TLDR:
We were all curious to see what the bazaar directory looked like, myself as a trader especially. When it was released, a player named Xanet was among the top 10 grossing bazaars with $10.9b sold over the past week. Impressive, but not noteworthy on its own.
However, being a trader, I did not recognize Xanet’s name and expected I would recognize a trader prolific enough to sell $10b+ in a week. I clicked on Xanet’s Bazaar. Their bazaar was full of overpriced cans and beer.
I clicked on Xanet’s profile. Last action: 27 days ago. In the Hospital: Mugged by someone. The bazaar directory had just been released and there was a chance to get a big mug and farm target, though we suspected that we missed out on the $1b mug. A mugger in my faction mugged and got $28m. We did the math and figured Xanet had somewhere around $7b on hand. We mugged again and got $20m. We made plans to farm Xanet until it was no longer worth it. While waiting for the next mug opportunity, we learned that members of The Next Level bought billions from this bazaar and planned it all back over a week.
With others learning Xanet had billions in their wallet, The Next Level hospitalized Xanet for over 7 hours to figure out next steps. At this point, I was checking Xanet's profile frequently to see who mugged knowing that another faction might learn about Xanet. Long-term, I wanted to know if The Next Level recovers the money they spent on overpriced energy drinks and beer. Maybe someone would let Xanet know and they come back to Torn and deposit the billions in their wallet. So what happened next? A bit of all three. Chain Reaction mugged Xanet about 24 hours after the bazaar directory release.
Thanks to some new data being exposed, we can see exactly when The Next Level bought $10.9b worth of items from Xanet. May 14. Exactly 7 days before the bazaar directory was released on May 21. Had The Next Level bought just 1 day earlier, possibly as little as minutes, we would not have discovered Xanet had significant cash on hand.
So did The Next Level mug all $10.9b back? No, Xanet returned to Torn on May 26. We can see that Xanet had 6,509 defends lost on May 14 and 6,688 defends lost on May 26 meaning Xanet was attacked 179 times after The Next Level bought the items. My contact within The Next Level estimated that 20 of those attacks were by players outside of their faction.
This begs the question. Did The Next Level profit from this scheme and by how much? My contact within The Next Level stated that they did have a positive return though noted it could have been much more if the bazaar directory did not ruin it. Xanet returned to Torn on May 26 and deposited the remainder of the cash. We also know from the previous bazaar screenshot that the items in Xanet’s bazaar were overpriced. Let’s assume that the cost of the items was double their actual market value meaning that The Next Level needed to mug $5.95b. Knowing The Next Level attacked approximately 160 times valued at $3m per 25E, let’s assume the true breakeven point was $6.5b mugged from Xanet.
Unfortunately, Xanet’s networth stats only have data for April 30 ($105b) and then May 26 (100.6b) so I cannot say for certain. If someone has other data sources and is better at Torn mug math than I am, by all means reach out! I do believe that The Next Level members profited though likely only a few billion compared to the $10.9b they anticipated
Special thanks to the members of The Next Level who were involved in and commented on this story and would have gotten away with it if not for those pesky kids Ched’s timing.
If anyone is better at Torn mug math than me (likely many of you), I would love to see better estimates on the profits.
Also, welcome back to Torn, Xanet! :)