We all know that one of Destiny's pillars of foundation is the ability to customize yourself and tell your character's story through your appearance. This means we'll be obtaining cool gear and weapons through our adventures, whether it be during raids, strikes, missions, PvP, or whatever other features Bungie has in store for us. We also know there will be an in-game currency (many speculate Glimmer will serve this purpose), which would imply buying and selling items. We do, in fact, have confirmation that trading and buying gear are both possible in Destiny, as is gambling for items. This pretty much sums up all we know about this subject. Right now I have many questions surrounding how Destiny's economy and trade system will work. First off, will players be trading with each other directly, or will there be an auction house/exchange system that all trading will be conducted through? Is it possible Destiny has something completely different in store for us? Right now we can only speculate, but I'm just kind of hoping I can get some good discussion going on this. I'm also wondering if there will be any sort of regulation on a given item's value. Will Bungie have a hand in regulating Destiny's economy, or will Bungie take a more hands off laissez-faire, free market approach? Artificially controlling item prices can get tricky, especially in MMOs, and Bungie doesn't really have much experience in building in-game economies. I'm thinking Bungie will likely stay away from interfering with the Destiny economy too much for these reasons. Additionally, I'm curious as to how much item trading we'll be able to do. I'm guessing there will be a lot of items we earn that we won't be able to give to other players. Maybe some special weapons or armor we obtain during certain activities will be ours and only ours. For instance, if I earn a certain helmet for reaching a milestone in competitive multiplayer, it wouldn't make sense for me to be able to trade that helmet to someone else if they haven't reached that milestone yet. That's sort of my line of thinking here. Perhaps my biggest question here lies with the overall significance of Destiny's economy. Will I have to spend weeks or longer saving up in-game currency in order to be able to afford the most powerful weapons or the coolest looking gear? Am I going to constantly be trying to trade in my pulse rifle for the next best one with a slightly greater power level, or am I going to be spending months working my current rifle up through its talent tree? I'm wondering how long it'll take us to reach that "end-game" point where we have the definitively most bad-ass armor and the super-rare weapons. Once we get to this point, we won't really have a need to participate in Destiny's economy because we'll be happy with what we already have. Is this something you all can see happening, or is this just crazy? These are just a few thoughts going through my mind right now. I'm trying to visualize what Destiny will look and feel like when we finally get our hands on it, and this is a particular aspect I'm having trouble wrapping my head around. If you've got your own ideas or feedback on what I've said, please share. Thanks!