Trade protection

Steam applies a protection window to traded CS2 items. For roughly seven days after a trade, the item cannot move again. This applies to every trade on Steam, including the one that moves your skin into custody, and it is the reason a deposit does not mint the same day you make it.

Nothing on LootFi's side shortens this window, and nothing on LootFi's side needs to happen during it.

When the clock starts

The window is measured from Steam's own trade-init time — the moment Steam recorded the trade as executed — not from when you clicked Deposit and not from when our systems noticed.

That distinction is in your favour. If you accept the offer hours after it was sent, the clock starts at the accept, not the click. If a network read fails and we learn about your trade late, the protocol replaces its own observed time with Steam's reported trade-init time as soon as it can read it, and it never moves your receipt time forward. A late read cannot extend your wait.

 you click Deposit        you accept the offer         protection ends
 (offer is sent)          in Steam                     (~7 days later)
      |                          |                             |
      v                          v                             v
      +--------------------------+=============================+---------->
              minutes/hours          Steam's protection window      mint
                                     clock starts HERE

During the window, the item is in neither inventory

This is the single most alarming thing a depositor experiences, so it is worth stating plainly:

Your skin will appear to be nowhere for about a week

Steam removes the item from your inventory the moment the trade executes, and does not place it in the receiving inventory until protection ends. For the whole window it shows up in neither account. Steam does not display it as "in transit" anywhere.

This is what a healthy deposit looks like. It is not a sign that anything has gone wrong, and it is not a sign that the item was lost.

Because of this, the protocol never treats "the custody account does not hold this item" as evidence that a deposit failed — during the window, that is true of every correct deposit. Custody is verified from Steam's trade record, which remains readable and authoritative throughout. See Custody model and Trade reversals.

Steam reassigns the item's asset id

An item's assetid is its identity within one inventory. When an item changes hands, Steam issues it a new asset id — and it does not publish that new id until the protection window closes. Until then, Steam reports the post-trade id as "not assigned yet".

The protocol therefore does not fingerprint your item against a guess. It waits, then re-resolves the item's real identity from the trade record — matching the exact asset that left your inventory to the exact asset that arrived — and only then does it consider the item identified. That resolved identity is what the token is bound to for its whole life, including withdrawal.

  trade executes                     protection ends
       |                                   |
       |  old asset id: known              |  new asset id: published by Steam
       |  new asset id: "not yet"          |  protocol re-resolves identity
       |                                   |  from the trade record
       +===================================+--------> item identified, mint gate opens

If you want the mechanics rather than the summary, see Deposit lifecycle and Token IDs.

Nothing mints until the window fully elapses

The mint gate is not a timer that runs alongside Steam's. It opens only after:

1. the longest applicable hold has fully elapsed (protection, escrow, or a recent-authenticator hold — see Escrow & holds),
2. plus a small safety margin, and
3. a fresh custody check against Steam confirms the item is still ours.

If any of those fail, the deposit waits or is held for review. It never mints early. Being late costs a depositor some patience; being early would mean minting a token against an item that could still be taken back, so the protocol is deliberately biased towards late.

What you need to do during the window

Nothing.

• No action is required from you. The deposit advances on its own.
• Do not cancel or reverse the trade. A Steam Support reversal inside the window will unwind the deposit — and it can unwind other protected trades on your account at the same time. See Trade reversals.
• You can close the site. Progress does not depend on your browser being open.
• Check progress any time on Track your deposit, which shows the deposit's state and its unlock time.

If your deposit is still waiting after the unlock time shown

Give it the safety margin, then read Troubleshooting. The common causes are an escrow hold you did not expect (which makes the real wait longer than seven days) and a Steam-side throttle, both of which resolve without any action from you.

Related

• Escrow & holds — when the wait is longer than seven days
• Steam rules & limits — every restriction on one page
• Hold calculation — the exact arithmetic
• Minting — what happens the moment the window clears