Counter-Strike has long been known for two things: tight tactical FPS gameplay and a thriving player marketplace effectively valued at literal billions of dollars. Now, thanks to a recent update from Valve, the latter is in a downward spiral, having lost 25% of its value — or $1.75 billion — overnight.

First, some context. Counter-Strike is a free-to-play multiplayer shooter. As with most other F2P games, it generates revenue from selling cosmetics. They arrive in lootbox-like Cases, which are opened by Keys purchased with real-world currency. They can also be obtained through trading with other players and purchasing from Steam Community Market. Beyond Steam, unofficial third-party marketplaces for CS cosmetics have also popped up as channels for buying and selling items.

Following Valve’s Oct. 22 update to Counter-Strike, the second-highest-tier, Covert (Red), can now be traded up and turned into Knives and Gloves. Essentially, this means that a previously extremely rare and highly sought-after cosmetic is going to be much more obtainable for those who increasingly want it, reducing the value of Knives and Gloves on the open marketplace.

And this is where the market descends into a freefall. Now, that Butterfly Knife mentioned above? It’s going for around $12,000, as people are essentially dumping their stock, with 15 sold over the past 16 hours at the time of this writing.

As sellers attempt to recoup their investments, similar fire sales like the one happening at CSFloat are occurring at other sites. One such site, Skin Port, even put us in a waiting room to access it; traffic was overwhelming its servers.

Just like how NFT or cryptocurrency values can drastically shift, Counter-Strike item traders are seeing their stock rapidly change in value, and not for the best. While some items of lower-rarity tiers have gone up in value, and Reds might see a bump now that they can be traded up into Knives and Gloves, that can’t make up for the sudden drop at the top of the cosmetics market.

We’ll have to wait and see if the market levels out or if it continues to crash. Plenty of players and CS traders must be eagerly awaiting more news: As of this writing, Pricempire’s servers had crashed.

Because items are obtained at random through opening Cases, rarer items fetch the highest value on the open marketplaces. Items of lower-rarity tiers can also be traded in at volume for an item of a higher tier via trade up contracts. Previously, Knives and Gloves could not be obtained through trade up contracts, exponentially increasing their value as highly sought-after items. Prior to the most recent update, some Knives, like a Doppler Ruby Butterfly Knife, could fetch around $20,000 on third-party storefronts like CSFloat.

This is the xdefiance Online Web Shop.

A True Shop for You and Your Higher, Enlightnened Self…

Welcome to the xdefiance website, which is my cozy corner of the internet that is dedicated to all things homemade and found delightful to share with many others online and offline.

You can book with Jeffrey, who is the Founder of the xdefiance store, by following this link found here.

Visit the paid digital downloads products page to see what is all available for immediate purchase & download to your computer or cellphone by clicking this link here.

Find out more by reading the FAQ Page for any questions that you may have surrounding the website and online sop and get answers to common questions. Read the Returns & Exchanges Policy if you need to make a return on a recent order. You can check out the updated Privacy Policy for xdefiance.com here,

If you have any unanswered questions, please do not hesitate to contact a staff member during office business hours:

Monday-Friday 9am-5pm, Saturday 10am-5pm, Sun. Closed

You can reach someone from xdefiance.online directly at 1(419)-318-9089 via phone or text.

If you have a question, send an email to contact@xdefiance.com for a reply & response that will be given usually within 72 hours of receiving your message.

Browse the shop selection of products now!

Reaching Outwards