DMarket

Introduction

DMarket is a marketplace for Steam items, particularly for CS2 skins and items. The platform was founded about 8 years ago, on May 1st, 2017. DMarket is currently operated by Vlad Panchenko, with headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, US. The DMarket marketplace and company have been vetted by CSGOSKINS.GG and deemed trustworthy by all our standards.

Popularity

DMarket is rated 4.2 out of 5 with over 19.9K reviews on Trustpilot. The DMarket platform received approximately 2.9M visits during the last month. There are currently 16.9K different items available on the marketplace, with a total of 741.8K listed offers. Additionally, the combined value of all CS2 skins that are currently available on the DMarket market amounts to $11.7M.

Market Type

DMarket is a traditional bot-based marketplace. That means a seller must first deposit an item before it can be listed on the market. The deposit is done by sending the item to one of DMarket’s Steam bot accounts. Compared to P2P markets where the item can be listed on the marketplace while still being in the seller’s inventory, this is not such a smooth experience for the seller. But it provides a better buyer experience because upon purchase, the buyer can immediately receive the item without needing to wait for the seller to accept the trade.

History

Founded in May 2017, DMarket started off with an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that managed to raise a whopping $19 million worth of ETH and was quick to rise in popularity as it was one of the few third-party skin marketplaces that allowed users to sell their items at 0% transaction fee.

Over the past few years, DMarket has evolved into a huge marketplace that supports skins from a variety of popular games alongside several NFTs that users can buy or sell on the platform.

The website is founded and operated by Volodymyr Panchenko, who was born in Ukraine, but is based in Wilmington, Delaware, US.

DMarket has been pretty vocal about the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Once Russia started their invasion on their western neighbors, DMarket started taking strict steps including banning Russian users from the platform and raising funds for Ukraine. At the time of writing, over $17,500,000 has been raised for Ukraine to the official crypto wallets.

Currently, DMarket stands proud as one of the most popular markets for purchasing or selling CS2 skins with real money or crypto. According to reports, DMarket is one of the top three blockchain-based marketplaces on the internet.

In 2023, the US gaming company Mythical Games acquired DMarket.

Users and Popularity

While DMarket was decently popular in the CIS region during its initial days, attaining global popularity took the website another several months due to the lack of features it offered at the time. Many users were willing to sacrifice the reduced transaction fees but preferred alternatives like BitSkins over DMarket due to the additional features that they offered over the latter.

As DMarket continued to grow, most of these issues were addressed by the platform. Transaction fees were also imposed on item sales. However, these fees didn't halt the constantly rising popularity of the marketplace.

Transaction Fees

Currently, DMarket charges its users a transaction fee of 2% per item sale on the platform. This fee is much lower than that of the Steam Community Marketplace, which has a fixed fee of 15% for CS2 items.

Buying and Selling Skins on DMarket

Users can enjoy a lot of freedom when buying and selling skins on DMarket. Not only does the website offer a variety of payment methods for deposits and withdrawals, but users can also indulge in buying or selling across a variety of popular games.

Buying on DMarket

Buying skins through DMarket is convenient and takes no more than a few seconds if you have the funds in your wallet. Once you're on the marketplace, select the game you want to purchase skins for, and make your selection from the thousands of available options presented to you. When you're done making a selection, simply click on the item and press "Buy" to complete the purchase.

Buyers also have the freedom to set "Targets" for specific items that they want. Once a buyer sets a target for an item, sellers with that specific item in their inventory will be prompted to instantly sell that item to the buyer for a reduced fee of 5%.

Before purchasing or setting targets, you have to make sure that you have the required funds in your DMarket wallet. To refill your wallet, click on your account balance and hit "Deposit." From there, select your preferred method of depositing. Once the funds are added, you're good to go.

Users attempting to buy or target skins without having the required funds will be automatically prompted to refill their Wallet.

Selling on DMarket

Sellers on DMarket can trade their items to DMarket bots or instantly sell their items if there's a "Target" set for them.

To sell items on DMarket, users have to select the game that they wish to sell skins for from the top-left of the market. Once done, they can head over to Trade or Sell Inventory depending on their preferred method of selling skins.

Once an item is sold, the funds for the sale will be deposited to the seller's DMarket wallet, which they can then withdraw via one of the several withdrawal methods available on the website.

Users also have the freedom to donate their DMarket funds to aid Ukraine at its time of crisis. While the rest of the withdrawal methods have some fees associated with them, donations to Ukraine are devoid of any fees.

Advantages

Here are some of the key advantages that users can enjoy while buying or selling skins on DMarket:

• Much lower transaction fees (2%) than the Steam Community Market (15%).
• Plenty of methods available for depositing real money or withdrawing funds from the platform.
• Items are generally priced cheaper than on the Steam Community Market.
• UI of the website is neat and newer users will have no trouble navigating through the various sections.
• Supports purchasing or selling skins across a variety of popular games like CS2, DOTA 2, Rust, Team Fortress 2, or Life Beyond.
• Has a convenient mobile app with decent UI that can be used to make purchases or sales on DMarket.
• Plethora of items available for purchase on the marketplace. Buyers are likely to find the exact items that they look for in a matter of seconds.
• High-tier items can be easily found in DMarket whereas they can often be out of stock on the official Steam Market.
• Features like "Instant Sell" and "Target" make it an attractive marketplace for buyers and sellers alike.

Disadvantages

There aren't many disadvantages of using DMarket over other platforms, but here are some of the notable ones:

• Some items can take a long time to sell on the DMarket marketplace, even when they're priced at reasonable rates.
• Unless you’re buying items via trade, many skins can be found to be on a trade lock. Buyers have to wait out the duration of the trade lock to receive the skins in their inventory.
• Lack of a "Screenshot" feature on the website. Users have to manually launch the CS2 client to inspect the skins listed on DMarket.
• No "Auctioning" feature is available on DMarket.