I think Valve doesn't change the current trading system. Because it's one of the reasons why many gamers play some specific games and they spend money on those games. If they move all tradings to community market, it will be a disaster IMO. It will be disappointing for many players and they may decide to leave Steam. And Valve does not want to lose members. But I agree that more secure tradings and restrictions are possible in the future.

The problem is when the transactions pass through multiple hands by the time Valve gets to finding out that they are from a hacked account. As Valve has said, in the past their own resolution to those cases was to basically duplicate the stolen items so that they were not penalizing innocent people (who probably were getting items via Steam trade and not a grey market). I think are trying to reduce those kinds of cases since it greatly starts to devalue items in the market.

You can't legally trade outside the market, but, you can do it illegally. The system does not register your transaction as it's made on another site, so regarding Steam, all you are doing it's a basic trade. You simply go on different sites, they have all kind of stuff, like auctions for items, you post your item there, you are probably getting payed for it, then you trade it on Steam. Steam only sees a trade, so it's hard to differentiate it from legit trades without the access to the initial auction site.

1. That's hard. First of all, they can't know what trade it's illegal or not without seeing the actual trade on another site and connecting that seller on that site with the Steam account owner. Pretty much impossible. As i said, in their system appears as i would give you a card or a skin.

2. Same deal, you can't decide what's bought from where in case of cards. In terms of keys, all keys from "grey market" are legit keys as far as their source is. The problem it's with legality of purchase of them. Some keys were canceled, as they were bought with stolen credit cards, so there's that. But they can't do that in case of cards or skins. Because cards and skins are legally getting exchanged through market trades. And those trades are open for everyone. The time until a fraudulent usage of an credit card might take a while.
When you buy an legit item from Steam Market, you don't have any ways to differentiate items bought fraudulently from legit ones, so you shouldn't be a victim as long as you can't protect yourself.

In case of sites like G2A, well, you are not really buying those keys legally as they aren't sold legally. Whenever you are trying to buy a Bundle or a game, on all sites, you agree on some terms that tells you that you can't trade those keys away. So, as you said, if you are going back, following the key, you will probably find that fraudulent sell of key by an user that accepted those terms on a site that sold that key. And here's the catch. STEAM DOES NOT SELL KEYS. So, legally, they can follow the keys but they can't take any action in the name of a site that sold that key that was sold on G2A. That respective site need to take action against that customer if he wants to. I don't know who would hassle to do all that for an $1 key. After all, when you draw line, there was one key bought from an site and one key it's activated on Steam, as you can't multiply them. So i don't know if it's really reliable for them to start a crusade against grey market. I can't see how they can gain something from it.

But I'm not talking about Steam trade, I'm talking about Steam gifting, The gifting of something valuable is fishy, especially when the owner of the account reports he's been hijacked.The trade is made on another site or forum (Steam doesn't know about it), but after the deal and before he gets his money, the hacker must gift the 100$ TF key. The first one who gets the free TF key is the hacker's account and the last one who get it for free is the person who bought it on the grey market.

If the TF key is traded after that (on Steam market) then all the persons who bought it are legit buyers.

How I see it:

1. Hacked account >>gift>> Account 1 (the hacker sold the item directly from the victim's acount, Account 1 is the person who bought on the grey market. The key should be removed, the owner is solely responsible for items bought outside Steam, he could take action against G2A or wherever he bought it from)

2. Hacked account >>gift>> Account 1 >>gift>> Account 2 (Account 1 is the hacker, Account 2 is the person who bought on the grey market.

3. Hacked account >>gift>> Account 1 >>gift>> Account 2 >>trade>> Account 3 (account 1 is the hacker, account 2 is the person who bought on the grey market. Account 3 is legit buyer.

There can be variations, but Steam could distinguish between hacker's account (no games, only tradable itmes, if any) and grey market buyer account.

I can give you email address and password to login and give middle finger to you already.

Less secure my ass. You don't even know anything about it.

That's where it does not work this way and i don't think that you understand to well how the Market works.
YOU CAN'T IMPORT ITEMS INTO IT! So, you can't buy items on the gray market. You can pay for them there, but you are getting them through the legit market. So there's that, you can't track it.

When i'm talking about "grey market" i'm referring only to keys that can activate you games.
When i'm talking about Steam Market i'm referring to cards or game cosmetic items that can be traded on Steam Market. In this case, there is no "grey market", as there is no doubt, you can't pay from those outside of Steam and trade them on Steam. It's "black market" in that case, as it's illegal. But, as i said, it's hard to prove, as we're talking about items that can't be differentiated. This is done in order for them to be able to get the money they got for items outside of Steam, so it's against the whole intent of the Market purpose.

Then, this is a course of harmful action that can harm someone innocent.

Hacked account > Gift > Traded on market > Bought by me

I shouldn't lose that key, even if it's discovered that it comes from an hacked account or that it was initially bought with a stolen credit card. I'm legit buyer, i buy an item from the market, i can't know from who am i buying it from.

What Steam did now, with their phone authentication, kinda solve this problem.

Hacked account > You need to wait 3 days in order to have your items traded > Poof!
In case of an hacked account, the issue should be solved in 3 days period, so the victim would receive back his items. Hacker can't set up an Mobile Authenticator on that account too easy, as it needs to have it active for at least 7 days in order for the trade to go instantly.
Not to say that, realistically, having your Mobile Authentificator makes your account pretty much bullet proof. As someone said before, you can give away your password, as long as they don't have your phone too, they can't login. "Serious" traders, that would have a lot of items to lose if their account would be breached they kinda need to set up this additional protection in order for their trades to go instantly, so it's an win-win.

This way, there is no need for items to be removed or duplicated, as they are returned to the victim. And yea, you can say that some people will slip through the cracks, and that's real. For example, you are getting your account hacked when you are on your 10 days vacation, where you didn't cared about your account.
Anyway, most of us are pretty much connected to Steam one way or another and we can see some suspect activity from our phone. I have Steam app, and, even if i wouldn't, i have my mail notifications, so i see there if someone is accessing my account.

I never said you can import items on the market. I said the stolen items are gifted, not traded.

I don't know what items can be bought on the grey market but I didn't mean keys that can activate you games. I meant anything valuable (and giftable) that a hacker could find in your account: CS GO or TF2 keys, skins, trading cards, even a giftable game (still not a game key). By TF key I meant a valuable (and tradeable) item that someone could use in Team Fortress (not a key which will activate Team Fortress on your account).

I don't see any problem:
1. Steam takes away the item you bought (you will get your money back, see below). You bought form Steam market, so you are legit buyer.
2. The person who traded the item to you (through Steam market) lose the money (the Steam credit) he got from you. Steam takes the money from his Steam wallet and the credit goes back to you (or they can give your money in your bank account). He can't complain too much as he got the item for free (gifted by the hacker). Sure, he paid for it (outside Steam, on the black market), but that is his problem, the item he got was practically stolen. He isn't a legit buyer.
3. Unfortunately, I see the hacker goes away with the money he got from the black market. Still, the person who bought the item from him could provide info to the police (the bank account, paypal, whatever,) where his money went.

In conclusion I think Steam should punish the black market buyers: take away the item they bought OR take away the Steam credit they got, if they managed to further trade the item on Steam Market. Soon they will never buy from the black market again (no market for thieves).

Again, does not work that way. They shouldn't mess with items from the market by deleting them. There is a fixed amount of them, based on the people that get the drops from the game.

Also, they shouldn't take away my item that i bought and give me money for it. If i got that item and created a booster pack, what are they doing then? They are breaking my booster pack and take away my XP? I shouldn't be penalized in any way by buying something from Steam Market. I shouldn't lose that item even if it was traded somehow with illegal funds, because i'm not making the transaction with the seller or the previous seller, i'm making the transaction with Steam. I give them money, they give it further to the owner. I can't control that, so i shouldn't hassle with it. They will never delete cards from the market. Even in the past, they duplicated them and placed them back, but never deleted them.

And no, it's not easy to track, as you can't find what items were payed outside Steam. Steam should have access to sites that sell them in order to find information. And they aren't unique items. You have thousands of the same item, so it's hard to identify.

Anyway, black market for items it's not a big problem. It's a big problem if people are getting hacked and they get their items sold there, but for every game that uses items that can be traded in-game, there will be a black market. WoW, Path of Exile, CS:GO, whatever game you can think of, there is a black market where people sell in-game currency for real currency.

The item is not deleted, the item goes back to the hacked account.

Yes and you get your money back. You are free to buy another one and recreate the booster pack, get the XP and so on.

If I complain my account was hacked and Steam finds out that my CS GO Flip Knife (valued at 80$) was gifted from my account to person A account, it means that item was bought on the black market by A. For Steam it doesn't matter how much A paid for the item and by what means. Also it doesn't matter how many Flip Knifes A got on his account, one of them was received for free (as a gift) from my account and it will move back there.

Let's say A managed to sell the Flip Knife on the Steam Market to person B (legit buyer). If he had only 1 Knive and sold it then it's easy to track. The Knive moves from B back to my account. Steam reimburse B and take the money from A.

If A sold 3 Flip Knives after he received the free gift and Steam can't identify which one was bought on black market and which Knives have legit source (crafting, droping etc) then just pick one of the legit buyers and reimburse him (not really fair, but that's it).

But I'm sure there won't be many situations where someone bought an item on the black market, have the same item from legit sources and managed to sell them all.

I agree the phone authentication and the 3 days rule solves this problem.

Not good enough. The trading system do not need to be a hassle. If i find an item at a good price, i shouldn't be afraid that i might lose it in the future. A definitive trade should stay definitive. Getting reimbursed it's not a fair approach. It sounds fair and it might be, on paper, but as user satisfaction goes, it's far from being fair. It's like getting an concert ticket and finding out that the concert it's canceled. You are getting your money back, but that organizer it's losing his credibility.

Indeed, if you are getting hacked, you should receive whatever you had on account. But other people do not need to be affected by that. Reimbursing the value it's not enough. Maybe i wanted that item, as i found it at a good price. It's not Steam's place to consider what kind of currency should i have after a trade, as an legit trader.

The authetificator thing it's the best and easier solution. That way no one it's getting affected by a hacked account and Steam do not have to deal with an very hard to track issue.

77,000 per month......
WTF :(