A thread on r/GrandExchangeBets this week has a trader bragging about picking up Avernic treads at 168M, betting the price recovers once Old School’s fourth raid, the Fractured Archive, goes live. The timing lines up: treads are sitting at a genuine monthly low right now. Whether that low is a floor or a waypoint on the way down is a separate question.
Avernic Treads: the basics
Avernic treads are boots requiring level 80 in Defence, Strength, Ranged, and Magic to wear, dropped by the Doom of Mokhaiotl at a base rate of roughly 1 in 1,350. Released in July 2025, they were built as a universal upgrade: in their base form, they already beat the accuracy and most of the defensive bonuses of primordial, eternal, and pegasian boots combined, while adding a ranged strength bonus none of those three offer on their own.
The catch is the upgrade path. Treads can be combined with one pair each of primordial, pegasian, and eternal boots, plus 4,000 demon tears per pair (12,000 total), to become Avernic treads (max), gaining the strength bonuses of all three combat styles at once. Once that process starts, the boots become untradeable, and the components can’t be recovered without giving back the tears spent.
That upgrade cost matters for the price story. Assembling a maxed pair from the open market currently runs close to 229M in raw materials, against a base tread price that has now fallen well below 170M. The gap between “buy the components” and “buy the finished max version” is where much of the demand for base treads comes from.
Source: Old School RuneScape Wiki
Price movement
Zooming out from the Reddit thread’s snapshot, the decline is real and it’s been steady, not a single panic dump:
- Roughly three weeks ago: ~192M
- Two weeks ago: ~180M
- As of this week: ~167M
That’s close to a 13% drawdown over three weeks. Recent hourly data still shows a gradual decline, with no clear floor. This is a steady slide rather than a single panic dump, which points more toward supply outpacing demand than a one-off news event.
Could Fractured Archive explain it?
The Fractured Archive is confirmed. Jagex’s dev blog describes it as Old School’s fourth raid, requiring completion of While Guthix Sleeps and scheduled for late 2026. It could create demand for PvM gear, but its reward table is still unknown.
Reddit speculation is getting ahead of the available information. Jagex has not published a reward table, so nobody knows whether the raid will add a best-in-slot boot, reward existing universal gear such as treads, or leave boots out of the reward slot. Buying treads on that basis is a bet on a story rather than a known game mechanic.
The simpler explanation for the current slide is supply. Treads have been farmable from the Doom of Mokhaiotl for a full year, and more kills add more copies to the market. Fractured Archive may matter later, but it does not explain today’s price by itself.
Where this leaves the trade
If you trade this item, keep the two stories separate. Treads are cheaper than they were several weeks ago, while supply from a boss that has been farmable for a year continues to grow. Fractured Archive has no published rewards yet, so using it to justify a purchase today adds speculation to an already uncertain trade. A recovery would depend more on the supply and demand around Doom of Mokhaiotl kills than on unconfirmed raid rewards.
Related reading: Grand Exchange Bets: The Risk of Update Speculation covers this pattern of buying ahead of unannounced content, and Reading the OSRS Market breaks down how to read a steady grind versus a supply shock.