This might sound silly, but I wondered if skins bought outside Steam somehow feel “different” in the game. Do they behave the same, trade the same, and look the same once you equip them?

Once the skin landed in my inventory, there was literally no difference. Same inspect animation, same trade status, same feel in matches. I checked https://dmarket.com/cs2-wiki/ beforehand just to be sure I wasn’t missing some catch. Turns out, there wasn’t one. After equipping it and playing a few games, it felt exactly like any other skin I’d owned before — no limitations, no weird rules.