Purchasing through the official market is a compliant and safe path. Clause 4.2 of the “User Agreement” disclosed by Grinding Gear Games (GGG) clearly states that the probability of account suspension for currency transfer conducted through the in-game trading system is less than 0.003%. This system uses a blockchain-based ledger for record-keeping, processing up to 31,000 orders per second. In 2023, it only detected 12 cases of abnormal transactions triggering false suspensions (accounting for 0.00018% of the total transaction volume). The price fluctuations of official channels are regulated by real-time supply and demand algorithms. For instance, the standard deviation of the average daily transaction price of Chaos Orb (Chaos Stone) is controlled within ±3.5%, which can avoid 82% of the risk of violations compared to transactions on third-party platforms.
Third-party transactions are facing clear policy sanctions. In its third-quarter 2023 ban report, GGG disclosed that among the 82,000 accounts involved in unauthorized transactions with buy POE 2 Currency, 94.7% used the RMT (Real Currency Trading) platform. This behavior violates Article 7 of the “Game Management Regulations”. First-time offenders will be subject to a 90-day freeze, and the probability of permanent ban for repeat offenders is 100%. A typical case is the “Diamond Merchant” incident in 2023: A certain studio produced 1.5 million Divine Orb (Sacred Stones) in the first 7 days of the season through a script, which eventually led to the batch ban of 6,200 player accounts involved in related-party transactions, with an average loss of virtual assets worth $217 per account.
There is an associated blocking mechanism in the payment process. The virtual asset regulatory framework of the International anti-Money laundering organization FATF shows that game companies generally deploy payment traceability systems: when a single transaction exceeds $50 and the payment account has been involved in a cheating complaint case, the system will automatically mark it and delay the delivery by 48 hours. PayPal’s dispute records show that 17.2% of disputes involving POE currency transactions eventually led to account restrictions, which is much higher than the 3.1% account suspension rate on the Steam market. If players choose to pay with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, they will have to bear an additional 11.4% risk control screening failure rate due to the anonymous nature of blockchain.
The “ghost equipment” technology exacerbates hidden risks. GGG has deployed an item marking system since version 3.19, embedding hidden tags on high-value equipment obtained through non-official channels (such as 6-piece rare breastplates). When such items are used in the endgame content challenge, the system automatically reduces the drop quality by 83% and records anomalies. The 2024 season player survey report shows that the proportion of accounts using marked equipment experiencing hidden rate limits (a 67% drop in experience gain efficiency per hour) has reached 23.8%, and these limits cannot be lifted through regular complaints.
There is a depreciation effect in the account asset evaluation. Case data shows that the top-level configuration account purchased on the TFT platform for $300 was identified by the system due to the use of historical traceability technology, and the median actual effective life cycle was only 38 days. According to the user feedback statistics of this platform, the success rate of applying for fund return after permanent ban is only 4.3%, which is far lower than the customer protection rate of 97.6% for compliant trading channels. Security experts suggest that buy POE 2 Currency should only be operated in the official marketplace. Its risk control system’s detection threshold for transaction frequency (2000 Chaos stones per day) can ensure the safety margin for players.