Path of Exile's richest player and item trading kingpin gets banned and pleads with Grinding Gear Games to restore 'more than 1,500 items, some of which can't ever be recreated': 'This is the worst day of my life'

Key art of Path of Exile expansion Keepers of the Flame. A character wearing a red hood and ornate armor holds a bright purple flame in their hand.

There's a whole part of Path of Exile that goes unseen by anyone who has never played it. Alongside the monster smashing and loot collecting is a whole item economy that drives players to grind for hours, not for upgrades, but for the cash to buy the upgrades from other people.

Until a recent update that made player trading easier, many players relied on a popular Discord server for buying and selling items or other services. That server, known as The Forbidden Trove (TFT), continues to be the place you go for the game's rarest and most valuable items. But its leader, Jenebu, recently had his PoE account banned, dredging up old rumors of illicit real-money trading (RMT), and leaving the server's future uncertain.