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,’” mentioned Bitwise analysis analyst Danny Nelson on Thursday.
“I count on the Pokémon increase will likely be sticky — a kind 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 nearly fully catered to TradFi property like shares, treasuries, commodities, non-public credit score and actual property.
Whereas this affords improved advantages reminiscent of 24/7 buying and selling and potential value financial savings, it doesn’t remodel them as “ok digital rails exist already,” Nelson mentioned.
Nonetheless, Pokémon card buying and selling may benefit way more from the blockchain, Nelson mentioned, noting that sellers nonetheless should bodily ship their Charizard, Pikachu and Gardevoirs to patrons.
Pokémon ETFs sooner or later? Nelson mentioned it’s attainable
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 in all probability received’t for some time. However possibly 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 a long time, lengthy earlier than non-fungible tokens have been ever an idea.
A brand new market chief is paving the way in which
Nelson’s feedback come as Collector Crypt 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 totally diluted quantity of $450 million since launching final Saturday, Nelson identified.
Associated: CZ-owned Belief Pockets launches tokenized shares and ETFs
“Merchants are speeding to cost in revenue-generating potential,” Nelson mentioned, 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, their largest tally since January, crypto analytics platform DappRadar mentioned on Thursday.
Regardless of the 9% rise, the sale depend fell 4%, exhibiting that “fewer property traded arms, collectors are paying extra per sale,” DappRadar mentioned.
Journal: Astrology might make you a greater crypto dealer: It has been foretold
