On October 23, Valve released an update that radically changed the skin market in Counter-Strike 2. For several days now, news headlines have mentioned a “market crash” — but is it really that serious? Let’s break down what changed and what consequences this might have.
What Changed in the Trade-Up System?
The update that sparked panic introduced the following: Trade-Up Contracts can now be used not only to obtain Covert weapons, but also the rarest items — knives and gloves. Previously, the Trade-Up system worked like this: ten skins of the same rarity could be exchanged for one skin of a higher rarity from the same collection, with the result selected at random from a specific pool.
Now there’s a new scheme: you can use five Covert skins of the same type (either regular or StatTrak) to craft a knife or gloves. Since Trade-Up results can come from the same case as the skins used in the contract, it’s now possible to get a guaranteed knife of a certain type. For example, five AWP Chrome Cannon skins can be converted into one of the Kukri Knife skins, and a craft using five Glock-18 Bullet Queen skins can result in one of four knives — Stiletto, Navaja, Talon, or Ursus.
How Will Knife Prices Change?
This new crafting system has created a situation where a large number of new knives could enter the market — meaning the value of existing ones may drop. For instance, within the first few days after the update, the average price of popular knives like the Karambit or Butterfly Knife dropped by 20–30%, while the price of skins used for crafting went up: P90 Asiimov increased by as much as 1400%.
Some analysts expect a significant drop in rare skin prices after October 30, when the hold period expires for knives and gloves crafted from purchased items, making them tradable. However, there are several arguments against a drastic price collapse:
Some crafted knives have already appeared on the market, as they were made from skins that players already owned — which means no hold period applies in those cases.
Roughly 180,000 knives have been crafted via Trade-Up contracts so far, compared to a total knife count of around 4 million on the market. While that’s a noticeable increase in supply, it’s not enough to trigger a full market crash.
Even in the unlikely scenario where players use all their existing Covert skins for crafting, the total knife supply would at most double. But that’s unlikely to happen: not all Covert skins yield profitable Trade-Up results, and in many cases, individual skins might become more valuable than the knife they could produce.
It’s possible that after the market stabilizes, value will simply redistribute — knife prices may settle at lower levels, while the value of skins used for crafting continues to rise.
Even the market dip following the update can hardly be called a “crash.” It’s expected that a large portion of the funds earned from skin sales will soon return to circulation. Some investors are already acting ahead of the curve, purchasing valuable skins at discounted prices in hopes of a rebound. This is evident from the fact that market capitalization has already begun to recover — by October 25, it had returned to 75% of its peak level.
Whether you choose to buy skins now in anticipation of rising prices, or wait for the market to stabilize — the choice is yours. Either way, LIS-SKINS is fully operational, and here you can always buy skins at up-to-date prices, no matter what’s happening in the market.
