Wash Trading Mousepads

I love Icemat glass mousepads. I’ve bought about 5 of them (only because I’ve broken a couple with phones falling on them or having them fall off my desk). Prior to Covid, I only owned 2 so have acquired about 3 more since then. For those not familiar with the icemat, it is a glass mousepad that was popular among gamers and computer enthusiasts in the early 2000s. It was known for its smooth and durable surface, which provided excellent tracking for optical and laser mice. However, the icemat was eventually discontinued and became a rarity in the market. Refer to my blog post here Finding a replacement icemat

As a big fan of the icemat, I started buying a large number of them around 2 years ago. I then relisted them on ebay.com at absurdly high prices, hoping to capitalize on their rarity and nostalgia factor. I sold one to a friend of mine at and absurd price and then managed to sell 1 at these inflated prices to someone else. This ended up catching the attention of other buyers.

The news of these high sales seemed to have spread. People started listing icemats at several hundreds of dollars but in reality I think I was the only person purchasing them. Realistically, the icemat is probably only worth around a hundred dollars at most. The inflated prices are a result of my artificial manipulation of the market, which created a false sense of the actual price of the icemat. Here you can see some of the absurd prices the icemat is going for: