From the new CS2 Update, the Market Cap and Market crash.
It hasn’t been a boring time for CS2 skin enthusiasts, in recent months, many play skins including gloves, knives, high to mid-tier skins, and even the AK-47 Safari Mesh, have significantly increased in value in the short term, this increase pushed the Pricempire CS2 Skins Marketcap past $5 billion on August 27th, 2025, and to an all-time high of over $6 billion on October 17th, 2025, a $1 billion increase in less than two months.
On October 23rd, CS2 released an update that brought a massive economic shift in how we view rare special items (gloves and knives). After that the overall market cap dropped by 40+ percent.
The update
After this update, everyone is able to get knives or gloves by adding 5 Covert (red) skins to a trade-up contract. At first, rare special items appeared to be non-tradable and non-marketable, as shown on duWap’s stream.
Fast forward 30+ minutes, Valve pushed a silent fix, and everyone found out that the knives are (or will be) tradable and marketable. This led to a significant price drop, with rare special items leading the crash.
Fast forward 30+ minutes, Valve pushed a silent fix, and everyone found out that the knives are (or will be) tradable and marketable. This led to a significant price drop, with rare special items leading the crash.
Our EsportFire 300 index
The EsportFire 300 Index dropped from a little over $50,000 to $28,062.67 at the time of writing, marking an approximate 45 decrease in less than two days. This is one of the worst crashes the CS economy has ever experienced.
A lot of different skins are featured in the EsportFire 300 Index, such as many knifes, gloves and covert skins, it shows a very good reflection of the market itself. And sadly, the market is not doing too well.
EsportFire Indexes to analyze the market
A lot of different skins are featured in the EsportFire 300 Index, such as many knifes, gloves and covert skins, it shows a very good reflection of the market itself. And sadly, the market is not doing too well.
EsportFire Indexes to analyze the market Gloves
The top skins that dropped in price are rare special items. The leading one is the ★ Bloodhound Gloves | Charred (Field-Tested), which has seen a reduction of -81.19%!
But not only that, we also saw the Specialist Gloves | Forest DDPAT (Field-Tested), which dropped over 88% in the last seven days. A lot of Gloves fell from around 55, and some even around 80% in value since the update!
Pricempire
But not only that, we also saw the Specialist Gloves | Forest DDPAT (Field-Tested), which dropped over 88% in the last seven days. A lot of Gloves fell from around 55, and some even around 80% in value since the update!
Pricempire Knives
The other leading part are the CS2 knive skins, which you can now trade up with only 5 covert skins. The hardest hit was to the vanilla skins, as the vanilla finishes of Knives is in EVERY case where you can unbox the knife itself. Thanks to Pricempire we can see that knives, such as the ★ StatTrak™ Paracord Knife | Forest DDPAT (Factory New) went down over -84.9% in the past 7 days!
Many knives saw a reduction in price of around -50% to -70%.
Pricempire
Many knives saw a reduction in price of around -50% to -70%.
Pricempire Covert skins
The items that confidently went up in price are the Covert (red) CS2 skins, the ones that can NOW be used for trading up to knives. This has seen a huge increase in old Covert skins (especially from the "Breakout Collection", as people want to hunt Butterfly knives), and in StatTrak Covert skins!
Pricempire
Pricempire Are we at the bottom yet?
Whether we’ve hit an all-time low or if an even deeper drop is still ahead, we don’t know, what we do know is that this update will go down as a huge part of Counter-Strike history, times to remember, with Valve being unpredictable and the community uncertain about what to expect for the future of the market, with some creators like Anomaly thinking the market, will never be the same after this update, check out his tweet: @anomalyxd
Update 25th of October, 2025 - One day after the big crash.
The overall market cap remained relatively stable; some knives and gloves crashed completely, while other skins, affected mainly by panic selling and a loss of trust in the market, are regaining more normal price levels, as shown in the screenshot below.
Only time will tell what the future of knives and gloves will look like. First, we see a massive difference between Chinese and Western marketplaces in pricing for gloves and knives; second, we see an upward trend in prices for somewhat unrelated items that were mainly impacted by mass panic.
Pricempire
Only time will tell what the future of knives and gloves will look like. First, we see a massive difference between Chinese and Western marketplaces in pricing for gloves and knives; second, we see an upward trend in prices for somewhat unrelated items that were mainly impacted by mass panic.
Pricempire A week after the crash
Many people expected the market to crash once again one week after the initial update, with more knives and gloves being available to get listed on marketplaces, but as it turned out, that crash was so highly anticipated that it never happened.
Instead prices started rising again and especially knives and gloves are still below pre-update prices (and rightfully so with higher demand) but our „Playskins Index“ is already back to a new all-time-high.
Instead prices started rising again and especially knives and gloves are still below pre-update prices (and rightfully so with higher demand) but our „Playskins Index“ is already back to a new all-time-high.
Trade-Revert Situation
With prices not only not dropping down further after last week‘s panic sale but increasing heavily many people who did sell their skins at the bottom or at a significant discount to the recovered prices are reverting these trades - which was not at all the intended function of the feature, meant to protect item loss after scams, not a safety net for market crashes.
What was also shocking to see is that many popular bot trading marketplaces abused the trade revert feature as well at the beginning of the crash, not paying out prices of items that have been sold, but simply reverting trades. What we absolutely loved to see and has to be mentioned: Our partner CS.MONEY positioned themselves quite clearly from day 1, accepting losses and not reverting a single trade on their platform, no matter what! We love to see that - integrity always comes first and the trust of the community is lost or gained in moments like that! *affiliate
What was also shocking to see is that many popular bot trading marketplaces abused the trade revert feature as well at the beginning of the crash, not paying out prices of items that have been sold, but simply reverting trades. What we absolutely loved to see and has to be mentioned: Our partner CS.MONEY positioned themselves quite clearly from day 1, accepting losses and not reverting a single trade on their platform, no matter what! We love to see that - integrity always comes first and the trust of the community is lost or gained in moments like that! *affiliate
Conclusion
A lot of people have lost huge sums of money. The market is in a very weird and uncertain state right now, some people talk about buying, some sell everything they have.
ONLY spend money you can afford to lose; and do not get pressured into buying something if you do not want to buy it or if it is too risky for you. Fear of missing out is a huge risk in itself. This is not financial advice, but we wanted to have this disclaimer for you.
We will also try to continuously update this article in order to track the market and keep you informed.
ONLY spend money you can afford to lose; and do not get pressured into buying something if you do not want to buy it or if it is too risky for you. Fear of missing out is a huge risk in itself. This is not financial advice, but we wanted to have this disclaimer for you.
We will also try to continuously update this article in order to track the market and keep you informed.
