Valve’s October 22 update to Counter-Strike 2 triggered a market crash

The value of digital items in the popular first-person shooter video game Counter-Strike 2 plunged nearly 48% following an update by developer Valve Corporation. According to market tracking data, roughly $1.75 billion worth of player-held digital assets vanished from value post-update.

Bloomberg News reported that the market slump began on October 22, when Valve released an update to change the in-game economy of Counter-Strike 2. According to the patch notes shared on CS2’s subreddit, it modified the way players could exchange and acquire cosmetic weapon skins like knives and gloves, among the game’s rarest and most expensive items.

At around 7 PM in New York on Wednesday, Valve adjusted the item exchange rate between various skin categories. 

Prices for top-tier collectibles plunged within hours of the update, wiping nearly $2 billion in total market value by Friday morning, according to data from Pricempire. This analytics firm monitors Counter-Strike’s trading ecosystem across 46 marketplaces.

“This was a complete shock to the community,” said Ethan MacDonald, marketing manager at Pricempire. “This completely changes the supply of Counter-Strike’s most sought-after and expensive tier of items.”

CS2 is the world’s most active digital gaming item market

Bloomberg had reported in March, citing Pricempire data, that the market for CS2 in-game skins set a new record to surpass $4.3 billion for the first time. As of June, a single Counter-Strike 2 weapon skin sold for $1 million, the highest transaction ever recorded for an in-game cosmetic. 

Pricempire’s valuation model aggregates public inventory data and pricing from dozens of trading hubs, producing an estimate of the total market capitalization for all tradable Counter-Strike items.

The sudden market crash hit individual traders like Oscar Stapleton, a 20-year-old player in London, who said his digital inventory was valued at over $1 million before the update. Within 24 hours, he lost nearly $270,000 in market value.

“I’ve had a good past few months, so this is a shock,” Stapleton reckoned.

However, Streamer psp1g saw his fortunes reverse after the October update, after the value of his previously overlooked inventory surged. Items he had once considered “worthless red skins” that couldn’t be used in trade contracts became part of the most sought-after assets in the game, pushing his total holdings to more than $4.4 million.

Valve resonates update to ‘trade protection’

The October 22 patch came after Valve made several changes to how Counter-Strike 2 items move between players. In mid-2025, the company behind Steam added a “Trade Protection system” that restricts newly traded items for seven days. 

CS2 Skins labeled as “Trade Protected” cannot be retraded, modified, or consumed during that lock period, but they are still usable in-game.

The update also included fixes to the reversal mechanism protecting victims of fraud, allowing Valve to undo unapproved trades within a week and restore stolen items to their rightful owners. Players can also combine five high-tier “Covert” skins to create a rare knife or glove. 

Pricempire’s data showed the most prized knives and gloves, previously selling for tens of thousands of dollars, have dropped by more than half in value since Wednesday.

“Many investors, traders, and players have been selling off a lot of items out of fear that the ‘bubble’ has finally popped,” said MacDonald.

Valve earns a commission on sales made through its official Steam marketplace, but does not directly profit from the majority of third-party transactions. One Counter-Strike 2 developer speaking in a 2023 interview said: 

“We generally only look at market prices when we’re thinking about shipping new stuff and want to understand players’ preferences. Players’ interest in items fluctuates over time for many reasons, so outside of that context, we try not to read too much into temporal changes.”

According to some Redditors, Valve’s updates are motivated by gameplay balance and system integrity. 

“When you think about it, this kind of market ain’t healthy at all and is riddled with legal issues for Valve and harms the average customers the most. This is one of their solutions to bring balance to the market and, in a sense, protect the mass,” Redditor u/tan_phan_vt explained.

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