As 2022 rolls around, the Downtown shops continue to prepare for the ever-increasing ride of shoppers. With no formal server currency, off-brand currencies and currency exchanges continually change. A scary reality has been revealed to us. In recent reports on Currency Exchange provided by the Tadog Census Bureau, the accepted value of the IOU is on a sharp rise, and seems to have no plans of regaining economic stability.

What is leading to this sharp increase in value? Many speculate it has to do with the rarity. In the beginning of the server, the Octamart, home of the IOU, was the first large-scale shop ever built. With the server economy being very reserved in these times, the creation of this shop boosted the economy and it said to have kickstarted the Server economy. While the server had no official currency of its own, the server unofficially adopted the IOU as its currency. Later, the IOU became the base currency for all other currencies in the server.

Today, nearly 2 years later, we now see empty sell shelves at the Octamart, and a shell of what was once the biggest shop on the server. What happened? Many on the server blame the owner of the shop. Some say the owner has been burnt out and no longer desires to keep his shop open, but desires to keep it open. Others say that the owner is just trying to clear the market, and allow smaller shops to grow and fill the space. While the shop seems desolate, it is still open for business, with nearly all the buy shelves fully stocked, but no buyers. What we are seeing is a mirror of the Great American Depression where money was scarce, and the Dollar increased in value do to its scarcity of obtaining it, but you can still buy things with it, so the value will rapidly increase. We reached out to the owner of the Octamart, but we did not get a response back.

What does the future of the Octamart hold? With the value of the IOU on a sharp rise, we may be seeing the beginning of the end of the IOU. Similar to the Great Depression of the United States, we are seeing IOU hoarding and little spending. This issue of IOU hoarding is giving the problem the “Greenhouse Effect” since IOU hoarding is making the rarity worse, and then making the hoarding worse. While many will see an increase in value a good thing, but an unregulated rapid increase in value for a currency can be just as bad as a drop in value for the economy, which still surrounds the IOU. According to economic analysts, the only wat to fix this issue is for the Octamart to invest in better ways to distribute the IOU, or possibly inflation. But what would happen if this issue is never resolved?

In recent findings, studies have shown that the Tadog Cash is beginning to fill what the IOU once held. The Tadog Cash has not changed its value much over the past year, making it a perfect and stable base currency. While the Tadog Cash is beginning to replace the IOU, the impact of the IOU is still very apparent in modern society, and will continue to be for many months to come.