As the market for skins grew and their value increased, so did the number of scammers trying to fraudulently take over other people's items or accounts. To combat this problem Valve introduced a seven-day restriction on item transfers, which became effective on March 29, 2018.
Prior to this update, players could transfer CS:GOskins and other virtual itemsto each other without any restrictions. This also made things easier for third-party platforms that acted as an intermediary to organize exchanges between players. The seven-day restriction means that an item obtained from an exchange cannot be transferred to another player for a week.
What changed after the trade hold was introduced
The official position of the developers was that the restrictions on trading skins allowed to significantly reduce the number of fraud cases. However, the skin market has reacted negatively to this innovation. On the official marketplace, prices have dropped noticeably. In addition, many third-party platforms and sites that ran skin giveaways were also hit hard, as they often used bots to get items from sellers and pass them on to buyers. Some have even been forced to close or suspend operations.
Immediately after this rule was introduced, many players started looking for ways to get around it. Some people started using skins for DOTA2 as their main currency, as they were not subject to this restriction. However, this method didn't last long either, as from May 2020, the seven-day trading restriction appeared in Dota as well.
How the market works now
Ultimately, it took some time before the skin market returned to normal. After a period of decline, most of the popular skins have not only returned to their previous price, but have surpassed it, as you can easily see by looking at the charts. Third-party sites offering services and skin sales have also adapted to the restriction, which is still in effect today. Many have taken extra measures to protect themselves from scammers.
To date, there is noway to bypass the seven-day trade lock, but for buying and selling skins this is not a problem. Browsing through the skin catalog at Lis-Skins.ru, you can always see how many days or hours are left to unlock the item transfer. You can filter the skins to see only the ones you can get right away, or specify an acceptable hold period if you're willing to wait.