Absurdly rare Team Fortress 2 hat called 'The Crone's Dome' sells for a record-setting $18,000 worth of keys because 'it's one of a kind and will not ever be unboxed again'

The single most expensive hat trade in Team Fortress 2's history went down this week, with one player exchanging goods worth over 10,000 of the game's crate keys (around $1.80 each) for an unusual Arcana Crone's Dome, the characteristics of which make it the only one in existence. It's a witch's hat with some Halloween effects, basically, and the trade was first spotted by PyroJoe on X (formerly Twitter), who called it «the biggest singular unusual TF2 Hat trade» in the game's history.

The hat-fancier is a player called Gummy from Singapore, who exchanged various items (including a lesser Crone's Dome) that were worth approximately 10,000 keys when taken as a bundle. PyroJoe told PCG that this is now the single most expensive hat trade in TF2 history, though not the biggest trade overall.

«It's roughly the equivalent of $18,000, pricing keys at $1.80 which is the standard pricing from third party marketplaces such as Marketplace.tf,» said PyroJoe. «This is also the most expensive hat sale ever now! There have been other more expensive trades made but generally speaking they've been for Misc items (items that can be worn ALONGSIDE hats so you are able to combine effects).»

It represents a huge leap in value for the hat either way, and PyroJoe can't quite seem to believe the numbers. «The last time [this hat] sold it was for 2900 keys, which at the time was also insane,» said PyroJoe. «Obviously that's like 3/10 of what it's worth now though.» He further opines it shouldn't have reached any more than 8,000 to 9,000 keys, which would have been a relative snip at around $14,000 to $16,000 worth of hat.

The crone's dome was first added to TF2 in 2012 as part of the Spectral Halloween special and the community-made Night of the Living Update 2. Its value is a reflection of that age and rarity, with its rarer variants only ever being available in extremely limited quantities. This exact variant's characteristics are:

The big question is why this is so valuable. The price