What is a “Trade Protected” trade and what does it mean to you?

In the newest update, Valve has decided to change the way trading works once again. This is one of many changes that took a hit at the active Counter-Strike 2 trading community, all to “deter scammers”.
There are quite a lot of changes in this update, and in this article we talk all about the new “CS2 Trade-protected Trades”!

A very important Public Service announcement:

Today’s update makes CS2 trades reversible for 7 days!
If you use this feature, your account will be restricted from trading and using the Steam Community Market for 30 days

Let us talk about EVERYTHING this new update has in store!

According to Valve’s FAQ:

What is Trade Protection?

Trade Protection is a feature some games support that allow you to reverse recent trades, designed to help if you lost items after losing control of your account.

When a trade involving items from a game supporting Trade Protection is confirmed, the items are delivered immediately, and you can equip and play with them in-game.

For the next 7 days, the items are considered Trade Protected and cannot be consumed, modified, or transferred. Once the 7-day period expires, the trade-protected status expires, and the trade can no longer be reversed.

How does this help protect my Steam account?

In the unlikely event that you lose control of your account due to malware or phishing, you will have a 7-day period in which you can reverse Trades containing items from Trade Protected games.

Which games have Trade Protected items?

Currently, the only game supporting Trade Protected items is Counter-Strike 2. As we learn more about this, we plan to make this available to other games on Steam.

This also means that you can now ONLY trade Counter-Strike 2 skins for Counter-Strike 2 skins. No more adding “Steam gems” or “Steam trading cards” to trades to make it harder for API/Phishing scams.

What does this mean to me and my skins?

For selling and buying

If you sell a skin on a marketplace, such as GamerPay, the marketplace will most likely be forced to hold your money in escrow for at least 7 days to verify that the trade went through to protect the buyer.

If you sell to a cash trader, they probably won't be able to pay until 7 days after the trade protection is over, and the item is confirmed to be in their inventory.

For more on this, read “What are the Problems?” later in this article!

What items are protected?

The FAQ states that you can choose to make a trade-protected trade, but when trading, there is no such option; all the trades and CS2 items will ALWAYS be trade-protected. It also states that it is “currently” only Counter-Strike 2, but that Valve would like to expand this feature to other Games.

What do trade-protected items do?

Once you receive a trade-protected item, it cannot be consumed, modified, or transferred. This means you cannot apply stickers, charms, or nametags to weapons, nor can you open a case or capsule that you’ve purchased until the 7-day trade protection period has ended. This also brings more people to the Steam community market to buy cases or capsules to open, as there is no waiting period to open, only to trade.

It is also not possible to put the trade-protected items in a storage unit.

How and for what do I use this feature?

However, on the other hand, if your account has been compromised and skins have been stolen, you now have the opportunity to recover them. According to Steam’s new FAQ, all trades involving “Trade Protected items” (currently limited to CS2 skins) will be reverted, and you will receive all of your items back.

This could be huge against API or Phishing scammers, but this update definitely changes trading and the way websites handle payouts, which probably will be a bit of an issue in the first week, but in a year we will look different at this whole situation.

A look at this feature:

Here is a closer look at what containers (capsules, and in this case, a “case”) with the new trade protection look like:
You see the warning with the emblem of a shield, and you can not alter, in this example “open” the case, as this would change or consume the item itself.

Thanks to @Boogie for the screenshots!

What are the problems?

A big problem is that now, every buyer who picks up an item on a third-party site or marketplace could get their buy reversed. This also applies to buying items from other people, like cash traders or also obviously, scammers. Be very mindful of people selling you "stuff for cheap”, as they could just be looking to get their item back within a week, leaving you with nothing!

Trading sites and marketplace platforms must ensure that the seller receives their funds and the buyer receives their item, without it being reverted.
But with private people, or solicited scammers, there is no money back or ensuring guarantee! Be very mindful of your actions.

Conclusion

We hope that you learned about this new update, and that you are now knowledgeable but also cautious.
All in all, this update might not be too good for trading, but if you have been a victim of a scam, or if your account has been compromised, at least now you have to chance to fight back and receive your skins from the scammer.

We at GamerPay are working on a safe solution to these changes.
We look forward helping you buy and sell your Counter-Strike skins again very soon!