Glossary of CS2 trading terms

Plain definitions, linked to the page that treats each idea in depth. If a term you’ve met isn’t here, it probably lives in a community’s local dialect — the concepts below cover the load-bearing vocabulary.

Market & selling terms

• Net proceeds — what actually reaches you after every fee; the number this whole site ranks by. See the ranking and calculator.
• P2P (peer-to-peer) marketplace — platform brokering a sale between two players; the item moves by Steam trade. Lower fees, buyer-dependent timing. How selling works.
• Instant sell — platform takes your item immediately at its price; you pay for speed. Comparison in build.
• Sale fee / withdrawal fee — the platform’s cut when the item sells vs when money leaves. Both live in the fee table; pricing only the first is the classic mistake (see the ShadowPay review).
• Cash-out — converting items to money you can actually spend: PayPal · SEPA · crypto.
• Steam wallet — Valve-locked store credit; not money.
• Trade lock — the platform- or Valve-imposed waiting period before a newly acquired item can be traded again; timing rules change, so check current behavior when it matters.

Item property terms

• Float — the permanent 0–1 wear number behind the label; full explainer.
• Wear (exterior) — the five-bracket label (Factory New → Battle-Scarred) drawn over float.
• Pattern seed — the placement roll behind pattern premiums.
• Blue gem — a Case Hardened seed with exceptional blue coverage; the canonical pattern premium.
• Fade percentage — community measure of a fade finish’s gradient completeness.
• StatTrak™ — kill-counting variant of a skin; a distinct market line for the same finish.
• Souvenir — tournament-drop variant with event stickers; its own collector market.

Pricing & liquidity terms

• Liquid / illiquid — how quickly an item sells near its listed price. Liquidity decides your fee on some platforms (DMarket review) and your patience on all of them.
• Sticker price vs realized price — the listing number vs what you keep after fees and haircut; the gap is this site’s whole subject.
• Order book / spread — standing buy/sell offers and the gap between them; thin books and wide spreads are the tax on niche items (stickers & capsules).
• Supply burn — permanent consumption of items (case opening, sticker application); the engine of scarcity.
• Attention cycle — the demand waves from updates, events and trends; what moves prices.

Community shorthand

• B/O (“buyout”) — the seller’s take-it-now price in trade listings.
• C/O (“current offer”) — the best standing offer on an item being auctioned informally.
• Overpay — premium demanded in item-for-item trades for desirable pieces.
• Middleman scam — the classic theft pattern: a fake “trusted third party” takes your item; the defenses are in the safety rules.

Investing context for all of it: are skins a real investment?