Counter-Strike 2 skin market crashes, losses top $1.5 Billion
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Key points
- The market capitalization of skins and other in-game items in CS2 lost about $1.7 billion following the latest update on Oct. 23, 2025.
- Certain in-game items have already experienced a dramatic drop in value, including premium-tier knives, priced above $100,000.
- The market capitalization of CS2 skins dropped by 28%, which is about $1.784 billion, falling from nearly $6 billion to $4.27 billion.
The market capitalization of skins and other in-game items in Counter-Strike 2 lost about $1.7 billion following the latest update on Oct. 23, 2025.
Since the implementation of the update which completely reshaped the in-game economy overnight, the market capitalization of CS2 skins dropped by 28%, which is approximately $1.784 billion, falling from nearly $6 billion to $4.27 billion.
In a nutshell, with the latest patch, Valve has allowed players to craft knives, the rarest and most coveted items in the game.
Previously, the in-game trading system allowed players to exchange ten blue-tier skins for a random purple-tier skin, gradually working their way up to red-tier items. The new system takes this a step further allowing players to trade five Covert (red-tier) skins to craft a knife or gloves, specifically, exchanging five StatTrak Covert skins yields a StatTrak knife, while five regular Covert skins provide a non-StatTrak knife or a pair of gloves.
This change has the potential to dramatically impact the in-game economy, as players may spend just $20 on red-tier skins and receive knives that were once nearly unattainable.
With roughly 20 million Covert skins available (according to CS Float), using them all could raise the number of knives and gloves from 5.5 million to over 11 million, doubling the supply and significantly lowering prices.
Certain items have already experienced a dramatic drop in value: knives that used to sold for $1,300 just two days ago are now worth around $200. Premium-tier knives, priced above $100,000, are seeing similar declines.
Since Valve is a private corporation and a centralized body, it fully controls its economy and autonomously decides on introducing changes to the game.
Developed and published by Valve, Counter-Strike 2 was released on Sept. 27, 2023. Playable on Windows and Linux PCs, the game is the fifth entry in the Counter-Strike series and an updated version of the previous entry, 2012’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
Like its predecessor, Counter-Strike 2 pits two teams, the Counter-Terrorists and the Terrorists, against each other in various objective-based game modes.
