October 13, 2026: Blizzard posted its Temporary Economy Holds notice on the Forever forums (community manager Kaivax, 23:58 UTC). It is the first enforcement tool that acts on suspected gold before it changes hands rather than after.
What a hold does, in Blizzard's own wording:
- Restricted while held: "restricted use of trade, mail, guild banks and the Auction House." [verbatim]
- Trigger: an account "suspected of being involved in RMT, either the selling or receiving of illicit gains."
- Purpose: "aggressively shut down the flow of suspicious gold before it has been transferred or put into circulation into the economy, while providing us the time needed to investigate more thoroughly."
- How it ends: "automatically removed when the actions that triggered it have been investigated and found false," or account action if the investigation finds RMT.
- No permanent mark from the hold itself: "merely having a Temporary Economy Hold will leave no permanent strikes against your account unless also later proven to be RMT motivated."
- Scope: "all of these systems will also be deployed to all versions of World of Warcraft if proven successful."
- False positives: Blizzard concedes the system is new and that "there may be false positives while things are fine tuned."
Where this sits in the arc
This is the fourth step of the same policy, each one narrowing the gap:
- September 17 Q&A: GDKP banned, gold buyers to be punished hard (our report).
- September 21: Greenfield called Blizzard "too lenient" on gold buyers and put permanent bans on the table (the enforcement chapter).
- October 1: Actions Taken Against Botting and RMT restated the stance and added a trade warning: "Be wary of accepting gold from unknown or suspicious sources." [verbatim]
- October 13: the Temporary Economy Hold, the first tool that freezes value mid-transfer.
One regional asterisk carries over from October 9: the GDKP ban applies to North American and European realms only, per a 4Gamers Taiwan interview with Clay Stone.
What it means for players
- A hold on your account is not a ban. It is a throttle, and Blizzard says it lifts on its own if you are cleared.
- Being on the receiving end counts. Blizzard names "the receiving of illicit gains," so a gift or a one-sided trade from a stranger is the exact pattern the system watches.
- Do not buy gold on the beta expecting the wipe to be a clean slate. Blizzard says action will continue "in both the Beta and the live game after the launch of WoW: Forever."
Reaction on the thread is split, and the objection is specific: a new automated system that can flag recipients leaves ordinary players guessing where a stranger's gold came from. Blizzard is accepting that cost with the line about false positives while the system is tuned.
SOURCES: Blizzard forum notice Temporary Economy Holds For RMT, Kaivax, October 13 2026 23:58 UTC (quoted first-party); Blizzard forum notice Actions Taken Against Botting and RMT, Kaivax, October 1 2026; Wowhead reporting on the 4Gamers Taiwan interview about the NA and EU scope of the GDKP ban. Internal: the September 21 gold-buyer post, the September 17 Q&A answers.