Diablo 4 player trading was absolutely out of control before Blizzard disabled it earlier this week due to a gold duplication exploit.
A normal player might carry around a few million gold in Diablo 4 after days of running dungeons, but the exploit could net you billions of gold in a short amount of time. Once it circulated far enough to reach gold sellers, the prices to trade items skyrocketed.
Jeppe-O released a video of several Discord users bidding for their crossbow hours before Blizzard disabled player trading. The price started at 150 million and quickly climbed to 1.5 billion gold, and then the players who spend real money on gold selling websites logged in.
The bids rose to 5 billion before one user, ironically named "Poor Guy," jumped in and offered 9.9 billion gold, the maximum amount you can carry on a single account. Jeppe-O was about to sell it to them, but another user, Sin, came in and offered 12 billion.
"Host cannot receive 12 billion, it should be given to the first person to arrive at 10 billion," Poor Guy wrote in response. "If he wants more, I'll bid for 20 billion."
Sin said they had a friend willing to carry the extra 2 billion gold and told Jeppe-O "I can go as high as [you] want."
Poor Guy wasn't going to give up on this crossbow that easily and gave Jeppe-O a choice: 20 billion gold and any item they needed or a flat 30 billion gold. The video ends with Jeppe-O, and presumably two friends, completing the trade for 30 billion gold.
"This has to be the most entertaining shit ever on this server," Sin wrote.
Before Jeppe-O went through with the sale, Poor Guy posted their current crossbow. For more gold than most Diablo 4 players will make in their life, Poor Guy gained 25% extra DoT damage and a few extra percentage points of Core Skill and Vulnerable damage.
This entire transaction is even more ridiculous if you consider the fact that any gold or items earned on the Seasonal Realm is transferred back onto the Eternal Realm permanently when the season ends. Poor Guy won't have his expensive bow and Jeppe-O will be as broke as everyone else going into season 2.
Blizzard hasn't explained how the gold dupe exploit worked or how many players used it, but it said that "any account that engages in gold and item duplication exploits will be actioned in accordance with our End User License Agreement." According to Jeppe-O in the YouTube comments, they haven't been banned yet.
