🌐 CS:GO - Invest in pixels without NFTs

Moin, friends of the cultivated alternative investment!

I have something fresh out of the content oven (caution, still hot!) for you and that is a way to invest in virtual items that find more usage than 99% of the NFTs out there. Blockchains are now anyway uncool again and the Bored Apes can probably soon rename themselves in Broke Apes 🤡

So now we come to: CS:GO Items!

You can hardly contain your ecstasy, I know, but I want to get a few facts out of the way before I make you go to your nearest kiosk to exchange your hard earned / raised pocket money for Steam or Paysafecards, like I did back then. (I'm getting old)

But why CS:GO at all?

Counter Strike is a well-known brand that some boomers here probably played in the 1.6 variant on LANs with CRT monitors, while many Andrew Tate devotees were still fluid. Anyway, on August 21, 2012 CS:GO saw the light of day and two days after the one-year anniversary the first cases came out: ""CS:GO Weapon Case" and "eSports 2013 Case",which initiated the era of weapon skins. A CS:GO Weapon Case costs about 61€ nowadays, this case was available shortly after release for about 20 cents on the Steam Market, but more details later...

CS:GO has between 500-600 thousand concurrent players per month, which can also show up in peaks of up to 1.1 million.[1] Major esport events like ESL One, Dreamhack take place regularly, which can sometimes have prize pools in the millions.

These events can be watched on Twitch, where they receive up to 1.9 million viewers[2]. Here, players also use skins of all kinds, which bring with them up to six-figure prizes. Quite often they get them from skin sites,which allow to make exchanges into cash or trades. Therefore, the skins can be seen as advertising tools, as it is possible to name items and label them with something like: "Hellskins.com", which makes them advertising spaces in livestreams. The game also has an era of gambling sites behind it. Likewise, there were betting sites that used items that made it lucrative for pro teams to manipulate professional matches.

What items can you invest in?

There are some categories in items that also come with their peculiarities. Items like skins, stickers, graffiti and crates can be obtained by playing. Otherwise, items are available via Steam Market or external marketplaces. Arbitrage between different marketplaces is possible here and there.

Weapon skins

Various weapons can be embellished or visually improved with skins. There are different states of the skins, which are as follows:

State | Float

Battle scars 0.45 - 1

Worn 0.38 - 0.45

Medium traces of use 0.15 - 0.38

Minimal signs of use 0.07 - 0.15

Factory new 0 - 0.07

Floats

Floats are nothing more than the absolute indication of the state of the respective item. Not every skin has all these possible states. An example: There are different types of knives that you can only buy or get from crates. Here there are so-called "Vanilla" variants, which only represent another type of knife like a Butterfly, but have no skin per se. Here there is only the condition Factory New.

A worse float can show itself by strong wear like scratches as well as by a darker color. There are also cases like the AWP Asiimov, where the worst condition is especially valuable (1000$ instead of 40$), because this is a "Blackiimov" for collectors, which is completely black and so not available otherwise. Likewise, skins are more valuable and look better when they are on the Edge between two states. To do this more efficiently, it is recommended to use browser plugins like: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/csgofloat-market-checker/jjicbefpemnphinccgikpdaagjebbnhg to use.

One thing to note here is that skins do not change state as a result of use.

There is also the possibility to use a variant with stat trak to purchase. This counts the kills in the rounds that you play.

Not to forget the souvenir variants, here are stickers on it, which can also be signatures of players who are very popular. Which can mean a significant price increase on weapons that players are known for. When players retire it increases the value, as well as when team stickers are on it from teams that no longer exist.

Meta

This does not refer to the Lizardman corporation, but to game trends, which are often the strongest weapons within the game at a certain point in time. This can mean that when the M4A1-S is weakened, the prices of the skins drop sharply and vice versa. However, since these only change every now and then, you can usually ignore this and in fact corresponding news is priced similarly to the normal stock market. The weakness here to buy can turn out to be very positive.

Sticker

Digital stickers that can be applied to weapons and scratched off again, if that doesn't scream innovation, I don't know what does. They can come in holo forms and command up to five-digit prices reach. This is mainly due to a low quantity. By themselves, stickers lose significant value when applied to weapons, but there are combinations - especially if they match in color, that come at a much lower markdown and if not increase in value. If you want some, you have to open capsules, which may require a key, or buy the stickers themselves in marketplaces.

Item containers (crates, capsules, etc.)

While the investments in skins and stickers can rather be understood as stockpicking, crates, souvenir packs and sticker capsules are rather to be understood as ETF. They represent collections that contain several items of a series and can increase in value due to the included items as well as their own rarity.

The boxes can be opened with the help of keys, which cost 2.35€ per piece. And yes, it is gambling. You're better off just holding crates to invest in, or buying the skins you really want to play directly. Because now we come to the probabilities.

Rarity | Odds | Stat Trak Odds

Yellow 0.25% 0.025%

Red 0.63% 0.063%

Pink 3.20% 0.32%

Purple 16% 1.6%

Blue 80% 8%

If you look at the prices for the keys here, it quickly becomes clear that this is pretty pointless. But let's say I opened tens of boxes and pulled only skins that have the rarity blue and purple.

What can I do then? Well, tradeups!

Tradeups

Tradeups require 10 items of one rarity level and can come from different collections. So I can upgrade e.g. 10 skins with the rarity level blue to the next higher purple. This gives the chance to get coveted skins with relatively low stakes, where the risk can be adjusted by yourself. As the risk diminishes, of course, the return goes down the drain. You can play through all possible scenarios here: https://csgofloat.com/trade-up

Patterns and color gradients 🌈

There are skins that can come in different variations. There are fade skins that have a section of a gradient, so to speak, and if you have the sweet spot here, the skin is more valuable. For example, with Case Hardened skins, the weapon can be completely gold or blue. Especially a strong blue component here can turn a three digit skin into a five digit one. If you need more info here, this is a good place to start: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2602936223

Drop Pool

As mentioned before, there is a chance to get a crate dropped after completing a round. It is not officially known which possible crates are included, but especially older crates seem to drop out after a while or are dropped very rarely, which of course affects the supply and thus the price. There are also crates (mostly the newer ones) that you can get by dropping them if you have a paid account of CS:GO, which is called Prime. The game itself is in fact free 👀

Operations

There are interesting patterns here, which can actually always be played - Operations. These are timed events for which Operations crates are obtainable. Which cries out every time to accumulate them as long as it is active. Preferably not at the beginning, since the demand is generally particularly high there, but much rather towards the end. And so you can watch the price pick up over time. An investment in an Operation Pass is necessary for this, which usually comes along at 5-13€.

Souvenir boxes

These crates can be obtained by watching E-Sport Majors from CS:GO with a Steam account linked on Twitch, or on the Steam marketplace and 3rd party vendors. They don't require keys to be opened and can sometimes be worth more or less depending on the event. The skins have holo stickers from players and from the event itself. They include collections that relate to certain maps. are. Which in turn means that when maps like Cobblestone or Dust II disappear from the active competitive mappool, no new souvenir crates appear for them and the existing crates increase greatly in value.

What are dupes?

In short - duplicates of items

I can speak from my own experience. My Steam account was hacked and all items were stolen. I wrote to the support and got my items back, 1:1. This can of course lead to inflation of items, but is no longer possible in this way, because Steam no longer performs these refunds. It is relatively difficult to find out if an item has been duped. You can find it out via a mostly incomplete history via https://csgo.exchange/ to find out. If one of the previous owners and the current owner owns the same item with the same float, it is probably a dupe. The effort is only worthwhile for expensive items. A blockchain would actually be helpful here 🥴.

Why the Steam Sales are relevant

No matter if it's Halloween or Summersale, every sale brings many people to flog their items to get games reduced. Here comes the chance to score a few boxes or skins for cheap.

Profit through trade

Users on Steam can trade items with each other, this almost never works with an eye on profit. Too many use extensions that automatically calculate profitability. Also, when you buy items from the Steam Market, you have a trading lockout of 24H to a week, depending on how trustworthy your account is rated. So day trading is rather difficult.

What do I need to get started?

A Steam account, money and a strategy. It can make sense to specialize in individual skins with their patterns, crates or stickers. Each account has an inventory for a maximum of 1000 items per game. However, you can buy storage boxes, which allow for another 1000 slots for 1.89€. These are also nameable, which is very useful for organization. I don't know of any neat tools that don't come with the risk of a ban and make organization easier. A series with investment theses for certain crates or items may follow in the future, depending on how this is received here.

Marketplaces

I recommend here Skinbaron, which have a German seat, to use, also to be able to convert your items back into cash. The commissions here are usually only a few percent in contrast to the Steam market, where almost 13% are due.The order book of Steam as well as Skinsbaron of the respective items can be very interesting here to explore buy and sell walls.

Risks

Obviously, the biggest risk is that the game loses relevance and thus collectors with deep pockets. Also, you should protect your account with 2FA, additionally you can distribute your items to several accounts, but this can become quite time-consuming. Regulations especially for the boxes that are based on gambling mechanics also pose a certain risk. The colleagues from the Netherlands and Belgium, for example, have to stay outside: https://www.pcgamer.com/csgo-players-in-belgium-and-the-netherlands-can-no-longer-open-loot-cases/

Also you should not cheat to not get your items irrevocably locked by a VAC ban. I know some Dullis who have had items blocked by this.

My strategy

I mainly go for crates that either have nice skins in my subjective perception, have a unique skin, or have a shortage like an Operation crate. I also have a few skins, but I use them more for gaming, but have a return of 180% to 400%. More than a few thousand euros is not worth the Bumms, however. An own tracking software is on the plan and a few targeted re-buys with certain boxes, then it is also enough. The aforementioned risks are just not to be despised.

Taxes

⚠️ This is not tax advice, please consult a tax advisor if you want to be sure that everything is legally compliant.

Of course, the state also holds out its hand here. The exemption limit is 600€ per year. If the item was sold within one year, taxes will be due, based on the rates of private sales transactions. For irregular disposal after one year hold no taxes. If a regularity is shown here, you also run the risk of being seen as a trade, which comes with sales and business tax.

Moral

Morale in gambling is always such a thing, of course. I profit here, of course, from people opening boxes and reducing the supply, which raises the price, or by selling directly to them. Which of course can be seen as reprehensible. But here people also high-five each other when they collect dividends from Coca Cola or Altria, so people here don't really care about that, I guess. But honestly, it was more than negligent back then to make it possible to put several hundred euros of your pocket money into something like that via Paysafecard. You only had to go to the kiosk that didn't make an eye and you were in. In the meantime, it's not so easy anymore, because you have to bring proof and you need a Paysafecard account.

Or to summarize it like the poet of our time Future to say:

"It's an evil world we live in".

Parts of my "depot

Many of the items are still being expanded. If there is interest, I like to note what exactly my theses are behind the items.

Karambit Night FT 1 @ 168€

M4A1-S Blue Phosphor FN 1 @ 85.65€ (cost of operation stars)

CS 20 Case 808 @ 0.08€

Spectrum 2
Case 352 @ 0.12€

Clutch Case 124 @ 0,10€

Operation Breakout Case 203 @ 2€

Danger Zone 302 @ 0.05€

Fracture Case 1617 @ 0.11€

Prism 2 Case 180 @ 0.16€

Snakebite Case 388 @ 0.14€

Wildfire Case 247 @ 0.52€

Horizon Case 200 @ 0.16€

2022 Legends Antwerp Capsule 123 @ 0.21€

Conclusion

An investment in this topic can be extremely worthwhile, but it takes time to get used to it. If you can reconcile this with the risk of possible regulations and morale or possibly decreasing relevance of the game, nothing should stand in the way. Depending on the supply of items it is also quite easy to influence markets, so be careful with items with low circulation. Also, set your inventory to private or you will be annoyed by scammers.

I have spent about 2500 hours in the game myself. So who wants a 1v1 can contact me 😈

I thank @Lorena for proofreading and gifts for creating CS:GO

Anyway, keep collecting dividends, pumping money into shitcoins, Canadian uranium stocks and enjoy your day 🚀

#csgo
#alternative
#digitalassets

Sources:

https://steamcharts.com/app/730

https://twitchtracker.com/games/32399

https://dmarket.com/blog/csgo-skin-float-guide/

https://www.csgo.com.cn/news/gamebroad/20170911/206155.shtml

https://csgoskins.gg/blog/how-the-weekly-csgo-drop-system-works