, they were often relatively inactive during the morning/early afternoon in USA time, which caused them to lose out on the overall top spot. However, during the time they were online, they were a very serious competitor for the #1 overall position in the power rankings.

1. Viou
The moment you've all been waiting for...oh wait, we all knew this was coming. I dedicated myself as fully as humanly possible to a cause during 2011 and was able to win "most legitimate user of 2011" by a landslide. During the course of 2011 I spent over $1.6 million on runescape gold, which translates to approximately $5,000/10 Billion a day. Not going to really say much more here but I would challenge anyone who would say that they ranked higher than me in the 2011 runescape blackmarket power rankings.

To the average trader, most of the people on the list are fine options. However, amongst the elite runescape gold traders, this is how the power rankings come down in my opinion. The people who can speak the best about this are, of course, the other elite runescape gold traders.

I hope you enjoyed this window into the composition of the elite runescape gold traders.

Please note this thread is more for fun than anything else, I do not trade gold anymore so I am not self marketing myself

I welcome all feedback and will adjust my rankings based on feedback. Please note these are my personal rankings and are not necessarily indicative of the overall sythe population.

 

I think you spelled some of the names wrong, but okay.

It's really interesting reading through all of the posts in this thread. Some of the numbers are really amazing... $1.6M... damn.

 

Haha this is great. IMO it's worth mentioning that I had a TwC for ~4 months and was banned for another 4 weeks because my msn got hacked, and personally I'd bump R2P above HJQ. Also I think that my rank is VERY generous given that I was out of commission for 5 months of the year, but I'll admit, I had a pretty illustrious run.

PAYPAL GONNA HATE.

Also fuck taxes

 

wow 1.5M on RS but thats like 300t. How much $ did you start with?

 

Viou, I can't even comprehend.. $1.6M was just the amount of gold you bought, I dread to think the amount you made back.

Great choices and its really nice to see how far you've guys gone. I feel that you guys deserve something out of this as you truly help keep this market alive and growing.

off-topic, Viou.. gimme 300m.

 

I'm glad I made it to top 10. ;P

I do agree with this list absolutely. I personally as well don't trade gold anymore. :/

I was out roughly 3-4 months from PP.

 

Is 1.6m total of trades regarding RSGP or just purchase?

If purchase, you bought RSGP for 0,5 and sold for 0.65-0.7 (if not higher at times).

Money in the bank. How much did you pay in taxes?

 

viou, it is nice to see you back. why did you stop trading gold? and is it only temporary?

 

Think he moved on to stocks

 

I think the list is pretty accurate, I would put R2P a little lower on the list as he is about the only person on sythe who sells a lot of gold for high margins on paypal successfully. I'm sure the amount of money he makes is understated.

 

Great list. Nice to see you come back with an informative post!

 

No doubt you are #1, nobody with a brain can even argue that point.

 

This list seems to be entirely based upon the Buying Gold section. This is largely due to the fact that you, Viou, mainly used this forum, and did not use the Selling forum. However, I can tell you that our company was (and have been since 2007) the leader of the Selling forum. We retail more GP than anyone on Sythe, and posted $93,000 in revenue for March 2012. Yes, these are 2011 power-rankings, but our numbers in March 2011 exceeded those of this year.

I can assure you R2Pleasent Gold retail sales outnumber anybody on that list. Furthermore, I can assure that we had revenues higher than everyone on that list, aside from you and PERHAPS jevon001/kevin001. Add to it the fact that jevon/kevin mostly resell to other companies (at profit margins sometimes of 0.01-0.02 per mil) and I think it's obvious I should have the #2 spot for 2011, and would be a front runner for #1 in 2012, with Arcus probably taking the #2.

Also, as far as trust/vouches go, we are definitely #1 on the site for that. We led sales in pre-2008 free trade, Bounty Hunter, Trade Limits. Our experience / history is untouched by anybody on the site.

My 2011 Rankings (based on your criteria):

10 - Punker
9 - kmjt
8 - Arcus Isidar (Opposite of video, wasn't big early free trade, came in halfway through year)
7 - Video (Was very active for early free trade, but really was not a huge player the latter half of the year)
6 - King Tijn (Deserves to make list, def made more money than most people on your list)
5 - h1j2q3
4 - Busta305
3 - Kevin001/Jevon001
2 - R2Pleasent (Reasons explained above)
1 - Viou (Made the most profit of the list, deserving of #1)

In the end, most of this comes down to how much money people are making. I think the list I made is fairly accurate.

Current 2012 Power-Rankings (top 5):

5 - h1j2q3
4 - Busta305
3 - Arcus Isidar
2 - Kevin001
1 - R2Pleasent

 

Everyone's number one based on their own criteria. For bulk of 2011, Viou is definitely #1. For history, you're #1.

I think most of the oncoming rants could have been averted if this was more of a category-wise Sythe Awards type of thread. That way everyone could have something they could be proud of and no one would be unintentionally be left feeling like shit for not being at the top of the list.


Everyone should just see this as a fun list and not as an official list of all the gold sellers in 2011, as Viou mentioned.

 

Yeah, I agree. I am simply posting my rankings and explaining my reasoning for them. I don't think that History should be the most important criteria, I think that should be the profit people made. After all, that is the true determinant to success.

In stock trading, the person who earns the most $ is the most successful. No one really cares who bought the most stocks, even if it is an interesting statistic.

 

Impressive stats R2, and nice compilation Viou. My only suggestion would be maybe extend the list to top 15 or top 20? Lotta people got snubbed which were pretty big gold buyers/sellers like Oxodium, Dorianking/HHN, Simple Merchant, etc. etc.

 

Thank you very much for your post as I was really hoping that you would go into detail in response to this thread. Again before moving forward this list and discussion is purely for fun. The main reason I had you at a lower ranking is because you were not among the biggest competitors in the bulk buying section through much of the early portion of the year. Now that's not to say that you were not a significant competitor and a powerful member of the trading community.

This is simply my list of who I considered to be among the biggest competitor in the bulk buying section. I completely understand that you are able to retail for high profit margins and are a leader within the selling forum and likely make a significant amount of income as a result. I also understand that kevin001/jevon001 in contrast operate on razor thin margins and so almost certainly you had a more profitable year than them. However, I considered them to be a bigger competitor in the bulk buying section than you for much of the year. As a result, I consider them to be more powerful.

If I was ranking based on profits, this list would have been quite different. But to me, the power rankings are based largely on the bulk buying section instead of on the selling section. The largest sellers sell to the biggest bulk buyers=> most powerful traders.

Now, on to your list. I personally feel that Video does rank higher than King Tijn as he was my largest competitor in the bulk buying section for around 5-6 months. I did forget about King Tijn initially (my apologies) and I will be updating my list accordingly. Additionally, I am going to slightly revise my rankings as I do think you rank higher than Busta overall. However, to me, Kevin001/Jevon001 is deserving of the number two rank.

I have updated my personal list in response to this thread and I believe it is even more accurate now than before.

Please continue to post so I can refine this list and make it as accurate as possible!

 

I have King Tijn higher because of his history 2009-10 and because he was consistent throughout 2011. Once again, Video was a big force early free trade, but for a significant portion of 2011 he didn't trade GP at all. Breakdown:

- Trust (tie)
- Vouches (King Tijn)
- Profit made (King Tijn, I believe)
- Amount of gold/money traded/handled on a yearly basis (toss-up)
- Focused on the gold buying section (Video)
- Accessibility (King Tijn - buying/selling daily)
- Variety of payment methods offered (tie)
- Customer Service (King Tijn - consistency rules here)
- Able to buy the biggest bulks (I'll give to Video, 100b trade)
- Number of seller clients (King Tijn)

And to add to this list of criteria:

- Most popular Selling Thread (King Tijn)
- Respected amongst community (Video)

 

For those interested here are some PlayerAuction statistics:


PA feedback going by Viou's top 10 list:

1. Viou - 261
2. Kevin001/Jevon001 409
3. R2Pleasant - 985
4. Busta305 - 776
5. Video - N/A
6. h1j2q3 - 399
6. King Tjin2 - 714
7. Punkerpunk13 - N/A
8. Nick - N/A
9. Arcus Isidar - 541

kmjt - 1005



Recent Feedback Ratings (last 12 months) *better represents active sellers

1. kmjt - 1006 positive
2. Busta305 - 721 positive
3. King Tjin2 - 611 positive
4. Arcus Isidar - 543 positive
5. Kevin001/Jevon001 - 418 positive
6. h1j2q3 - 331 positive
7. R2Pleasant - 291 positive
8. Viou - 220 positive




For anyone interested here is the list for top feedback overall:

Sythe's Top PA Sellers
1. kmjt - 1005
2. R2Pleasant - 985
3. Busta305 - 776
4. King Tjin2 - 714
5. Arcus Isidar - 541
6. Kevin001/Jevon001 - 409
7. h1j2q3 - 399
8. Viou - 261


I think I am the top PA seller overall on Sythe (not including company lurkers), and that includes total revenue from PA disbursements since most often I set my limit pretty high.

Most people don't know this but i'm actually a goldfarmer more often then a merchanter. I have farmed a lot more gp than I have bought, so in that way I would be unfairly represented in the buying section. I don't think I have even had to buy gp for 2 months or so. So compared to most sellers who are mostly merchanters, I am different in the sense that my profit is almost all pure profit. For example one of my good months this year was November and in that month I made 15k profit before taxes, and thats after getting deducted PA fees.

If selling thread popularity was taken into consideration I think I would also be #1 for that (not entirely sure), while also having the lowest self post % within it.

In terms of trust, I work more off site then on site (playerauctions), so most of my PA customers don't come here to vouch me, especially the random PA lurkers who don't even know what sythe is.

In terms of customer service, in my starting days when I actually was a merchant primarily, I would usually get 10 or so PA sales a day. My best day was 23 sales if I remember correctly. And my PA sales almost always consist of converting sythe members to using PA by explaining the system and guiding them through it.


Thanks for this thread Viou it is very interesting.

 

This was a very interesting to read. If Oxodium remained active I feel that he would've been close to making the top 10.