CSGOLounge coins are the by-product that was produced when Valve sent a cease and desist order to different skin betting sites because of the outlawing of item wagering. This coincided with the gambling scandals that plagued many of the CSGO teams before and Valve thus took action on CS:GO Lounge, which at that time was the largest skin sportsbook service for tournaments.
The coin was created so that people could still gamble on the site even if skin usage as currency was being outlawed. It was launched on August 1, 2016, and it will be the new currency that will be used further on when Lounge revamps its site. As of right now, the CSGOLounge coins have no monetary value and are only used on forecast betting on games and also for renting trading bots for buying and selling in their market place.
The site initially gives you 100 coins when you log in. This balance was given to all users, new and old alike. There is no other way to earn these aside from the monthly 25 chips the service gives you on top of the 100 that you initially get. The only other way to get them before was to donate either on PayPal or donate case keys, but somehow they disabled that feature since they are still in its testing phase and people complained about it without having any market value during that time.
The coins replaced the skins as currency whenever you play in a forecasting game. It works like any other currency and treats it as an asset. Whenever you place your bet on a team, it will show you how many you are going to win depending on the odds favoring that team. The lower the percentage of the outcome, the higher amount you are going to win based on your bet. This is the best way to rack up your chips if you have innate knowledge on the tournament these teams are playing and also the teams themselves. This game is usually more on skill and research but if you are lucky, you might win a lot of from a small bet.
This is also used as a ranking tool on the site by many of the gamblers. They have their own ladder system and the one who has the most CSGOLounge coins are entered into the Hall of Fame. You can also use these as an in-house currency to rent an automated buy or trade bot from Lounge as they are currently a trading marketplace as well as a match forecast site.
Aside from its currency use and as a ranking tool, there is no other value for it right now. Having a lot of these chips can be considered as a bragging right though since if you amass a huge amount of these, people will know that you know your way around in the betting scene of competitive CS:GO. Usually, people who have a lot of these are also some of the most active traders in the Lounge market and they tend to get good deals when trading skins so that is a very nice bonus if you are also interested in trading.
Once the testing phase is finished and the site revamps itself, they might wipe out all the user coins and start from scratch. CSGOLounge said that this currency will be used to buy skins from their bots to be traded to your account, and will also be purchasable when the system goes live. For now, we just have to wait for Lounge to finish the testing phase, and while they do that, stockpile these chips so that we may be able to trade them for sick items.