No posts about the billions of dollars lost in the CSGO tradables economy?

quote:

---

What the Update Changed

In late October 2025, Valve released a patch that altered the Trade Up Contract system. Players could now exchange five Covert-quality (red-tier) items for a higher-tier item — specifically, knives or gloves from the same collection.
Previously, those items were extremely rare and obtainable only through random case openings, making them some of the most expensive skins in the game.

This update effectively opened a direct route to items that had previously been almost unobtainable, drastically reshaping the market.

Why It Caused a Market Crash

Supply Shock – Allowing trade-ups to knives and gloves suddenly expanded the supply of what were once ultra-rare items. Their rarity — and therefore their market value — dropped sharply.

Panic Selling – As soon as players saw high-end items losing value, many started mass-selling to avoid losses, leading to a cascading price collapse.

Tier Re-valuation – Items used in the new trade-up process (especially cheaper red skins) suddenly became more desirable, while top-tier knives and gloves lost exclusivity.

Speculative Collapse – Many traders treated CS2 skins as investments. The update reminded everyone that the market depends entirely on Valve’s rules, and that those rules can change overnight.

The Scale of the Crash

Within hours, billions of dollars in notional value were wiped out. Estimates suggest the global CS2 skins economy — previously worth about $6 billion — lost $2 to $3 billion.
Some individual knives that had traded for thousands of dollars dropped in value by more than half in a single day.

Who Lost and Who Gained

Collectors and investors saw their inventories plummet in value.

Casual players gained new opportunities to obtain rare items they couldn’t previously afford.

Traders were hit by volatility — some flipped items profitably during the chaos, but most saw heavy losses.

---

Loading Twitter/X Embed...
If tweet fails to load, click here.