While the skins market is collapsing, some people are very loud about their dissatisfaction — to the desperate level. Others grab all the cheap Covert skins within their reach.
The industry around the Counter-Strike 2 skins has changed with one update. Valve made some of the most iconic items in the game more accessible. The decreased prices mean burnt investments, and we are talking about many millions. The main blow is to the trust in reliability of the market and Valve as its overlord.
The community’s reaction to the knife trade-up contracts is extremely polarized and chaotic. On one side of emotions, we have outrage from collectors and investors. People are furious, and they blame Valve for destroying the economy of the rarest items.
On the other side, we have quite a lot of people who rushed to purchase the source materials for their future CS2 knives. It was a dream to have one, and now it can come true.
Investors and traders are panicking. Pro players are neutral observers. Some content creators try to analyze the situation, while others are just involved in this big fuss. Casual players are positive about this change, naming it a way to democratize the skins market.
Let’s highlight the reaction of some of the most influential people in the CS2 community, those directly related to skins: what they say about the knife trade-up contracts.
ohnePixel: Chaotic emotions, opportunism, thinking about the future
Many people in the community waited for a reaction from Mark "ohnePixel" Zimmermann. Not only is this guy a prominent figure in the CS2 skins niche, but he has also invested a lot of money in the knives specifically.
To express his emotions, ohnePixel did a pretty long stream. He showed his knives were still in the inventory, discussed the update, and talked about the future.
ohnePixel’s reaction generally reflect chaos in the community. At the same time, he expresses doubts about the death of the market.
“Markets go up, markets go down. Today, it may be down 50%. Tomorrow may be up 100%. You never know. The market is so unpredictable.”
In his stream, ohnePixel suggests selling Covert skins and getting revenue from an incredible demand for them. He also talks about stabilization in the future, while the knives will still be cheaper.
Anomaly: “Trading is over”
This content creator is also known for showcasing his high-value inventory. Ludwig "Ludde" Amadeus Lagerstedt, known as Anomaly, has been actively discussing the CS2 knife trade-ups, so in a way, he’s become a loud voice of the community, at least a part of it.
Anomaly confirmed that if you receive a knife from a trade-up contract, this item is still tradeable.
The guy is very emotional in his video about this update. Anomaly expresses surprise at how Valve delivered this news: in the middle of minor patch notes.
“Just tell me this is a nightmare.”
The content creator openly says that all the money that used to be knives is now gone. Anomaly trades up some of his Covert skins for knives, gets a few, including Talon Knife | Doppler, and proclaims financial doom for the CS2 skin market.
Sparkles: Disbelief and optimism
He has opened more than 20,000 cases throughout his Counter-Strike content creation career, and now, Edd "Sparkles" Stanton has decided to sell his precious Souvenir skins to someone who is willing to buy around 10,000 of them in one package. This was announced in the Auctioning My SKINS!! video, a couple of days after the update.
Before this, Sparkles reviewed the CS2 knife trade-up contracts — he expressed different reactions of the community. Disbelief was open.
“Craziest update I think I've ever seen in at least 10 years”
In his video, Sparkles tries to find optimistic opportunities for the revenue but still strong criticizes Valve’s attempt to push this new feature silently.
TDM_Heyzeus: Serious analysis, revealing tragic outcomes, optimism
This content creator made a dedicated video about the financial consequences of this update.
Surprisingly, TDM_Heyzeus highlights a fresh angle to this situation. His opinion is not a common reaction to knife trade-ups in the CS2 community.
"What’s happening here isn’t really natural. Skins have been in a weird spot for a long time. And in many respects, this crash is pretty much just gravity catching up to them.”
TDM_Heyzeus talks about the fault of wealthy investors who pumped money into skins but then left the market overnight.
The video openly talks about the tragic outcome of this decision by Valve. People hurt themselves and die because of this.
At the same time, TDM_Heyzeus is confident that the market will recover, as “the number of knives introduced by the trade-up is insufficient to tank the market long-term”.
fl0m: Somewhat sceptical about the market
Erik “fl0m” Flom is a former Counter-Strike esports professional who is mainly a streamer now. He posted a tweet with an interesting approach to the current situation.
“People pretending like the market wasn’t becoming just a shithole of people manipulating it for their own gain are either in denial cause it benefited them or are the ones that created this to begin with.”
The guy raises the topic of market manipulation for someone’s benefit. fl0m also expresses the opinion that “a normal human shouldn’t have to spend the amount of money to just have 1 nice skin in CS.”
Pro players: Silent
As it was logically expected, CS2 esports pros do not hurry to join the community with their reaction to the knife trade-up contracts. These people are tightly connected to big brands, which may not want to criticize Valve publicly.
The top players are silent about this update, as it doesn’t affect the competitive balance. Their way of speaking is mainly performing at big events, such as the upcoming PGL Masters Budapest 2025 and IEM Chengdu 2025.
Valve’s response: Absent
No one who knows Valve would expect to have any reaction from them. The company has a tradition of doing something in the background but telling very little to the people.
The lack of response still causes speculation. In the massive stream of tweets and Reddit posts, people repeat some specific thoughts.
- Valve will probably wait for the market to stabilize itself.
- This change may be connected to the gambling-related regulations, so opening CS2 cases looks less like a high-risk, high-reward gamble.
- Valve probably has prepared something else and has general ideas on where to direct the skins market — certainly, with the company’s revenue in mind.
The positive reaction to CS2 knife trade-up contracts is generally drowned in the community’s outrage. However, actions speak louder than words. Prices on Covert skins have been skyrocketing since the release, from both older and newer collections. Many people are excited to have a knife, and they use this opportunity here and now.
