Chinese Anniversary pvp and hardcore servers are the Top 2 world wide population. And it is for good reason. They allow gdkp and Blizzard Chinese partner Netease, which is also the developer for Marvel Rivals, is trying to do Character Trading but is having technical difficulty due to account information is stored on Bnet not Netease platform. However this is clearly the way to go.
Hardcore is similar to retail or any other version of WoW in computer 3D model only. its economics aka Auction House economy is total different, hardcore is deflation by default while others are 20% minimum inflation to say the least.
Its team building culture is total different too, in retail, you keep your buddy of long time no matter how bad he is, lots of super good lone wolf had to spend hours to find a group if they are lucky. In hardcore guild leaders had to be open minded because you never know if your buddy gonna show up or not. If you are good at hardcore in any class, you will get a spot.
Last but not least, all players are exposed to gold trading service all the time on hardcore. Be summoning from warlock, portal open from mage, lock picking from rogue. and when they reach 60, suddenly gold trading is banned. This is unhuman and unnatural.
on wall street rumor is that Microsoft plan to use steam to replace Bnet. Please make Bnet valuable again by allowing Gdkp and Character Trading on Bent