Valve Restricts CS:GO Key Trading Due to Money Laundering
This week, Valve announced that keys for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) loot boxes can no longer be sold or traded on the Steam marketplace. From now on, these keys can only be used to open cases in a player’s inventory. This restriction applies only to keys purchased from the official store after the rule change; keys that were already in circulation before the update can still be sold and traded.
Why Did Valve Make This Change?
For years, CS:GO keys have acted as a kind of currency, being sold for real money, cryptocurrency, or other in-game items. Even aside from the massive, often opaque and sometimes illegal, market for in-game item trading, there have been people using these keys directly for money laundering.
Valve stated that almost all CS:GO loot box keys currently in circulation are connected to fraudulent activities in some way. Large-scale fraud networks have recently been using these keys to launder their profits. For example, criminals use stolen funds to buy CS:GO keys and then resell them to partners, making the money trail disappear within CS:GO’s in-game economy. This makes it much harder for law enforcement to track illegal transactions.
Community Reaction and Market Impact
The gaming community responded to Valve’s decision with a sharp increase in key prices (as shown in the illustration above), but this is likely a temporary effect. On specialized trading forums and Reddit communities like GlobalOffensiveTrade and csgomarketforum, discussions are already underway about what could replace keys as the main currency. The most obvious alternatives are other in-game items and keys from games like TF2 and Dota 2. However, users worry that Valve’s next step might be to ban the sale and trade of these items as well (many of them are already subject to a seven-day trade hold after purchase). How the market will adapt and what will become the new currency remains to be seen.
Money Laundering in Games Is Nothing New
It’s important to note that money laundering and various forms of fraud involving in-game currencies and items are not new issues. Back in 2016, Trend Micro released a report on cybercriminal activity in games, highlighting the massive flow of money through these platforms. According to the report, criminals most often used games like Minecraft, FIFA, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Star Wars Online, GTA 5, Madden NFL, NBA, Diablo, and others for these purposes. Valve has faced similar problems before, including accusations of “facilitating” illegal gambling sites, where CS:GO weapon skins were at the heart of the issue.