Introducing the ability to craft knives and gloves completely reshuffled the CS2 market – red skins became the new “fuel” for trade-ups, while knives and gloves dropped significantly in price. But this is just the beginning: the real impact of this update will become clear in the coming weeks as the market stabilizes. So how might prices behave in the short and long term?
Price increase for cheaper Coverts (“fuel skins”)
This is the most predictable outcome of the update. Red skins suddenly gained an additional use – they became a real raw material for crafting gold items. The biggest winners are players who had cheap Coverts sitting in their inventories “collecting dust” with no real purpose. Today, they can sell them for multiple times their previous value, because the market is buying them up en masse for trade-ups.
This is not a temporary phenomenon – the feature is here to stay, so reds will most likely never return to their old price levels. A short-term dip is possible after the initial “buying panic,” once the hype settles and players realize not every contract results in profit. However, even then, the price floor will likely remain much higher than before the update. Coverts have become the key building block of the trade-up economy.
Drop in knife and glove prices, followed by selective rebound
In the first phase after the update, we’re seeing a natural decline in the prices of gold tier items – meaning knives and gloves. The reason is simple: supply suddenly increased, because now they can be obtained not only from cases but also through contracts. The market got a “shot of fresh knives,” so prices inevitably dropped. But that’s only one half of the puzzle. Why might some of them rise again in the future?
- Crafting is random and expensive – players will quickly realize that a large portion of contracts are unprofitable. Cheap “junk” knives will flood the market – and they might indeed stay cheap permanently. However, rare models (e.g., Marble Fade, Doppler, gloves from top tier collections) will still be difficult to hit, even with crafting. Once the hype fades, their price will likely start climbing again.
- Greater accessibility ≠ increased supply for all models – players want to craft what might yield an expensive outcome, so demand will shift toward specific collections. That means only cheaper and visually weak knives will permanently drop in value. The popular ones and “premium classics” will return to higher prices, because demand remains while supply is still limited.
- There is also a “cooldown” effect in market psychology – right now, everyone is selling skins because their prices are falling. In 2-3 weeks, those who wanted to cash out gold items before a trend reversal will have already done so. At that point, the market starts buying stock back. For rare models, prices may rebound by even 20-40% from the lowest dip, as buyers return once emotions cool down.
Crafting increases the number of gold items only in terms of quantity, not quality. It increased access to “having a knife” as a concept, but it didn’t change the fact that attractive variants statistically remain hard to obtain.
A clear gap between collections
Although the rise in red skin prices was broad and immediate, in the span of a few weeks the market will begin to split them into two categories: “fuel for high-value crafts” and “low-profit fuel”. Coverts from collections leading to desired or rare knives/gloves will grow much faster than the rest, because crafting players will focus specifically on those contracts that statistically offer a high return.
A new type of content will also enter the player community – craft profitability analysis. As tables, guides, and calculators start appearing, the market will react even more strongly: players will bulk-buy specific collections, driving their prices up, while avoiding others. This segmentation is only just beginning, but it’s almost certain that in time, the gap between “good” and “weak” covert collections will become very visible.
