The Rise and Fall of the CS:GO Skin Market: A Speculative Journey from Big Pump to Collapse

Although not everyone has played CS:GO, almost everyone has friends who have made money from it, and of course, there may also be some who have lost money recently.

As the hype around Meme coins gradually fades, some speculators who once thrived in it are turning their attention to CS skins. The former "Meme hunters" have transformed into "cosmetic flippers," viewing CS:GO skins as the next key to wealth.

CS:GO was officially released on August 21, 2012, and introduced the weapon case and skin system in 2013, allowing trading on the Steam market, laying the foundation for the CS:GO cosmetics economy. After attempts to go free-to-play and multiple updates, CS:GO ushered in a twelve-year period of prosperity in the cosmetics market.

However, in May 2025, the CS skins market suddenly collapsed. The skins index plummeted 20% in three days, and the prices of several popular trading varieties were almost halved, sparking heated discussions among users on various platforms. This kind of market collapse scene is all too familiar to cryptocurrency traders, only this time what they hold in their hands is "virtual gun skins."

Players who have long felt happy due to the appreciation of their skins lost their joy overnight. How did this fragile hype market, with skins resembling NFTs and a declining trend similar to Meme coins, attract followers, and what impact will it bring?

Making money, an easy task

In April 2025, when the Meme coin market was flat, the CS:GO skins market was booming, attracting the attention of many players in the cryptocurrency space.

It all started with the 2013 Arms Deal update. Skins (also known as "cosmetics", essentially graphic overlays that modify the appearance of weapons in CS) were introduced at that time and could only be obtained through random drops in the game.

This has opened the era of the "lottery upon unboxing" wealth game. To obtain rare skins, players have begun to trade spontaneously. The rise of skin trading websites has further boosted the market prosperity, giving birth to a large ecosystem that includes players, trading platforms, streamers, "dog flipping", black markets, data tools, and more.

For most people, entering the CS:GO skin market was initially just for the gaming experience.

In 2019, university student Mantou began to get into CS:GO. At first, the game was just a game. He said: "After playing for a while, I wanted to buy skins," which is quite normal for players.

For CS:GO players, skins are not just decorations, but more like a social currency. High-quality or rare skins showcase a player's status in the community, satisfying their vanity. This naturally creates a demand for the circulation of these items and nurtures a corresponding market.

After understanding the market, Mantou noticed the rise in skin prices, and as he was a cash-strapped college student at the time, he had the idea of "speculating on skins."

His first bucket of gold wasn't much—"I made a few hundred bucks at first, I was happy for a few days."

For Mantou, buying skins and playing games are more like complementary activities. He doesn't have a specific trading strategy, "it's just that I wanted to play, so I went and bought some to play," but the fluctuations in the item market can also bring him back to CS:GO. For example, this April, he returned to the game because he heard that "skins are very popular."

In fact, CS:GO and the economy of the skins it created do complement each other.

A well-known KOL once voluntarily researched the market economy created by this game. He believes that the lasting wealth effect of the CS:GO skin market is closely related to the attributes of the game itself.

"As a shooting game, the game mode of CS:GO is very simple, with not much change compared to when it was first developed," coupled with the fact that the developers often use events to stimulate and attract old players to quickly return due to nostalgia and other factors.

While retaining old players, the promotion by esports streamers has also lowered the barriers to entry, attracting a continuous influx of "new generation forces" (mainly college students) into the market, contributing to market growth.

Vanity drives players to trade skin items, while the potential to make money attracts both new and old players, making play-to-earn the best annotation for the CS:GO game and the item economy.

Let the jewelry prices rise

The price range of CS:GO's item market is astonishing, ranging from ordinary skins worth a few yuan to rare treasures valued at tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands, collectively forming this unique ecosystem. It resembles the tiering of cryptocurrencies in the blockchain world—ordinary skins are like "air coins", while top-tier items such as the Dragon Lore and Butterfly Knife are comparable to the top collectibles in the NFT space, with their prices constantly breaking records due to scarcity and consensus premium.

A large number of common weapon cases and ordinary quality skins are located at the lower end of the price spectrum, for example, certain weapon cases may only sell for about 2.5 yuan, and these items are relatively easy to obtain, with a large supply, which makes their prices affordable and meets the basic customization needs of most players.

Entering the medium price range, the prices of accessories usually range from dozens to several hundred yuan. Accessories in this range often have better appearance design, a certain degree of rarity, or serve more popular weapons.

In the high-end market, prices are showing exponential growth, with accessories costing several thousand to tens of thousands of yuan being common. These are usually extremely rare knives, gloves, and those legendary or extremely rare top-tier gun skins. Some brand new top-tier skins that can record kill counts and come with rare stickers can reach prices of around 130,000 yuan on second-hand platforms.

These high-priced accessories have surpassed the game items themselves and are viewed as collectibles and investment items.

Overall, factors such as the appearance, wear level, rarity, style of the items, the operations of item traders ("flippers"), student holidays, new drops, and even streamer effects all influence their market prices. Trading platforms also play an important role in shaping the CS:GO skin market.

Even if the influencing factors can be rationally sorted out, the whimsical rise of accessory prices is still unexpected. This kind of capriciousness is common in both the CS:GO accessory market and the cryptocurrency space.

When CS:GO announced its upgrade to CS2 in 2023, many high-priced skins and rare stickers saw a price rise. However, just a few months later, when CS2 officially launched, many skins experienced a significant price drop due to changes in visual effects or adjustments in drop mechanisms, leaving many players who bought at high prices "trapped". Similarly, certain cryptocurrencies have also experienced similar big pumps and drops.

However, the price fluctuations and transactions of accessories, which seem as random and free as memes, are actually under the control of the developers. The entire economic ecosystem derived from accessories must be adjusted according to the studio's rules, with developers holding absolute initiative.

A KOL stated, "It (the developer) adjusts all the probabilities and the rarity of each skin that comes out, and can also tell you where to go." Even the display effect of the skins in the game can change due to game updates, "Why does CS2 have such a big impact on prices? Because the developer changed the display of some skins in the game, some look better, and some look worse," said Mantou.

In CS:GO, skins are financial products that can fly, but looking down, the line of this kite is always held by the developers.

In extreme cases, the jewelry market carries the risk of "What if the developers update tomorrow and skins can no longer be traded freely?" As Mantou said: "You cannot control the developers' policy changes, and NFTs operate better in this regard."

Stories from the Crypto World, Jewelry Market Reenactment

The financial attributes of accessories and their price fluctuations have made many people in the crypto circle exclaim, "Isn't this just NFT!".

This is not nonsense; even the "play while earning" effect that it inadvertently achieves aligns perfectly with the "play to earn" that GameFi design pursues.

Although CS:GO skins can be used in the game, this constitutes a difference in practicality compared to NFTs. Mantou stated, "Some of the expensive ones are indeed beautiful," but in fact, this is just a small part.

"The skin doesn't have much function, not even an additional three points of attack power." For the vast young player demographic, accessories carry more complex psychological needs and social significance. They are a concentrated embodiment of the pursuit of aesthetics, face culture, and identity symbolism, which resonates similarly to the role NFTs play in certain circles.

A professional jewelry trading website, when describing a max gold print from the 2022 Antwerp Championship, also pointed out that it "is not just a simple sticker, but a symbol of identity." "Although it cannot improve your skills, it can definitely enhance your gaming experience and social standing."

In addition to the social identity symbol attributes, the two also share similarities in the price driving factors.

A certain KOL stated that the prices of specific items in CS:GO would rise due to the celebrity effect of streamers and esports players, while NFTs are primarily a symbol of identity, and their (prices) also need some celebrity effect to drive them.

The endorsement brought by celebrities purchasing can drive the rise of NFT floor prices, causing prices to surge by hundreds or even thousands of times in a short period. However, once market sentiment changes, liquidity tightens, or negative news about the project itself arises, NFT prices may experience a cliff-like drop in a short time, resulting in heavy losses for those who bought at high prices.

Coincidentally, after the crash of CS:GO skins, the crypto market and Meme coins have quietly warmed up again. Ethereum, which has been dormant for a long time, has risen nearly 40% in 7 days, breaking through $2500, and some older coins are gradually recovering. Some even speculate that funds are circulating between different virtual assets, creating an alternative "vampire effect". Although it cannot be directly proven, this coincidence of capital flow has become a topic of conversation in the crypto community during leisure time.

Opportunities and risks always accompany each other. Before May, CS:GO players who had been steadily happy for a while faced this unprecedented price crash.

Manto previously earned 50,000 RMB from the appreciation of accessories, but overnight it turned into nothing and he ended up losing 70,000. When discussing his views on this decline, he appeared quite calm, stating that compared to the previous declines that felt like "dull knife cutting flesh" with almost no trading volume, this drop has a significant magnitude and the trading volume is quite good. If the accessories market can attract more attention and slowly recover, it should be a good thing.

After all, the story of cyber speculation will never end, from Meme coins to CS:GO skins. The market, emotions, greed, and fear always cycle through different tracks.

The only constant is that financial freedom is always out of reach, and there are always buyers at high positions.