Entropia Universe Auction House – Beginners Guide Part 8

Entropia Universe Auction House — where most of the trades happen!

Profit in Entropia Universe is made with Markup, not with Globals.

The 3 Ways to Buy and Sell in Entropia Universe

For Your Information: this article was last updated on July 13, 2026, Revised and Corrected by Claude.

We're now going to talk about the most important part of the EU economy: buying and selling!

In EU, you buy and sell all kinds of things in different ways:

1. Buying and selling at a Trade Terminal
2. Buying and selling from other players
3. Buying and selling through the Auctions

The Trade Terminal is also referred to as the TT! When you buy or sell something at TT Value, it means either you're not going to profit from your sale, or the person you're buying from isn't going to profit. So when you buy something at TT Value... it generally means a FAIR price!

This happens when you buy from the Trade Terminal, and sometimes from a friend.

Because just like in real life, even friends or fellow society members will want to profit, and won't sell you things at the exact price they paid (TT price). Remember, in EU we play with our real-life money, so whenever people can make a profit... they do! 😏 In fact, most people in EU are greedy...

Okay, let's take an example:

Here's some Purpurite Crystal, one of 4 crystals on Next Island that used to sell for a nice Markup. Unfortunately, like many other loots on other planets, it crashed over the recent years and is now far from as valuable as it once was.

Still, let's use it as an example 👍

If you right-click on this material and click the market indicator (the chart icon, bottom right), a little window shows the recent Markup (also called MU): this resource sold for up to 500% of its value in the last week, with more than 178 PED of value traded on Purpurite Crystal during that time — so a total of 178 × 5 = 890 PED exchanged between players!

1. 1 Purpurite Crystal is 0.06 PED, so at 500% you can sell it for 0.3 PED.
2. If 178 PED of value changed hands in the last week, there's clearly a market for it 👍

So if you have, say, 10 units of Purpurite Crystal, don't sell them to the TT! You'd only make 0.6 PED (0.06 × 10), when you could sell them all for 3 PED to other players (0.06 × 10 × 500%). MU is everything in EU to make more money and profit — even more so when the game hasn't been kind to you loot-wise...

Selling Directly to Other Players

How do we sell to other players?

Very easily... Just advertise in the main trade channel (like #calytrade on Calypso) what you have for sale, and someone will eventually contact you. And if someone else is selling in the chat, just click their name to send a private message. Every planet has its own specific trade channel — ask about it in-game.

You don't really need to negotiate unless the price is bad — just ask the person their MU and the total in PED. It can be a price like "TT+15" or a percentage like "150%". Then go meet them at the nearest TP, or they can send you their location.

Once you're in front of the person, right-click on them to start the trade.

In the trade window, each of you places the items you want to exchange. Every time something changes — adding, removing or modifying a quantity — both of you must confirm again! It's a good system that prevents mistakes. And remember, all trades are final! If you're unhappy with a trade's outcome, MindArk won't be held responsible for your actions... so don't even think about opening a support case — it will be ignored.

As an example, on the first screenshot below I made a deal with someone willing to buy SWEAT! (Remember, we talked about Sweat Gathering earlier...) I wasn't greedy — I told him my price was 1.5 PED/k, meaning 1.5 PED for every 1,000 units of sweat. He wanted 5k (5,000 units of Vibrant Sweat), so we agreed on 5k for 7.5 PED (1.5 × 5), which was a good price 👍

One nice player buying sweat for a good price.

On the second screenshot, I wanted to buy 880 units of Lysterium Ingot for a Manufacturing mission. So I contacted a guy on my friend list who's a very nice and well-known reseller in EU! His prices are more than fair, and I was glad he was on Next Island. I told him what I needed, he gave me his MU of 105%, then the total in PED, and we traded near the sweat circle.

Vill — one of the best sellers in EU! Literally a walking store.

FYI (For Your Information), when you want to hand over your money, right-click your PED card (as on the right of the 2nd screenshot), select "Extract PEDs" and extract the amount you need. Then just drag and drop the PEDs and PECs from your inventory into the trade window 😊

Selling Through the Auctions and the Auctioneer NPC

How do we sell via the Auctions?

Even simpler than trading with other players... Auctions are browsed at an Auctioneer.

These NPCs (Non-Player Characters) are scattered around the planets, mostly found in big cities or some outposts. It's up to the designers to place them where they expect enough players to use them... It would be pointless to stick an Auctioneer in the middle of nowhere 😏

Important to know: every time you sell at an Auctioneer, there's a small fee of 0.50+ PED. So make sure it's worth it — no point selling something for a price that barely covers the fee.

As an example, let's take this Auctioneer on the screenshots below...

This one is located at a place called the Oasis on Next Island. You interact with a right-click, and the auctions window appears. As you can see, I already typed the word purpurite to check what other players were selling it for — useful to make sure your price is in the right range to compete!

Welcome to the Auction system of EU!

Click the SELL button to open the Sell window, then drag and drop the item you want to sell.

1. Indicate the opening bid you're willing to sell it for
2. Indicate the number of days you want the auction to run (max 7 days)
3. Indicate whether you set a Buyout bid or not...

If a player bids the Buyout Price, the auction stops and the buyer gets your item instantly.

Time to define your auction details.

On the 2nd screenshot above, I set a minimum bid of 2 PED (MU of 175.44%) and agreed to let it go at any moment for a Buyout of 5 PED (MU of 438.60%). When you set your Buyout at a lower MU on a high-demand item, you'll obviously sell it fast!

Now, be careful about one thing: if someone bids on your auction — even at a price you're not happy with, because you expected higher — you won't be able to stop the auction!

Look at the screenshot below... I wasn't happy with the price, I clicked Remove, but of course it was no longer possible to stop the auction. All trades are final, whether with the Auctioneer or with other players.

Sorry — too late to remove your auction!

It's all about finding good prices and reselling at a higher MU to profit. Hunting, Mining or Manufacturing are good activities... but ultimately, you won't beat MindArk. A casino is always against the player, and the house always wins in the end. You can profit if you invest your time and money, but focus on MU! That's the name of the game, and that's what you must understand to prosper or self-sustain.

Beware of Auction Manipulation with Second Accounts

You also have to know that some people in EU run a second account — even though it's not authorized by MindArk. Your main account could be blocked or banned if they detect you're using a second avatar. These players use their alt to bid on their own main avatar's auctions, to force other players to bid higher when an auction isn't going their way... or simply to manipulate market prices.

Even though it's totally against the rules, some players still do it on a weekly basis... It was already the case in 2021 when I came back to the game, and it's still the case today as I write these lines. So be really careful when bidding on items you want: if you see "strange bids", it means the seller is trying to manipulate you. In that case, forget about the item!

How to Win a Bidding War Against Other Players

Sometimes, on popular items, several players fight to get them 😎 And this time it's not necessarily "manipulation" — it's just that the item is wanted by several people!

As an example, I once tried to acquire a rare and beautiful Blue Wazir Pleat with a purpurite texture! And it took me 4 years to find an even more beautiful attire 🥰. The Wazir Pleat is a direct competitor to the Master Coat, which is very popular among old-school EU players — and yet, I don't think the Master Coat is worth its high price for such a plain design. The Wazir Pleat, on the contrary, shines and sparkles! You really stand out from the crowd!

So as the auction neared its end, one guy started fighting for it — and the funny thing was, he placed a bid 2 minutes before the end, thinking I wouldn't have time to bid higher 😆 First, I was ready for it, refreshing the auction every 10 seconds in front of my screen. Second, in Entropia Universe, when you outbid another player in the last 5 minutes...

it resets the counter back to 5 minutes ❤️

You're not the only one who wants the coolest garments...

So whenever you bid higher — at 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1 minute before the end — the counter is reset to 5 minutes for everyone. That means you can't Ninja Bid like on eBay or other real-life auction systems. No! On EU, everyone gets a chance to outbid their opponents with 5 more minutes to take their time and think twice about whether it's worth it.

So the guy had to wait 5 more minutes, and then I bid at the last minute to outbid him (vengeance!) 😆 By doing that, we were both forced to stay on the auction screen, waiting 5 more minutes every time a higher bid came in... So yeah, if both bidders are stubborn, it can last for hours! Or until the buyout is reached.

And in EU, some players like to outbid by just 1 PED... what a bunch of cheapskates! 😜 I wasn't willing to spend 2 hours in front of my screen, so I bid 10 PED higher every time! The guy even looked up my name in the global roster and messaged me to try to trick me, as you can see on the screenshot below 😆

Sorry — I'm 44 years old... that doesn't work on me!

He told me that if I came to his position (just a random spot he picked on the map) and gave him 5 PED, he'd let the auction go to me, lol! That's the kind of trick that might work on someone new to the internet — a little naive, maybe... But I've been online since 1995, so I've seen all sorts of nonsense. I didn't even bother replying — I just kept fighting in silence!

Eventually, as you can see on the same screenshot, he messaged me that he was giving up. It's all about not falling into your opponent's trap and showing you're not intimidated. By bidding way higher than the other person, you also signal that you're not afraid — unlike a 1-PED bidder who seems very cautious about their budget.

Why a Big Bankroll Is Key to Profiting in EU

A big bankroll helps you profit in EU! To minimize your losses, you need a big bankroll — meaning thousands of PED (or at the very least hundreds) available at all times.

Why? Because when you hunt mobs, a lot of the loot sells at a Markup of just 101% to 110%. The problem is... 101% isn't much when you're selling only 5 or 10 PED of that loot. You'll spend time finding a buyer — sometimes hours — all for 1 to 5 PEC in the end (0.01 to 0.05 PED).

But isn't there an Auction system?

Yes, and we covered it above — but I mentioned the minimum fee of 0.5 PED! So if you plan to sell even 10 PED of stuff at 101% on the auctions, it's useless: you'd get 0.1 PED (101%), then subtract the 0.5 PED fee, leaving 9.6 PED. So you'd sell your stuff at a 0.4 PED loss 😜 (at that rate, better sell straight to the Terminal!)

Of course, you can try to sell at a higher price like 102% or even 105%... but lots of other people are selling the same thing! So if your price is higher than the rest, you'll eat the 0.5 PED fee and nobody will buy 😏 Okay, sometimes 105% sells even when the markup is 101% — it's all about quantity and... luck!

That's why you need to build stacks worth ~100 PED or more!

Every time you have something to sell, check the Daily and Weekly Market Markup: if you see 101% or more, there's a business for it (as small as it may be), but it's better to wait until your loot reaches 100 PED of value! That's why the personal storage terminal is useful — dump all your loot there, and only sell in the auctions once a stack reaches 100 PED (or high enough to be worth the fees).

Doing this, you won't sell your loot on the spot — you'll have to wait and hunt more until you find enough, which can take days, weeks or months depending on your activity. But in the end, it's to profit even more! And only players with a big bankroll can do that. Free to Play players who need the money urgently for their next hunt won't be able to wait.

Yes, you can also go back to sweating to make ridiculous amounts of PED for days... 😏

But let's be honest: if you have to sweat for 4 days just to hunt for 1 hour, where's the fun in that? Is your life so boring that you'd spend days gathering sweat?!

Remember, you make money with money! So if you want to profit from EU, think about depositing first.

The Big Missing Feature: A Universe-Wide Auction House

Here's one of the oldest frustrations in Entropia Universe, and it's tied directly to everything above: the Auction House is NOT universe-wide — it's split planet by planet.

Concretely, an item or auction listed on one planet is not visible from the others. If you're selling on Next Island, only players physically on Next Island can see and bid on your listing. Want to reach Calypso's massive crowd? You'd have to fly your goods across space (lootable pirates included, remember Part 7) and re-list them there. The public auction feed even reflects this: tools that pull MindArk's data can only show the soonest-ending lots per planet, because that's how the system is built.

Players have been asking MindArk for a global, universe-wide Auction House for YEARS — a single marketplace where anyone, on any planet, could buy and sell regardless of their position in the Universe. It would instantly solve the biggest problem of the Planet Partners: their near-empty economies. A seller on quiet Cyrene or Toulan could finally reach the whole player base instead of the handful of people around them.

So why has it never happened? Officially, it's a technical and economic design choice. But between you and me, I think there's an uglier reason underneath...

It's the same pattern we'll see again in the Mayhem part, where you're forced back to Calypso to claim your Codex points: there's an eternal rivalry between Calypso (MindArk's own planet) and the Planet Partners who run the other worlds. A global Auction House would let players sit comfortably on a Planet Partner world and still trade with everyone — which means less reason to ever set foot on Calypso. And keeping the crowd on Calypso is exactly what MindArk wants, since Calypso is their revenue. A universe-wide market would share that traffic with the competition. So the "missing feature" isn't really missing by accident... it's missing by strategy.

The irony? This fragmentation hurts the whole game. It's one of the core reasons the Planet Partners feel deserted (we covered that in the Starting Planet part), why everyone piles onto Calypso, and why so much loot ends up dumped at the Trade Terminal instead of finding a buyer one planet over. A single shared marketplace would lift every planet's economy at once — but it would also loosen Calypso's grip. And in a real-cash business, grip is money.

Auction Drama: Why You Should Trust No One in EU

Drama is a real thing in Entropia Universe! As you may have seen (or not) in the cover picture at the top of this page, one player "kaiser kaiser soze" was scammed by another "Kunrad Solo Reez" for roughly $375 — and stories like this are far from isolated. Many people get scammed in this game... and not only by MindArk, but by the other players themselves!

Which is quite contradictory with all the folks on the forum claiming "the EU community is the best!" 😆

Remember, $1 = 10 PED, so 1 PED = $0.10. Why do I bring this up? Because there are many... MANY players who will spend hours in-game trying to sell things for an extra 0.5 PED — sometimes less. That means grinding for hours to earn 5 cents, or even 1 cent!

QUESTION: Would you spend a long time in real life fighting to earn 5 cents?

Most of us wouldn't care about 5 cents — we wouldn't even bend down to pick them up off the street.

And don't tell me "these are poor people"... They have a computer and an internet connection! They could achieve so much more with that than wasting their time fighting over cents!

So when you realize this... it's easy to deduce that if some players get the chance to scam you out of $375, many will do it without hesitation! Friendship or not — and friendship is very relative in EU anyway...

Here's a sign that doesn't lie: most MMORPGs have conventions and fan faires where players gather in real life to meet, talk and play together 😍 Take the MMORPG that started it all, Everquest — long known for having one of the best communities around the world.

For a long time there was little of that in EU, because a large part of the player base simply doesn't want to meet others in real life. Many don't care about the other players — they just want to (try to) make money out of the game. Don't come looking for friendship in a place that isn't built for it; a lot of EU players are focused on their own navel and nothing else.

When Someone Tries to Organize Something...

Whenever a player tries to bring the community together, you tend to see a few recurring reactions:

• Either the organizer takes it too seriously and it doesn't feel fun... (there was a player like this on the official forum — sadly he has since passed away in real life — but his events felt a little too "strict", and remember, it's a game!)
• Either the organizer is genuinely caring like David Joker Potanus who really tried to organize something good! But then some frustrated veterans on the forum try to discourage him... I'm thinking of a player who really wanted to change things and had a great attitude about organizing events — only to be discouraged by jaded veterans.
• And finally, you have players who are brutally honest about it, openly saying there are many people in the game they'd rather not meet in person, because of how they behave in-game... So much for "the best community ever", right? 😆

You'll also come across Scammers like Mastermesh trying to make a quick buck off the community — for instance, putting a well-known EU-related domain name up for sale at an inflated price, betting that some starry-eyed player will buy it dreaming of building the next big community site. The pitch is always the same: "this name is famous in the community, imagine what you could do with it!" Translation: "I bought a domain, never had the discipline to build anything with it — running a real website takes far more work than posting threads on the forum — so let me flip it to the first naive buyer." 😏

Again... what a great community we have in Entropia Universe, right? 😆

 

The EntropiaLAN: What It Really Is (2026 Update)

Update — I have to correct my own earlier take here, because the facts have moved on.

I used to say the only real-life gathering in EU was a MindArk staff-only affair where nothing useful was ever shared. That's no longer accurate — and honestly, it was never quite the full picture.

 The truth is more interesting: the biggest real-life event in Entropia's history isn't organized by MindArk at all. It's EntropiaLAN, a community-run event started back in 2017 by a player (Solo Roudrunner Firstborn) who simply wanted the people he played with online to sit in the same room. Nine years later, its 2026 edition (27–29 March, Gothenburg) brought together around 60 players, streamers and community members from all over the world.

So credit where it's due: a real community DOES exist in EU — it's just small, and it's the part that shows up in person rather than the part that grinds cents and scams strangers online. And this is the nuance I want to keep from my original rant: the healthy, genuinely social core of Entropia is a minority, drowned out by the majority whose only interest is squeezing money out of the game. The 60 people flying to Gothenburg to meet face-to-face are, in my eyes, the sane ones.

MindArk's role is that of a supporting partner, not the host: for 2026 they contributed in-game prizes and opened their Gothenburg HQ for a studio tour (about 30 attendees), and they showed up to present economy updates and what's coming over the next 12 months.

So my updated verdict is fairer but not naive: yes, MindArk stays tight-lipped and rarely drops game-changing reveals even at these events — you won't walk out knowing MindArk's secrets. But no, the community isn't entirely rotten. There's a real, warm, in-person minority keeping the social flame alive, largely IN SPITE of MindArk and in spite of the scam-happy majority, not because of them. And that, to me, says everything: the best of Entropia's community exists thanks to a handful of dedicated players — never thanks to the machine running the casino.

Next part: MindForce