REX (Rift Exchange) is a tradeable item that – upon use – will provide you with 1,250 Credits and 2,500 Loyalty. Upon using up the Credits you’ll get a further 2,500 Loyalty (2 Loyalty Points per 1 Credit spent). It costs $10 in the Rift Store but since it is a tradeable item, you can buy it off others and on the AH for plat.

You’ll find “REX: Rift Exchange” on the AH going for around 1k to 1.2k plat each.

Where the money is made is in buying REX when the cost is relatively low and selling it when it is relatively high. I.e., I see a couple of people here and there looking to buy REX for 900 plat. They can then either sell it on the AH for higher, or wait a while when ‘market conditions’ look better to sell for higher.

More details below:

Supply

Supply of REX comes from people who need platinum to buy things that can’t be gained with Credits.
If an item is Credits-only or has a Credit + Platinum option, those who supply REX would be better off buying Credits directly which offers better Credits per $ value.

Right now supply of REX mainly stems from either trying to afford high-end crafted gear or from the BiS Greater Essences that drop at a rare rate from Strongholds and Great Hunt Rifts.

Demand

The great thing about REX is that demand will almost always exceed the supply of REX. Why? Because there’s few reasons to have large amounts of plat other than the Greater Essence rare drops or to afford high-end craft mats so supply of REX will be low, but there’s plenty of reasons to get REX.

Credit-only Upgrades, Services, Boosts and Items
There are certain upgrades like extra Bag Slots, Storm Legion Souls and Character Slots that are only available via Credits. Same applies to rune-unsocketing, weapon wardrobe, race/gender/faction change and premium mounts/pets/wardrobe. Thus unless a player is willing to spend real money to directly purchase Credits to spend on, they’ll want REX.

Save Platinum
Buyers of REX actually save platinum by purchasing REX, receiving the 1,250 Credits and then spending it on items that have both a REX and platinum option.

To give an example, The 150% mounts cost 1,000 platinum or 630 Credits. See where this is going? That makes 1 Credit = 1.58 Platinum. Or in other words 1 REX = 1,250 Credits = 1,984 Platinum.
Remember how on the AH REX is going for 1k-1.2k platinum? That means if people want to buy an item that has both Platinum and Credits options, they are better off buying REX with platinum, converting the REX to Credits, then buying the item with Credits rather than buying directly with Platinum.

What all this effectively means is that if people desire any Credit-only item, or any item with both a Platinum and Credit option, they will demand REX.

Benefits of REX Trading

The simple answer is that because REX is beneficial to anyone looking to buy anything that has a Credit option attached to it, it should remain in high demand subject to the health of the game itself.

Supply and Demand
As mentioned above, there’s a lot of demand for REX. Fluctuations in the price due to fluctuations in supply and demand should provide you with the potential for profit.

When a new update occurs that adds items/services that require a large amount of platinum but with no Credits option, supply of REX will increase. This is a good time to purchase REX because the price should fall.

i.e. The BiS Greater Essences like Charred Flamesource cost several thousand platinum in part due to a huge influx of REX as people try to obtain those large amounts of platinum to buy the Greater Essences. New tiers of Crafted gear will generally also increase demand for platinum.

When a new update occurs that adds items/services that provide a Credits option, demand for REX will increase. This is a good time to sell REX because the price should rise.

i.e. The new “Sagespire Tower With Elevator” dimension item costs either 1,200 platinum or 765 Credits. Clearly anyone would benefit from buying REX at approx. 1,200-1,400 platinum as that provides 1,250 Credits. You effectively can buy almost 2 Sagespire Towers for the platinum price of 1.

New World Event items like the swimsuits, or the previous fireworks? Suddenly demand will go up. New Credits-only mount/pet? REX demand goes up.

General rule – whenever a World Event occurs, or there’s a small window for a Limited Quantity/Limited Time Lockbox/Mount/Pet, REX price will go up.

Safety Net
REX provides a ‘safety net’ as long as you buy REX at below 1,984 platinum as you will be able to buy items/services with both a Platinum and Credits option for less than if you directly purchased the item/service with Platinum. So even if the market happens to crash you can still benefit from using the REX you’ve bought.

Buy Low Sell High

The basic strategy is to simply buy low and sell high on a day-to-day basis. Ask in public/private channels for REX at a low price, and then subsequently sell it for a higher price. Perhaps check the AHs of multiple shards and see if there’s any significant price-disparity between shards.

I know of many people (including myself) who have made several thousand plat this way.

Time the Market

Another strategy is to ‘Time the Market’ by understanding when and why supply and demand will change for REX. Following the Public Test Shard (“PTS”) will help a lot in this regard because it will provide you with information on new content that can affect supply and demand of REX before the majority of people in the game knows about it. (Riftgrate provides news asap on new PTS updates).

In this way if you know, for instance, that the next Patch or Hotfix will introduce a new item with a Credits option, you may wish to look at buying and holding onto some REX until the patch hits, then selling your REX a few days after as the market moves when people begin to find out about the new content.

Long-term Investment

REX could potentially be used as a long-term investment. For instance, right now there’s a large influx of supply of REX as the BiS Greater Essences are in high demand keeping their price down. Essences such as Charred Flamesource are selling for several thousand platinum and so you have people buying multiple REX with real money in order to have enough platinum to get such essences.

Eventually though the price of REX should increase as people can afford to buy REX, and as people find out about its benefits compared to paying for items directly with platinum.

Summary

Plenty of demand and supply for REX in the market. Due to the nature of REX, supply and demand will fluctuate which provides a greater ability to profit from buying when REX is at a low price and selling when it is at a high price. REX has a ‘safety net’ in its intrinsic advantage over paying platinum on items that have a Credits option.

It does have risk of the price falling below your buy price.

However, unlike items such as crafting materials, crafted gear and dropped gear that can become obsolete with new tiers of crafting that require higher tiers of mats, REX will not become obsolete.

REX is an important part of Rift’s Free-to-Play model so is unlikely to ever become obsolete.

Personally I believe that REX at 1.2k platinum is currently underpriced. On some shards where it sometimes drops to 1k (and 900 platinum via player trade) it is definitely heavily underpriced compared to its intrinsic value.

I believe this is due to:

• a large influx of supply in response to BiS Greater Essences and new tiers of crafting that require increasingly higher-platinum cost mats; and
• F2P players being unable to afford enough platinum at this stage (or are concentrating on other things, like crafted gear); and
• Veterans with excess Credits from the bonus deal prior to F2P conversion; and
• Because a LOT of people don’t realise how much they could save if they bought REX and converted it to Credits instead of buying an item/service/upgrade with Platinum directly.

Once conditions change and more people realise the advantages of using REX on even items with a platinum option, the price should ‘settle’ to around 1.5-1.7k platinum (just my opinion though, could be way off).

TL;DR

REX has fluctuating demand and supply providing ‘space’ for profit.

REX will not become obsolete.

Long-term forecast = 1.5-1.7k platinum per REX.

Check out the Money category on RiftGrate for more plat-making/saving tips:

• Category: Money