CS2’s New Knife Crafting Shakes Up Skin Market
▼ Summary
– Valve introduced a new trade-up contract system in CS2, allowing players to craft knives or gloves by trading in five Covert-quality weapon skins from the same collection.
– The update caused a dramatic price surge for Covert skins, with items like the AK-47 | Nightwish increasing by around 30% due to high demand for crafting.
– Prices for existing knives and gloves dropped sharply, with some models falling over 50% as the new system reduced their exclusivity and perceived rarity.
– Knives and gloves obtained through the new trade-up contracts are currently untradable, preventing them from being sold on the Steam market.
– The update has created significant market volatility, compounded by Steam’s existing trade restrictions like the 7-day trade lock, affecting liquidity and trading strategies.
A major new feature in Counter-Strike 2 is fundamentally reshaping the game’s virtual economy, sending ripples across the multi-million dollar skin market. Valve’s latest update introduces a groundbreaking knife and glove crafting system, officially called a trade-up contract, which provides a direct method for players to acquire these coveted items.
This new system allows players to craft a knife or a pair of gloves by trading in five Covert-tier weapon skins from a single collection. The type of item crafted depends on the input: using five StatTrak Covert skins results in a StatTrak knife, while five standard Covert skins produce either a regular knife or gloves. This creates a predictable, though potentially expensive, avenue to obtain items that were previously locked behind the randomness of case openings, dramatically changing their availability and perceived value.
The announcement triggered an immediate and dramatic surge in the price of Covert-quality weapon skins. These items have become the essential “crafting fuel” for the new system. Skins like the AK-47 | Nightwish and the AWP | Chromatic Aberration saw their values climb rapidly on the Steam Community Market and third-party sites as demand exploded. Players and traders scrambled to assemble the required sets of five, leading to temporary shortages and inflated prices. Within the first day, many popular Covert skins experienced average price hikes of approximately 30%. For instance, a Minimal Wear AK-47 | Nightwish increased by nearly 30% to around $135, while a Factory New Glock-18 | Gold Toof rose over 28% to $120.
In a contrasting reaction, the market value of existing knives and gloves saw a sharp and significant decline. The new ability to craft these items directly reduced their market exclusivity and rarity almost overnight. Prices for numerous popular knives fell between 20% and over 50% in the initial 24-hour period. A Factory New Karambit | Doppler, for example, dropped 32% to about $740, and a Factory New Butterfly Knife | Fade decreased 28% to $690. Some items, like a Well-Worn Navaja Knife | Crimson Web, experienced even steeper drops, crashing by 53% to $95.
A critical aspect of this new crafting mechanic is that knives and gloves obtained through trade-up contracts are currently untradable. These newly crafted items cannot be sold or traded on the Steam Community Market. It remains unclear whether Valve intends this to be a permanent restriction or a temporary measure. While this prevents a sudden flood of new items from destabilizing the market further, it adds a significant layer of complexity to the economic calculations behind crafting.
This update has injected tremendous volatility into the skin trading ecosystem. The rapid shift in demand, skyrocketing for Covert skins and plummeting for knives, has created a highly dynamic and unpredictable environment. This situation is further complicated by Steam’s existing trade policies, particularly the seven-day trade lock applied to items after a user-to-user trade. This policy inherently slows market fluidity, reduces immediate liquidity, and makes short-term trading strategies much more challenging to execute.
Beyond the economy-altering trade-up feature, the October 2025 update also brought back the official Retakes game mode. It included various improvements to matchmaking logic and overall game performance, refined several user interface elements, and introduced adjustments to classic maps such as Inferno.
This transformative update seems destined to leave a permanent mark on the CS2 skin economy. Covert skins have been elevated to a form of high-value currency, prized not only for their aesthetics but for their utility in crafting. While making top-tier knives more accessible may appeal to the average player, it has undoubtedly devalued the extensive inventories held by veteran collectors and professional traders. Valve’s firm control over the market, especially through the trade restrictions on crafted items, indicates a deliberate effort to manage the potential fallout. The long-term stability and new equilibrium of this multi-million dollar virtual marketplace, however, are still very much in question.
(Source: Dataconomy)
