I've been participating in the closed beta testing for a new trading website called Cardsphere. It functions kind of similarly to Puca Trade, however there is one MASSIVE difference that drew me to it: Instead of points, everything is backed with REAL MONEY. People can deposit money into the system and put cards on their want list. Or if you don't want to spend any money (like me), just start sending cards to other members to grab their funds to build up yours. The best part is you can cash out for real money at any time in the form of a paypal deposit.
There are 2 transaction fees to keep the site running: 1% out of what the sender of the card would receive for each card sent, and $10 or 10% (whichever is greater) if you want to withdraw funds into your paypal.
So far cards have been flying like crazy and people can't keep funds in their accounts. This includes modern staples.
Forgive me but this reeks of "scam" a) they charge fees per transaction and to take out your money, and b) its not really backed by anything if the creator of the site decided "shut down friday" all your money is gone poof.
To the best of my knowelge Puca doesn't deal with cash and certanly does not have transaction fees. Frankly its the "withdrawing your funds" fee that just turns me off 100% and makes me think wait until site has X dollar value then shut down.
At these fees I am not sure why you would use this over say Ebay
8 months of beta testing where they add new features daily based on the feedback that they get from users in their discord channel seems like an awful lot of work for a one and done scam. Especially when most of us have all of their names and addresses from sending them cards. A long term sustainable economic model is much more profitable than a short term scam.
Pucatrade's economy crashed BECAUSE they have nothing backing their points. It's awfully easy for me to buy points right now for $.40 per 100 points when 100 points was supposed to equal $1.00. They hyperinflated their money supply and now are suffering the consequences. It's impossible to hyperinflate the money supply when someone can cash out at a direct 1:1 ratio (minus the 10% fee)
I would use this over eBay because 11% < 20%. It's also much easier to move bulk to stock up on value with Cardsphere than eBay. You also control the price and whether or not it gets purchased since as the seller, you seek out the buyer and confirm the trade when you find a price you want to send it at, not the other way around.
Edit: also should add that I am simply a user and have no association with cardsphere and no stock in cardsphere.
Just for a bit of clarification, when it comes to ebay fees, the actual cost to sell on ebay is as follows:
Final Value Fees: 9% of the total (price + shipping) of the item sold
Listing Fees: Free if you only list 50 items or less per month.
Paypal Fees: 2.9% of the total (price + shipping) of the payment received + .30 per payment received.
Essentially you are talking about 11.9% of the total (price + shipping) + .30 per payment received.
That correction aside, The concept sounds interesting, but as with a lot of things, there are going to be a lot of skeptical people out there that are going to have trouble trusting such a site until such time as they have proven themselves fully to the general public and built up enough confidence to start bringing in a much more significant group of users for the long-haul. Good for the sites developers and users if everything is on the up and up and everything works out in the long-run.
1) You first have to invest into the system, either with cards or money. A common feature in pyramid schemes and similar things, Pucatrade included.
2) Who guarantees that the system doesn't run low on or completely out of cash, and refuses to or is unable to honor your cashout request?
Speaking specifically to the second question, I had a very similar question. I remember when the poker websites were outlawed in the US and many of them were arrested. They only left a fraction of the money in the system to cover people's balances and went on a spending spree with the rest. Their creators that are on discord regularly have said that no money will be withdrawn from reserve until a transaction happens that incurs a fee.
I was also a beta user that followed the situation closely but also passively. I can say that I've had more success with cardsphere than Pucatrade in the week I was there than the last year or so of pucatrade.
Jury is still out on the site though because it needs a lot of users to be effective but the concept is good and I believe the founders really wanted to plug all the holes that led to the pucatrade ship sinking. Implementation is a hell of a lot better than pucatrade's and this is just beta, from their feature design philosophy to consulting individuals with a good working economic background to find ways to ensure the longevity of the site.
It's actually funny because I think the failure of pucatrade might very well be the factor that prevents CS from taking off because while there will be puca expats, a lot of people have been burned so hard that they're probably never going to touch anything like this ever again and that's not good when it comes to word of mouth advertisement.
Hi guys,
I'm tdb2 on Reddit and I'm one of the founders of CS. I'm also a long time salvation user. Used to hang out here a lot before I started sinking all my time into CS.
I understand your concerns. All of them are valid. Please feel free to ask me any questions.
I just want to say that I have personally been working 80 hour weeks (40 day job + 40 CS) for the last 8 months. My name and address is public record as a director of Cardsphere Inc., a Canadian federal corporation. I am 34, married with 2 kids. Not really a portrait of a scammer, eh? CS project was born out of frustration with that other project, and the desire to show that better is possible.
I understand your concerns. All of them are valid. Please feel free to ask me any questions.
Hi Michael!
Question for you - what's your system for making sure that if I put, for example, a judge foil Avacyn on my list and I receive a FTV foil Avacyn, I'm not just screwed if the seller claims "No, I sent him the right thing!" There's got to be some buffer built into the system to make sure that people don't get burned.
Puca will refund the PP to the buyer, eBay will refund the buyer's money (since they have the seller's credit card, they can do that even if the seller cashes out), and most major stores have similar refund policies as well. What's your protection plan? The site looks very interesting and I love the idea of posting a "public buylist", but I'm wondering how you cover the inevitable issues. Caveat emptor?
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Oh look, another solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.
If you think that, you spent no time on Pucatrade when it was massively successful and no time on Pucatrade when it collapsed under a series of poor decisions. Something that can replace the effectiveness of Puca in its heyday is EXTREMELY welcome.
There is a dispute process for that. The funds are not released to the seller until the buyer accepts the trade or a dispute is resolved in the seller's favor. The obligations for sellers and buyers are outlined and are very clear and precise. Dispute will look into all pieces of evidence, including messages between the two parties, scans and photos, previous history etc. CS dos not provide insurance (because unlike that other site we can not print "pints" and drop them from a helicopter). We may offer insurance in the future when we gather more statistics from the disputes. Sellers are encouraged to use shipping insurance when the value of the package is considerable.
Oh look, another solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.
If you think that, you spent no time on Pucatrade when it was massively successful and no time on Pucatrade when it collapsed under a series of poor decisions. Something that can replace the effectiveness of Puca in its heyday is EXTREMELY welcome.
Card to Card
Card to Cash
Cash to Card
I fail to see why a points system has to insert itself to be a middleman to any of these transactions.
Oh look, another solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.
If you think that, you spent no time on Pucatrade when it was massively successful and no time on Pucatrade when it collapsed under a series of poor decisions. Something that can replace the effectiveness of Puca in its heyday is EXTREMELY welcome.
Card to Card
Card to Cash
Cash to Card
I fail to see why a points system has to insert itself to be a middleman to any of these transactions.
That failure is on you then, it's not my place to have to educate you on why these sites when run properly are beneficial. I exchanged $5,100 worth of cards (TCG mid) in 18 months on Puca while my friend moved $1,800 in roughly the same time. But I guess you're right, there's no point for these sites...
I fail to see why a points system has to insert itself to be a middleman to any of these transactions.
For the cash cases, the big selling point is removing transaction fees. For card to card, it allows for trading up more easily. Turning a pile of junk rares and/or uncommons into high dollar cards doesn't really happen in face to face trades, but is very possible if you're accumulating credit on an account. Puca worked well for that a couple years ago.
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For card to card, it allows for trading up more easily. Turning a pile of junk rares and/or uncommons into high dollar cards doesn't really happen in face to face trades, but is very possible if you're accumulating credit on an account. Puca worked well for that a couple years ago.
This times 1000. Good luck turning draft chaff into value through card to cash mediums like eBay or through face to face trades. Puca in its heyday was ground-breaking since you could move piles of junk and get decent stuff in return relatively quickly.
Puca was indispensable in my building of several Modern decks, and I'm saddened by its collapse. I'll be willing to give this new site a try, albeit cautiously.
Edit: Signed up and started inputting cards. I like the site so far. Quick and responsive. Better layout than Puca 1.0, and FAR better than the debacle that Future Site ended up being.
This sounds pretty much similar than MCM was when it got started. They didn't have the 10 buck fee for cashing out, but the transaction fee was bit higher. On MCM the seller sets the price he wants, instead of buyers setting the cut/bonus and buyers need to choose who to get the cards instead the other way around, but 10 years back MCM had similar problems getting of the ground.
I for one can heartily agree that anything helping people trade their cards for ones they need is great and as long as the system is both relatively transparent (how card prices are set, grading problems and possibly even stuff like do the people who have access to the sites data have bots or even trade on the site etc) and the site has financial stability. With those issues taken care of hopefully the site grows and prospers.
On MCM I have bought 1532 shipments and sent out 1401. In the last few years I haven't had to invest money into building my collection, altough I'm several hundred euros down from buying stamps. But that's a small price for being able to play whatever I want in all formats (Well I actually would have to buy few cards for 93/94 for the wackier decks, I kind of have regrets selling my Unl BoPs...)
Bumping this as the official Cardsphere thread to divorce the relevant conversation from the Puca thread. Just as a frame of reference for how far CS has come in almost a year, these are today's (2/22/18) trade stats:
7,714 users
149,697 items worth $515,166.52 traded all time
12,750 items worth $42,155.95 in transit
I want to say beginning of January the user base was just north of 6000 and at about $30k in transit on any given day. A lot of growth the last two months.
I feel that the growth is mostly due to people's dissatisfaction with pucatrade. I for one am loving cardsphere. The only problem is that they don't have enough users so it can be difficult to find packages worthwhile to send. It's survival of the clickest days all over again.
I'm not going to completely write off CS (especially since I put so much time into adding so many cards). But here's the issue I will have in the future: I am not going to stop using Puca Trade. I bring this up because it is going to be difficult to determine what cards I need to add that were added in the past to PT. Figuring out what was already sent via PT shouldn't be too much of a nightmare - just look at the sent list from February 2018 and forward.
I will get into CS when the user base is much larger. For now, I prefer being able to send out packages of either a few medium to big cards, or a package of 8 to 12 small cards. Right now, I do have the clickiest of time to be checking in a few times a day in hopes of finding a good enough package.
I feel that the growth is mostly due to people's dissatisfaction with pucatrade.
I'd call it a mixed bag, at least what I gather from the chatter from Ted and Woadworks on Discord. Seems like growth had been fairly steady over time, which you may or may not be able to attribute to Puca attrition. That said, there was a particularly intense Puca reddit subthread last week that caused a fairly significant spike in CS sign-ups.
In an effort to stop comparing the two directly though - agreed though, loving CS as a service. I've been on there since last year. Def clicky survival, but it does seem like it's getting easier to find good trades the last couple months, especially for decent cuts (+80% on staples).
You can easily move eternal staples at 80%+, but moving standard stuff takes a lot more work. Being on the discord channel definitely helps.
I always try to get an anchor card (something that makes a package worthwhile to send) and add as much bulk to the package as I can. Even if the rate on the bulk isn't that great.
Reading my initial assessment in this thread way back in May of last year, I think we may have cleared (or very close to clearing) the perception hurdle. Users are steadily streaming in and growth, while slow, is also moving at a healthy pace.
Despite me having liquidated and consolidated most of my stock during the golden Puca era, i'm still finding packages to send out pretty consistently and at very good rates, i'm not churning through thousands of envelopes per week like power users though, it's definitely more of a once or twice a week affair type.
Staples are definitely flowing which is a good sign and increased users means increased competition which is driving up prices making it more palatable to send out said staples.
Just got a playset of mp ancient tombs committed at roughly ~$20 a piece, feels pretty good.
There are 2 transaction fees to keep the site running: 1% out of what the sender of the card would receive for each card sent, and $10 or 10% (whichever is greater) if you want to withdraw funds into your paypal.
So far cards have been flying like crazy and people can't keep funds in their accounts. This includes modern staples.
Has anyone else tried yet?
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=11439737#post11439737
Reality is only what man allows it to be. Few shape it so that many may accept it.
To the best of my knowelge Puca doesn't deal with cash and certanly does not have transaction fees. Frankly its the "withdrawing your funds" fee that just turns me off 100% and makes me think wait until site has X dollar value then shut down.
At these fees I am not sure why you would use this over say Ebay
Pucatrade's economy crashed BECAUSE they have nothing backing their points. It's awfully easy for me to buy points right now for $.40 per 100 points when 100 points was supposed to equal $1.00. They hyperinflated their money supply and now are suffering the consequences. It's impossible to hyperinflate the money supply when someone can cash out at a direct 1:1 ratio (minus the 10% fee)
I would use this over eBay because 11% < 20%. It's also much easier to move bulk to stock up on value with Cardsphere than eBay. You also control the price and whether or not it gets purchased since as the seller, you seek out the buyer and confirm the trade when you find a price you want to send it at, not the other way around.
Edit: also should add that I am simply a user and have no association with cardsphere and no stock in cardsphere.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=11439737#post11439737
Reality is only what man allows it to be. Few shape it so that many may accept it.
Final Value Fees: 9% of the total (price + shipping) of the item sold
Listing Fees: Free if you only list 50 items or less per month.
Paypal Fees: 2.9% of the total (price + shipping) of the payment received + .30 per payment received.
Essentially you are talking about 11.9% of the total (price + shipping) + .30 per payment received.
That correction aside, The concept sounds interesting, but as with a lot of things, there are going to be a lot of skeptical people out there that are going to have trouble trusting such a site until such time as they have proven themselves fully to the general public and built up enough confidence to start bringing in a much more significant group of users for the long-haul. Good for the sites developers and users if everything is on the up and up and everything works out in the long-run.
Speaking specifically to the second question, I had a very similar question. I remember when the poker websites were outlawed in the US and many of them were arrested. They only left a fraction of the money in the system to cover people's balances and went on a spending spree with the rest. Their creators that are on discord regularly have said that no money will be withdrawn from reserve until a transaction happens that incurs a fee.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=11439737#post11439737
Reality is only what man allows it to be. Few shape it so that many may accept it.
Jury is still out on the site though because it needs a lot of users to be effective but the concept is good and I believe the founders really wanted to plug all the holes that led to the pucatrade ship sinking. Implementation is a hell of a lot better than pucatrade's and this is just beta, from their feature design philosophy to consulting individuals with a good working economic background to find ways to ensure the longevity of the site.
It's actually funny because I think the failure of pucatrade might very well be the factor that prevents CS from taking off because while there will be puca expats, a lot of people have been burned so hard that they're probably never going to touch anything like this ever again and that's not good when it comes to word of mouth advertisement.
I'm tdb2 on Reddit and I'm one of the founders of CS. I'm also a long time salvation user. Used to hang out here a lot before I started sinking all my time into CS.
I understand your concerns. All of them are valid. Please feel free to ask me any questions.
I just want to say that I have personally been working 80 hour weeks (40 day job + 40 CS) for the last 8 months. My name and address is public record as a director of Cardsphere Inc., a Canadian federal corporation. I am 34, married with 2 kids. Not really a portrait of a scammer, eh? CS project was born out of frustration with that other project, and the desire to show that better is possible.
Michael
Cardsphere MTG Draft Simulator
Cardsphere Blog - Original Content
Hi Michael!
Question for you - what's your system for making sure that if I put, for example, a judge foil Avacyn on my list and I receive a FTV foil Avacyn, I'm not just screwed if the seller claims "No, I sent him the right thing!" There's got to be some buffer built into the system to make sure that people don't get burned.
Puca will refund the PP to the buyer, eBay will refund the buyer's money (since they have the seller's credit card, they can do that even if the seller cashes out), and most major stores have similar refund policies as well. What's your protection plan? The site looks very interesting and I love the idea of posting a "public buylist", but I'm wondering how you cover the inevitable issues. Caveat emptor?
If you think that, you spent no time on Pucatrade when it was massively successful and no time on Pucatrade when it collapsed under a series of poor decisions. Something that can replace the effectiveness of Puca in its heyday is EXTREMELY welcome.
Cardsphere MTG Draft Simulator
Cardsphere Blog - Original Content
Card to Card
Card to Cash
Cash to Card
I fail to see why a points system has to insert itself to be a middleman to any of these transactions.
That failure is on you then, it's not my place to have to educate you on why these sites when run properly are beneficial. I exchanged $5,100 worth of cards (TCG mid) in 18 months on Puca while my friend moved $1,800 in roughly the same time. But I guess you're right, there's no point for these sites...
This times 1000. Good luck turning draft chaff into value through card to cash mediums like eBay or through face to face trades. Puca in its heyday was ground-breaking since you could move piles of junk and get decent stuff in return relatively quickly.
stuff
Edit: Signed up and started inputting cards. I like the site so far. Quick and responsive. Better layout than Puca 1.0, and FAR better than the debacle that Future Site ended up being.
I for one can heartily agree that anything helping people trade their cards for ones they need is great and as long as the system is both relatively transparent (how card prices are set, grading problems and possibly even stuff like do the people who have access to the sites data have bots or even trade on the site etc) and the site has financial stability. With those issues taken care of hopefully the site grows and prospers.
On MCM I have bought 1532 shipments and sent out 1401. In the last few years I haven't had to invest money into building my collection, altough I'm several hundred euros down from buying stamps. But that's a small price for being able to play whatever I want in all formats (Well I actually would have to buy few cards for 93/94 for the wackier decks, I kind of have regrets selling my Unl BoPs...)
Set to default
7,714 users
149,697 items worth $515,166.52 traded all time
12,750 items worth $42,155.95 in transit
I want to say beginning of January the user base was just north of 6000 and at about $30k in transit on any given day. A lot of growth the last two months.
stuff
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=11439737#post11439737
Reality is only what man allows it to be. Few shape it so that many may accept it.
I will get into CS when the user base is much larger. For now, I prefer being able to send out packages of either a few medium to big cards, or a package of 8 to 12 small cards. Right now, I do have the clickiest of time to be checking in a few times a day in hopes of finding a good enough package.
I'd call it a mixed bag, at least what I gather from the chatter from Ted and Woadworks on Discord. Seems like growth had been fairly steady over time, which you may or may not be able to attribute to Puca attrition. That said, there was a particularly intense Puca reddit subthread last week that caused a fairly significant spike in CS sign-ups.
In an effort to stop comparing the two directly though - agreed though, loving CS as a service. I've been on there since last year. Def clicky survival, but it does seem like it's getting easier to find good trades the last couple months, especially for decent cuts (+80% on staples).
stuff
I always try to get an anchor card (something that makes a package worthwhile to send) and add as much bulk to the package as I can. Even if the rate on the bulk isn't that great.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=11439737#post11439737
Reality is only what man allows it to be. Few shape it so that many may accept it.
Despite me having liquidated and consolidated most of my stock during the golden Puca era, i'm still finding packages to send out pretty consistently and at very good rates, i'm not churning through thousands of envelopes per week like power users though, it's definitely more of a once or twice a week affair type.
Staples are definitely flowing which is a good sign and increased users means increased competition which is driving up prices making it more palatable to send out said staples.
Just got a playset of mp ancient tombs committed at roughly ~$20 a piece, feels pretty good.