Skins could be just a fun aspect to decorate your casual CS matches. But for a particular minority of people, skins have become the meaning of life, a way to earn money, and doors to a fabulous future. CS.MONEY Blog presents a series of interviews with professional traders, asking them all things skins: how they managed to achieve inventories worth close to millions; how difficult it was to start; why it is worth choosing niches; and, most importantly, what will happen to the skins market in CS2.
Today, we welcome xMercy, a trader from Brazil who also works with advertising, marketing and the financial market. He started trading in 2014 with only ten dollars in his pocket. His inventory is filled with Kato14s and Kato15s, but now, after he retired from trading, he only invests to get profits.
In this interview:
- A dream to have a knife turned into full-time trading
- Crucial advice on whether ot’s worth to launch a trading career
- Following stickers since 2016 helped understanding the market
- Why Kato14 are the best investments
- How CS2 will affect stickers
- Things Valve should do with skins and stickers
- xMercy’s unpopular takes on popular things
- What’s next in CS2
- And more!
Part 1: Personal Story, Trading Advice, and Favourite Katos
Tell us about your passion, trading skins. How it all began for you?
It started in 2014, when I was just a casual CS player. I remember seeing some people with cool skins and getting a knife became a dream. But I didn’t have money at the time to buy one, until I saw a YouTube video about a “trading guide” and I got interested. I started trading on csgolounge with $10, and piece by piece, over the months, it started growing just like a snowball, until I bought my first knife: Gut Boreal Forest FT.
But I didn’t stop there. I kept on trading for fun and to get more cool skins, and my inventory kept on growing more and more each year. Until I got into Blue Gems and later into Katos, where I made several big investments and trades.
I quit trading around three years ago. I only invest now, which for me brings no effort and bigger returns in the long run. The items work for me, not the other way around.
Do you have a degree?
Yes, I graduated in marketing/ads, which has nothing to do with CS trading. Though, CS trading provided me a lot of financial freedom to enjoy my college years even more. But, well, maybe my knowledge in marketing and advertisement helped me in something to be a better trader over the years.
How can one learn about trading?
I think there is no way to learn besides diving into this market and learning with the experience you get, but it’s risky, so always start small until you learn about everything and how this market works. It’s not like stocks, it’s a unique market with unique fundamentals.
Can trading be profitable enough to survive and not work on ordinary jobs? Is it a job at all?
It can become a job once you are good with it. But quitting a job to start a living out of trading, is not a good idea. It’s something you start small, parallel to your “normal” job/goals, and if it works out well, maybe it can add a lot to your income.
What were you most proud moments as a trader?
I think those moments were when my investment ideas paid out. They always took a long time, because this market does not think about the future, it only values the present and people only follow what everyone is doing. So good ideas that are attached to future events, takes time to get the attention of the people. But once it does, they explode and people miss out. So I always get in first, when nobody cares for the items, and wait. For me, eventually, the returns compensate more than being actively trading and doing what everyone is doing, even if it takes months or years.
Made a lot of profit doing that.
You’re a big Katowice 14 fan. Why? Is there a price ceiling?
Yes, I am a fan because to me those are the safest and best long-term investments in CS. They are consumables, meaning the supply only goes down, and the inflation of new items coming to the game won’t ever affect them negatively. It’s actually quite the opposite, new items increase the demand for K14 stickers.
Also, I actively follow the supply of all stickers since 2016, way before storage units existed, so I know the real active tradable supply, which is way below what people think it is. And by knowing and tracking every single owner, I feel completely safe to hold those.
And about the price ceiling, I don’t think so. With CS2, there are a lot of triggers to pump those up way above current levels. Money is never a problem to the buyers of those kinds of items, the real problem here is supply, and it is running out.
Opinion on Gold stickers. Are they good or bad? Maybe, just overvalued?
I never liked gold stickers, they are extremely boring and have no appeal to me. They also have a lot of collections, and most look very similar. Plus, every year we get new collections. Krakows are the only ones that are fine looking, but I don’t trust in the supply of those, nor the current prices, that are reaching the same as some K14 prices, which makes no sense. Remember that those were added in 2017, a year that people were already mass investing in stickers, so at those levels, I am out.
Part II: The Community and The Market
Can you tell about the trading community?
It’s a great community and, overall, it is friendly and helpful. But, as always, never trust random people on the internet and always double check if they are not being impersonated by trusted players in the community.
Do you like how the system of trading skins work nowadays? What Valve should change about skin market?
I think there are way better approaches to the seven days trade lock update and especially to the support system that could be way better. But, overall, everything works fine.
Also, Valve should add more rarity tiers and bigger cases. There are A LOT of good skins in the community workshop and the rate they add skins is very slow. This change would be great to the creators and would also add a lot of variance to the market.
Market is always self-correcting. What’s now broken that market will correct? What the market in your opinion still hasn’t correct but have to?
I think liquid items in general are not in a good state. Those went up a lot the past three years, and CS2 bringing a bunch of new items will probably affect the demand for those. At first, those can maybe keep going up, irrationally, but long-term I don’t think it will be sustainable.
Of course CS2 will also bring a lot of new players, but those same new players will be getting the new item as drops and unboxing the new cases, which could add a huge influx of brand new items to the game. And people always demand the new, and to buy the new they sell the old. So yeah, it’s not that obvious that everything will go up, a consensus that everyone has now, that I disagree.
Unpopular opinion: what do you not agree with in terms of prices?
Right now, to me, general liquid item prices are expensive. #661 AK prices never made sense to me, that’s a bubble that is taking way too long to burst, so I could be wrong. K15 is extremely cheap. K14 is cheap. While #1 5-7 (278 and 690) are very undervalued.
Most trade up food items are very cheap, those will be highly demanded to get the new CS2 skins.
Part III: CS2 and Scammers
What is CS2’s impact on stickers?
I think CS2 will bring A LOT of new items, something we never came close to get. New collections, new Operation and who knows what. The more new items we get, the higher the demand for stickers, and the lower the demand for old items. Overall, stickers always win.
About looks, some collections need adjustments to looks or positioning just like a lot of other items. I think it will eventually happen, with time and patience. The goal seems to be making everything better, not ruining things.
How have already CS2 affected the Market?
CS2 hype led to a lot of speculation and people hoarding skins as investments, not as playskins. The consensus is that everything will pump, but as I said before, there will be a huge influx of new items and a lot of investors holding old skins, which will probably not end well. Items could pump at release because this market is completely irrational, but it won’t end well. Not to mention, new players don’t just get into the game and start buying skins, it takes a while. And those same new players will be getting the new drops and dumping in the market.
There’s a lot of scammers, unfortunately. What do you think Valve should do and what they can do?
I think every successful project that is used by a lot of people, has a lot of scammers. That is natural, unfortunately. It happens on the crypto market, stocks market, trading cards, cars market, and every single other market in the world. Valve can’t end scamming, it will always exist. The only solution is spreading knowledge around to prevent it from happening and minimize the impacts of it in the community.
I’ve never been scammed. And rule number 1: don’t be greedy and never trust something that looks too good to be true. In CS deals, it will never be. Nobody wants to donate you easy money and you are not the lucky one to find that perfect magical deal. It will always end up being a scam, 99% of the time.
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Don’t miss out CS.MONEY Blog’s other interviews with traders:
