The Market, Explained

01Welcome

Welcome. The glossary tells you what each word means. This course goes one step further. It shows how the market itself works, and how to read the Terminal the way the people who built it read it.

It takes about fifteen minutes. By the end, you will know the difference between the two kinds of numbers on every market screen, why that difference matters more than any single price, and exactly how a sale moves from one collector to another and becomes part of the record.

Here is the one idea to hold on to from the start. There are modeled numbers, and there are verified numbers. They answer different questions, and The Village keeps them apart on purpose.

02Two kinds of numbers

Every market produces two kinds of information. The first is what something is estimated to be worth. The second is what someone actually paid for it. Most marketplaces blur the two together. The Village does not.

A modeled number is an estimate. It is calculated by the MMX engine from what the market knows right now. A verified number is a fact. It comes only from a sale that really happened, really settled, and was really recorded in the registry.

On the Terminal, they live in two separate panels, with two separate labels. Modeled figures are marked modeled, estimated, or simulated. Verified figures are marked verified, and only a completed sale can put a number there.

There is one rule behind all of it. Verified data can influence modeled data. Modeled data can never pretend to be verified data. If you remember nothing else from this course, remember that rule.

03Modeled values

A modeled value is a calculated estimate, produced by the MMX engine, before enough real sales exist to price every piece by its own trades. Early in any market, that is most of the time.

The engine works from what it can see. The issue price of each line. How many pieces are authenticated, and how many are active. The bids that buyers have placed, and the asks that sellers have set. Scarcity. Pieces that have been burned and can never trade again. Pieces that are frozen after a theft report. Earlier reference prices. And a set of weighting rules that decide how much each of those inputs counts.

Here is a worked example. Suppose one character has 2,222 active pieces, and the model marks each one at $2,500. Multiply the two, and the modeled market value of that line is $5,555,000.

Now, what does that number mean? It does not mean $5,555,000 has changed hands. Not one dollar of it has to have moved. It means only this: based on the current model, this authenticated supply is estimated to have this value, all together.

That is why every modeled figure is labeled. You will see the words modeled, estimated, or simulated market value next to it. Those labels are not decoration. They tell you which question the number is answering.

04Verified values

A verified value comes from one place only: a real, completed sale. And a sale has to clear a high bar before The Village will call it verified.

The buyer actually paid. The seller actually sold. The payment cleared. The collectible passed authentication. The seller’s ownership was confirmed. The registry transferred ownership to the buyer. The sale was not cancelled, refunded, or reversed. And the sale was not someone trading with themselves, or with a related party, to paint a price.

Only when every one of those is true does the sale become a verified market print.

Suppose one Tech Moody legitimately changes hands for $3,000. Then the verified transaction value is $3,000. That is real money that really moved, from a real buyer to a real seller.

The MMX engine may then use that verified sale as evidence when it estimates the value of other, comparable Moodys. That is verified data influencing modeled data, exactly as the rule allows. But those other pieces are still modeled until they trade themselves. One sale informs the estimate. It never turns the estimate into a fact.

05Primary and secondary sales

Before we go further, it helps to separate two kinds of sales.

A primary sale is the first sale of a new piece, straight from the house, at the published price. The price is set in advance, and it is the same for everyone in the drop. Primary sales are real money, but they do not tell you what the market thinks a piece is worth, because nobody negotiated the price.

A secondary sale, or resale, is one collector selling to another, at a price the two of them agree. That is where the market speaks. The total of all completed resales is called secondary gross merchandise value, and it is one of the most important verified numbers on the Terminal, because every dollar of it reflects a real decision by a real buyer.

06The order book

Between the estimate and the sale sits the order book.

A bid is a price a buyer is willing to pay. An ask is a price a seller is willing to accept. The highest bid and the lowest ask sit at the top of the book, and the gap between them is called the spread. When a bid meets an ask, a trade can happen.

Here is the important part. A bid is not a sale. An ask is not a sale. They are intentions, and intentions can be withdrawn. The MMX engine may look at the book as one of its inputs, which is why bids and asks can nudge a modeled value. But nothing in the book ever counts as verified, because no money has moved.

A narrow spread usually means buyers and sellers broadly agree on a price. A wide spread means they do not, and it is a reminder that a modeled value is only an estimate of where the two sides might meet.

07Reading the Terminal

Open the Terminal and you will find the two kinds of numbers side by side, in two panels that never share a figure.

The verified panel holds facts. The last verified sale. Verified sales volume. The number of completed verified trades. The verified high, the verified low, and the verified average sale. Verified secondary gross merchandise value, which is the total of all completed resales. And the creator royalties and Village fees those verified sales actually produced.

The modeled panel holds estimates. The MMX modeled level. The modeled market value. How much the modeled value has changed. The authenticated active supply the model is working from. Each line’s modeled value. And the modeled value of the whole Village composite.

When you read a market screen, read the label before you read the number. Ask yourself: is this an estimate, or is this something that happened? On The Village, the screen always tells you.

08The thirty-five million dollar example

Here is how this looks in practice. Suppose the Terminal shows a modeled total market value of about $35 million.

That means the MMX engine estimates that the active, authenticated Tech Moody supply is worth about $35 million at current modeled prices. It does not mean $35 million has traded.

Directly underneath, you might see verified secondary sales volume of zero dollars, if no real resales have happened yet. Put those two lines together, and the screen tells the whole truth at a glance. Modeled market value, about $35 million. Verified secondary volume, zero.

Once real sales begin, the verified figure grows on its own. Later, you might see a modeled market value of $38 million, and verified secondary volume of $1.2 million.

Those two numbers are not competing with each other. One estimates what the whole supply is worth. The other counts the money that has actually changed hands. Different questions, different answers, both honest.

09What moves the model

The modeled value is not fixed. It moves as the inputs move, and it helps to know which inputs carry the most weight.

A new verified print is the strongest evidence the model can receive, because it is a real price that someone actually paid. Recent prints count for more than old ones. A burned piece tightens supply, so it can lift the estimate a little. A frozen piece does not, for the reason you will hear in a moment. Fresh bids and asks can nudge the estimate, and orders that are withdrawn or expire drop out of it.

In a quiet market, with few sales, the model leans more on issue prices and the order book, and its estimates are less certain. As verified sales build up, the model leans more and more on what people have actually paid.

Before the first real sale, the market you see on the site runs on a simulation, so the screens can show how everything will work. Those figures are labeled simulated, and the status strip at the bottom of the Terminal says the basis is simulated, so no one mistakes a demonstration for a real price.

10How the indexes work

The Village summarizes the market with three indexes. MMX tracks the 9″ Tech Moodys. MMX-S tracks sealed 6″ plush, still in their wrap. And the Composite brings every listed segment together into one number.

Each index starts at a base of 1,111. If MMX reads 1,222, the modeled level of the 9″ market sits about ten percent above where it began. If it reads 1,000, it sits below. Like any index, it can move in either direction.

Supply feeds directly into the indexes. Burned pieces leave the supply for good, because a destroyed or tampered piece can never trade again. Frozen pieces, the ones reported stolen, still count as part of the supply. That is deliberate. Theft must never shrink supply, or stealing a piece would raise the value of everything the thief still holds.

11How a trade moves

Now let us follow a single trade from start to finish, because this is how you move through the market.

It begins with a new piece, bought straight from the house in a drop, at the published price. That is a primary sale. The piece is registered to its first owner, and it carries its Passport from that moment on.

Later, that owner may decide to sell. Buyers place bids, which are the prices they are willing to pay. Sellers set asks, which are the prices they will accept. Together, the open bids and asks form the order book, and the best of each sit at the top.

When a buyer and a seller agree, the buyer’s money goes to a licensed escrow company, not to The Village and not to the seller. The piece is authenticated, layer by layer. The registry confirms the seller’s ownership. Then the registry transfers the piece to the buyer, and only then does escrow pay the seller. If any step fails, the buyer is refunded, and nothing changes hands.

And once that sale has cleared every check, it is printed to the tape as a verified market print. It counts toward verified volume. And it becomes evidence the MMX engine can use, the next time it estimates the value of comparable pieces.

12Reading it responsibly

A few habits will keep you clear-headed.

Treat modeled numbers as estimates, because that is what they are. Look to verified prints to learn what people have actually paid. Remember that prices can fall as well as rise, and that nothing on The Village promises any piece will be worth more tomorrow than it is today.

A Moody is a collectible to keep, enjoy, and pass on. It is not an investment, and the market is here so that collectors can buy and sell with confidence, not so that anyone can be promised a return.

13In summary

Let us bring it all together. Modeled values are estimates from the MMX engine, always labeled as modeled. Verified values come only from real, authenticated, fully settled sales recorded in the registry. Verified data can shape the model, but the model can never stand in for a verified sale.

On the Terminal, the two always sit apart, and the disclosure under every market value says so in plain words. When you read the market, read the label first, then the number.

Thank you for listening, and for taking the time to understand how The Village works. We are glad you are here.