As a big Counter-Strike fan, I’ve been watching the skin market closely, and the update on October 23rd was huge. It seriously shook things up! Basically, they changed how people get knives and gloves in the game, and the value of skins dropped a lot – the whole market went from being worth around $6 billion to under $5 billion pretty quickly. It’s been wild to see!
The latest update improved the Trade Up Contract system, allowing players to trade five high-quality (Covert) items for a knife or gloves – something they couldn’t do before. Now, you can trade five StatTrak Covert items to get a StatTrak knife, or five regular Covert items for a standard knife or gloves from the available collections.
Previously, knives and gloves were very rare items, only obtainable through luck from item drops or by purchasing them from online marketplaces – often for extremely high prices, sometimes thousands of dollars. The new system allows even less expensive, high-quality skins to be exchanged for these coveted items, increasing the overall supply and lowering prices.
The recent update sparked outrage among many players and traders. One popular CS streamer expressed their dismay, stating that the update could cause harm to some individuals, yet it was released anyway, which they found shocking.
It’s incredibly concerning that you released this knowing it could cause people to harm themselves. It feels reckless and thoughtless.
— FURIOUSSS (@FURIOUSSScs) October 23, 2025
Former YouTube executive Fwiz also pointed out that Valve’s update was poorly timed and hurt the game’s economy. He explained that the update allowed players to combine items in hopes of getting more valuable ones, but it resulted in people using inexpensive items to potentially win high-value items—like knives that used to be worth over $1000. Fwiz believes this effectively devalued the items owned by many players in the market.
However, some people don’t think the changes will be as drastic as others predict. Data from the Marketplace CSFloat suggests that even if players traded up every available Covert skin, the number of knives and gloves in circulation would only increase by two times.
There are about 20 million covert skins in circulation, not including knives and gloves. Even if every less valuable skin was traded up to become a covert, it would only add around 9 million more. The website notes that even if all 29 million covert skins were traded up to knives or gloves, the supply of those items would only roughly double, going from about 5.5 million to 11 million. However, this would require every skin to be traded, which is unlikely. The actual increase in supply will probably be much smaller.
Streamer fl0m felt the update was much needed. He explained that prices for cosmetic items (‘skins’) in the game had become ridiculously inflated due to market manipulation, making it nearly impossible for average players to afford them. He believes it shouldn’t cost so much money to simply own one appealing skin in the game.
The recent update caused a $1 billion drop in the game’s market value. Rare cosmetic items, known as ‘covert skins,’ lost value, particularly those linked to knives and gloves. An original post by a user highlighted how the game’s economy is adjusting. It’s remarkable that game economies can grow to $6 billion and be affected by the developers.
— Ryan Wyatt (@Fwiz) October 23, 2025
Popular skin trader and streamer zipeL said he’s heavily involved in the skin market and, while the current situation isn’t ideal, he’s staying calm and will wait to see what happens next.
I know this is a difficult time for many, and some are really struggling. Please check in on your friends and family – we’ll get through this together.
At the time of writing, the market cap has dropped as low as $4.2 billion.
This update has caused a major change in the Counter-Strike economy, resulting in a sudden loss of millions of dollars worth of virtual items. It’s currently unclear if the market will recover or continue to decline, and that will depend on how many players use the new trade-up feature in the next few weeks.
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2025-10-23 12:20