You may not have played CS:GO, but you definitely have a friend who has made some money from it, and of course, they may have lost some recently as well.

As the craze for Meme coins gradually fades, some speculators who once floated in the wild fluctuations of Meme coins are turning their attention to CS skins, discussing the K-line charts of CS:GO items in various cryptocurrency trading groups. Once the “Meme hunters” of the crypto world, they have transformed into “skin flippers,” with CS:GO skins becoming the next wealth code in their eyes.

CS:GO (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive) was officially released on August 21, 2012. In 2013, the weapon case and skin system were introduced, allowing trading on the Steam market, laying the foundation for the CS:GO item economy. After attempts to make it free-to-play and multiple updates, it has opened a prosperous item market that has lasted for twelve years.

In May 2025, the CS accessory market suddenly crashed, with the accessory index plummeting 20% in three days, and the prices of several popular trading varieties nearly halved, sparking heated discussions among users on various platforms. This sense of market collapse is all too familiar for coin traders, but this time everyone is holding “virtual gun skins.”

Players who have been steadily happy due to the appreciation of their skin are “no longer going to be happy” overnight.

The market that is hyped up is fragile; these skins that resemble NFTs and drop as fiercely as Meme coins, how did they attract their followers, and what will it bring?

Making money, a handy thing

In April 2025, the Meme coin market was lukewarm, but the CS:GO skins market was thriving, attracting the attention of many players in the crypto space.

Everything starts with the update of the Arms Deal in 2013. Skins (also known as “skins”, essentially graphical overlays that modify the appearance of weapons in CS) were launched at that time and could only be obtained through random drops in the game.

This has opened the era of the “unboxing lottery” wealth game. To obtain rare skins that cannot be opened, players have gradually begun to trade spontaneously. The rise of skin trading websites has further promoted the prosperity of the market, giving rise to a comprehensive and prosperous ecosystem — players, trading platforms, streamers, “dog flippers,” black markets, data tools, etc.

and even derived historical price K-line charts

Source: CSGO STOCKS

But most people who feel the ups and downs in the CS:GO skin market started just for fun.

In 2019, Mantou was still in university. At first, the game was just a game. According to him, “after playing for a while, I wanted to buy skins,” which is something that can’t be more normal for players.

For CS:GO players, skins are not just a decoration, but more like a social currency. High-quality or rare skins showcase a player’s status in the community and satisfy their vanity. This naturally creates a demand for the circulation of accessories, which in turn gives rise to a corresponding market.

After gaining a better understanding of the market, Mantou noticed that the price of skins had risen significantly. Coupled with the fact that he was just a broke college student at the time, he was filled with the impulse to “speculate on skins.”

His first bucket of gold was not large - “I made a few hundred coins at first, and I was happy for a few days.”

Compared to making money solely from skins, for Mantou, buying skins and playing games in the game seem to complement each other. He hasn’t thought much about trading strategies, “it’s just that I wanted to play, so I went and bought it to play,” but the fluctuations in the accessory market also bring him back to CS:GO. For example, this April, he returned to the game because he heard that “the accessories are really hot.”

In fact, CS:GO and the economy of skins it has created are indeed complementary.

The well-known KOL Huajiao once took the initiative to study the market economy created by this game out of curiosity. In his view, the lasting wealth effect of the CS:GO accessory market is inseparable from the attributes of the game itself.

“As a shooter game, the game mode of CS:GO is very simple and hasn’t changed much compared to when it was first developed.” Additionally, V社 (Valve Corporation, the developer of CS:GO) frequently uses events to stimulate interest, which can attract veteran players to return quickly due to nostalgia or other factors.

While being able to quickly attract or retain old players, the promotion by esports streamers has also lowered the barriers to entry, attracting a continuous influx of “new generation forces” (mostly college students) into the market, forming the incremental growth of this market.

Vanity drives players to trade skin items, and the prospect of making money attracts a continuous stream of new and old players. Playing while earning has become the best annotation for the CS:GO game and the item economy.

Let the prices of accessories soar.

The price range of CS:GO’s skin market is astounding, with ordinary skins costing a few yuan to rare treasures worth tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands, collectively forming this unique ecosystem. It resembles the tiered structure of coins in the crypto space—ordinary skins are like “shitcoins,” while top-tier items like the Dragon Lore and Butterfly Knife are comparable to the BAYC and CryptoPunks in the NFT realm, with their prices continuously 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, the “Snakebite Case” may sell for around $0.36 (approximately 2.5 yuan), these items are relatively easy to obtain, have a large supply, and therefore are affordably priced, meeting the basic personalization needs of most players.

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

Source: CSmoney

In the high-end market, prices are showing exponential growth, with jewelry often seen in the thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan. These are usually extremely rare knives, gloves, and those legendary or extremely rare top-tier weapon skins. A brand new “M4A4 | Howl” with a kill count tracker and rare stickers has a recommended price of $18,324 on second-hand platforms (approximately 130,000 yuan).

Source: ShadowPay website article

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

Overall, factors such as the appearance, wear level, rarity, style of the accessories, the operations of accessory merchants (“flippers”), student holidays, new drops, and even the influence of streamers all affect their market prices. Platforms like Steam’s market and third-party trading websites 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 and fall of accessory prices is still unexpected. This kind of capriciousness is common in both the CS:GO accessory market and the coin circle.

When CS:GO announced its upcoming upgrade to CS2 in 2023, many high-priced skins and rare stickers saw a price increase. However, just a few months later, when CS2 officially launched, many skins experienced a sharp price drop due to changes in visual effects or adjustments in drop mechanisms, leaving many players who bought in at high prices “trapped.” Similarly, the $TRUMP coin, which was launched on the eve of Trump’s presidency, once had its glory, but after taking office, the coin’s price collapsed in an instant, leaving a mess behind.

However, the price fluctuations and transactions of accessories seem as random and free as memes, but they are actually under the control of V Company. The entire economic ecosystem surrounding the accessories must be adjusted according to the studio’s rules, with V Company holding absolute initiative in this process.

Huajiao stated, “It (V社) regulates all probabilities and the rarity of each skin that pops up, and it can tell you where to go.” Even the display effects of skins in the game can change due to game updates. “Why does CS2 have such a big impact on prices? Because V社 changed the display of some skins in the game, some look better, and some look worse,” Mantou said.

The items in CS:GO are financial products that can fly, but looking down, the strings of this kite are always held in the hands of Valve.

In extreme cases, the accessories market faces the risk of “what if tomorrow V社 updates and skins can no longer be freely traded.” As Mantou said: “You cannot control the changes in V社’s policies, and NFTs are easier to operate in this regard.”

Coin circle story, jewelry market repeats

The financial attributes of accessories and their price fluctuations have led many people in the crypto community to exclaim, “Isn’t this just NFT!”.

This is not nonsense; even the “play-to-earn” effect it unintentionally achieves aligns perfectly with the “play to earn” that GamFi design pursues.

Although CS:GO items can be used in the game, this constitutes a difference in practicality compared to NFTs. Mantou stated that “some expensive ones are indeed beautiful,” but in fact, this is only a small part.

“The skin has no real function, not even adding three points of attack power.” For the vast majority of young players, accessories carry more complex psychological needs and social significance. They are a concentrated embodiment of the pursuit of aesthetics, face culture, and identity symbols, which is strikingly similar to the role that NFTs play in certain circles.

Professional accessory trading websites like Jbskins.com, when describing a max gold print from the 2022 Antwerp Championship, also point out that it “is not just a simple sticker, but a symbol of identity.” “While it may not enhance your skills, it will definitely enhance your gaming experience and reputation.”

In addition to the social identity symbolic attributes, the two also have similarities in the price drivers.

Huajiao stated that the prices of specific items on CS:GO will rise due to the celebrity effect of streamers and esports players, while NFTs are primarily a symbol of identity, and their prices also require some celebrity effect to drive them.

Celebrity endorsements brought by superstar purchases can drive up the floor price of NFTs, causing prices to soar by hundreds or even thousands of times in a short period. However, once market sentiment shifts, liquidity tightens, or negative news arises about the project itself, NFT prices may plummet sharply in a short time, resulting in significant losses for those who bought in at high prices.

Coincidentally, after the collapse of CS:GO skins, the coin market and Meme trend have quietly warmed up again. Ethereum, which had been silent for a long time, has risen nearly 40% in the past 7 days, breaking through $2500, while old coins like $PEPE, $PNUT, and $moodeng have also warmed up one after another. Some even speculate that funds are circulating between different virtual assets, forming an alternative “vampire effect.” Although it cannot be directly proven, this coincidence of capital flow has become a topic of conversation among the coin community during their leisure time.

Opportunities and risks always go hand in hand. Before May, CS:GO players who had been enjoying a period of stability and happiness faced an unprecedented price crash.

Mantou had previously earned 50,000 RMB from the appreciation of accessories, but overnight it turned into a loss of 70,000. When discussing his views on this decline, he appeared quite calm, saying that compared to the previous downturns that felt like “blunt knives cutting flesh” with almost no trading volume, this drop has been significant with decent transaction volume. If the accessories market can attract more attention and gradually recover, it should be a good thing.

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

The only constant is that financial freedom is always out of reach, and there will always be someone to take over at a high position.

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