Methodology
How every number on Virtual Markets is produced, so you can judge how far to trust it.
What we publish
For each game currency we aim to show up to three things: an official rate (what the game's own real-money mechanism implies), a third-party market rate (what unsanctioned sellers quote), and the spread between them. Not every market has all three, and we say so instead of filling gaps with guesses.
Confidence labels
The derived-rate formula
Where a game sells a tradable item for real money (a Bond, PLEX, a Token), the market price of that item in game currency yields an exchange rate:
official $ per unit = item's dollar price ÷ (item's in-game price ÷ unit size)Example: an OSRS Bond costs $8.99 and trades for about 11.6M gp. $8.99 ÷ 11.6 = about $0.775 per 1M gp.
This ignores conversion fees and Grand Exchange spreads, so the effective rate a player receives can differ. It is a reference, not an offer.
Per-market methods
| Market | Method | Confidence | Refresh |
|---|---|---|---|
| OSRS Gold | A Bond costs $8.99 from Jagex and is tradable on the Grand Exchange. Official $ per 1M gp = $8.99 ÷ (Bond price in gp ÷ 1,000,000). | Derived | Every 10 minutes (OSRS Wiki real-time Grand Exchange API) |
| RS3 Gold | The same $8.99 Bond trades on the RS3 Grand Exchange for roughly ten times more gp than in OSRS. Official $ per 1M gp = $8.99 ÷ (Bond price in gp ÷ 1,000,000). | Derived | Every 10 minutes (official RuneScape Grand Exchange database) |
| WoW Gold | The Token sells for $20 (US) and its gold price floats on the Auction House. Official $ per 1,000 gold = $20 ÷ (Token price in gold ÷ 1,000). | Derived | Every 10 minutes (Blizzard Game Data API; requires credentials) |
| EVE Online ISK | 500 PLEX costs $24.99 from CCP (about $0.05 each) and PLEX trades on the in-game market. Official $ per 1B ISK = ($24.99 ÷ 500) ÷ (PLEX price in ISK ÷ 1,000,000,000). | Derived | Every 10 minutes (EVE ESI market history, The Forge region) |
| Guild Wars 2 Gold | ArenaNet's public exchange API returns how many coins one gem costs. Official $ per 1,000 gold = (dollar price of one gem) ÷ (gold per gem) × 1,000. The gem's dollar price is a configured constant that must be checked against the store. | Estimate | Every 10 minutes (ArenaNet /v2/commerce/exchange endpoints) |
| Linden Dollar | Linden Lab runs LindeX, an official currency exchange. The figure shown uses the commonly cited reference of about L$249 per US$1; the live LindeX rate is the authoritative number. | Official | Manual reference (LindeX has no public rate API we rely on) |
| Project Entropia Dollar | MindArk fixes the rate at 10 PED = US$1, so 1,000 PED is exactly $100. There is nothing to derive. | Official | Fixed peg; verified manually |
| Robux | Roblox pays eligible creators $0.0038 per earned Robux (effective Sep 5, 2025; the older $0.0035 rate still applies to Robux earned before that). 1,000 Robux = $3.80. | Official | Manual (rate set by Roblox) |
| Path of Exile Currency | No official rate; in-game or seller data only. | Estimate | n/a |
| FFXIV Gil | No official rate; in-game or seller data only. | Pending | n/a |
Refresh cadence
Official and derived rates are refreshed every 10 minutes by our ingest job where a public API exists. Pages show a ● LIVE indicator when they are being served from the live pipeline, and ◌ SNAPSHOT when they show a dated build-time value. Third-party seller quotes are collected a few times per day, only from sources whose terms permit it.
Limitations
- Third-party quotes are patchy and vary by platform, realm, and delivery method.
- Some sources are community-run rather than first-party (for example Universalis for FFXIV).
- Reference constants, such as a pack's dollar price, are checked manually and can lag a price change.
Corrections
If you spot an error, email hello@vmarkets.net. We correct the number and note the change.