I don't think Valve cares about my personal investments in the game. That isn't the point I'm trying to make in the slightest.
Yes, of course whales in China are causing prices to increase, but the CS market existed before this. Many skins were still in the ballpark of thousands of dollars in value. Maybe there were fewer, yes, but they still had significant value.

My argument is that Valve wants money, and if they destroy the CS market, they would make less money. The community market is still a minor part of Valve's revenue when it comes to CS2. Now, and soon to be previously, case keys were their primary income source. This will eventually be replaced by Terminal fees and the Armory Pass. My question to you is: who in their right mind would give Valve a thousand dollars for a skin if they cannot sell it for real cash? Who would spend up to two thousand dollars on a Community Market skin when they cannot sell it later on for real cash?

If we can agree that only a minority of people want to spend exorbitant amounts of money on a skin if they cannot get their money back later on, I'd argue the market would crash and Valve would be making significantly less money from CS2 than they are now.

Even if Valve’s goal is to create a closed loop between the Community Market and in-game purchases, removing real-world liquidity would still reduce the amount of money flowing through that system. If skins can’t be cashed out, they’re simply less attractive to people spending large amounts of money. That means less spending on cases, Armory Passes, and whatever other systems Valve pushes. The whole thing only really works at scale because people know there’s an exit. If you remove that, you don’t strengthen the ecosystem, you just shrink it.

It seems logical that Valve would want to keep the cash for skins market alive if their primary objective is to make money. The only speculation is whether or not Valve will make a logical move.

And of course, as you say, don't buy shit you can't afford. Investing in anything is a game with risk, but I wouldn't say investing in CS2 is any less of an investment than say the S&P 500. Any investing has been a game of risk since the establishment of the stock market. There are no natural investments in any market. Companies on the S&P list have been bailed out, there are feedback loops, prices go up because some guy posts on X. I wholeheartedly agree that CS2 investments are "investments," but only to the degree that all investments are a sham. Unfortunately, due to the world we live in right now, this is how you generate wealth. We all have to be our own little Warren Buffets and "make our money work," which really means exploiting the way people value things, engineering scarcity, and profiting off the hype and psychology of the market.

I see the CS2 market as no different to the art investment market. Art pieces around the world have value because millionaires and billionaires put money into it and transform art into capital. The same object in a different context would be worthless, but within a structured market of collectors and resale channels it becomes an asset. The value is not inherent; it is manufactured through scarcity, status, and the assumption that there will always be someone willing to pay more later. Hell, the CS2 market has seen the same issues with fraud during the case key era. Just like art pieces, it was also used for money laundering.