Pokémon buying and selling playing cards might be the following real-world asset to maneuver onchain at scale, doubtlessly bringing a $21.4 billion market to the blockchain.
“Pokémon and different [trading card games] are about to have their ‘Polymarket second,’” stated Bitwise analysis analyst Danny Nelson on Thursday.
“I anticipate the Pokémon increase shall be sticky — a type of moments the place an ‘solely in crypto’ innovation breaks into the mainstream. Kinda like what Polymarket did for prediction markets.”
RWA crypto tokenization has boomed right into a $28.2 billion market in 2025, however it’s virtually fully catered to TradFi property like shares, treasuries, commodities, non-public credit score and actual property.
Whereas this gives improved advantages comparable to 24/7 buying and selling and potential price financial savings, it doesn’t remodel them as “ok digital rails exist already,” Nelson stated.
Nevertheless, Pokémon card buying and selling may gain advantage way more from the blockchain, Nelson stated, noting that sellers nonetheless must bodily ship their Charizard, Pikachu and Gardevoirs to patrons.
Pokémon ETFs sooner or later? Nelson stated it’s doable
He famous that the inefficient answer nonetheless noticed market chief Whatnot facilitate $3 billion in gross sales final yr. “This market stays largely casual. You don’t see Pokémon ETFs or funding funds, and also you most likely received’t for some time. However perhaps not so long as you’d suppose.”
Pokémon playing cards and different buying and selling card video games like Magic: The Gathering have been round for about three many years, lengthy earlier than non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been ever an idea.
A brand new market chief is paving the best way
Nelson’s feedback come as Collector Crypt just lately emerged as a tokenization platform for promoting Pokémon playing cards on Solana, enabling quick trades and worthwhile exits.
The token backing Collector Crypt, CARDS, has already risen 10-fold to a absolutely diluted quantity of $450 million since launching final Saturday, Nelson identified.
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“Merchants are speeding to cost in revenue-generating potential,” Nelson stated, noting that it’s signaling an annualized income of $38 million. He added that a lot of the “early hype” rests on these yields doubtlessly flowing again to token buybacks.
The Pokémon card buying and selling has additionally pushed demand for Collector Crypt’s Gacha Machine undertaking, which has taken in $16.6 million in income over the past week.
NFTs clock most buying and selling quantity since January
In the meantime, NFT buying and selling volumes rose 9% month-on-month to $578 million in August, its largest tally since January, in response to the crypto analytics platform DappRadar, on Thursday.
Regardless of the 9% rise, the sale rely fell 4%, exhibiting that “fewer property traded arms, collectors are paying extra per sale,” DappRadar stated.
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