Why did the CS2 skins market crash today (October 23, 2025)? Nearly $2 billion market cap loss explained

This is the biggest CS2 crash in years (Image via PriceEmpire & Valve)
The biggest CS2 skins market crash in years happened today (Image via PriceEmpire & Valve)

The CS2 skins economy took a massive hit on October 23, 2025, with the overall market cap reportedly dropping by $2 billion in under 24 hours. This sudden decline has happened due to a recent Trade-Up update, which changes how rare knives and gloves can be obtained. The change has caused widespread panic across the trading community, and the prices of several knives and gloves have consequently crashed.

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That said, here's everything you need to know about the new CS2 update.


New CS2 Trade-Up update explained

For those who don't know, Counter-Strike 2 has one of the most active in-game economies, with a market cap worth billions of dollars. According to PriceEmpire, one of the most reputable skin market trackers, the game recently surpassed the market cap of $6 billion. Just a week later, today, it has lost nearly $2 billion, that's a 30% decline overnight.

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Until now, the Trade-Up Contract system allowed players to exchange 10 lower-tier items for a single weapon skin of slightly higher rarity, but knives and gloves were not part of it. However, the new update allows players to trade five Covert (red rarity) weapon skins for a guaranteed knife or glove, making them far more accessible to the general audience.

Here's what the October 23, 2025, patch notes say:

  • Extended functionality of the "Trade Up Contract" to allow exchanging 5 items of Covert quality.
  • 5 StatTrak™ Covert items can be exchanged for one StatTrak™ Knife from a collection of one of the items provided.
  • 5 regular Covert items can be exchanged for one regular Knife item or one regular Gloves item from a collection of one of the items provided.
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Unfortunately, this means that most of the knives and gloves are not as valuable as they used to be. While their prices are crashing, the Covert weapon skins have skyrocketed in value. For example, the MP9 Starlight Protector Field-Tested now costs over $40. Earlier, it was one of the cheapest Covert skins and used to sell for less than $5 on the Steam market.


That's everything you need to know about the new Trade-Up update in CS2.

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Edited by Harshit "Hysaze" Singh
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