As the market for skins developed and their value increased, so did the number of scammers who tried to fraudulently take over other people's items or accounts. To combat this problem, Valve introduced a seven-day restriction on the transfer of items, which began to apply on March 29, 2018.
Before this update, players could transfer skins to each other for CS:GO and other virtual items without any restrictions. This also simplified the work for third-party platforms, which acted as intermediaries for organizing exchanges between players. The seven-day limit means that an item received as a result of an exchange cannot be transferred to another player within a week.
What Has Changed Since the Introduction of Trade Hold
The official position of the developers was that restrictions on trading skins had significantly reduced the number of fraud cases. However, the skins market reacted negatively to this innovation. On the official trading platform, prices dropped significantly. In addition, many third-party platforms and sites that ran skin giveaways were hit hard, as they often used bots to receive items from sellers and deliver them to buyers. Some were even forced to close or suspend operations.
Immediately after the introduction of this rule, many players began to look for a way to circumvent it. Some began to use skins for Dota 2 as the main currency, since such a restriction did not apply to them. However, this method also did not last long, since from May 2020, a seven-day trading limit appeared in Dota as well.
How the Market Works Now
Ultimately, it took some time before the skin market returned to normal. After a period of decline, most popular skins not only returned to their previous price, but also exceeded it, which is easy to see by looking at the charts. Third-party sites offering services and selling skins also adapted to the restriction, which continues to apply today. Many of them have taken additional measures to protect themselves from scammers.
It is currently not possible to bypass the seven-day trade lock, but this is not a problem for buying and selling skins. Browsing the catalog of skins on LIS-SKINS, you always see how many days or hours are left until the item becomes tradable. You can filter skins to show only those that are available for immediate delivery, or specify an acceptable hold period if you are willing to wait.
