Pokémon cards, converted into tokens, have attracted strong attention from investors and traders. With the growth of Collector Crypt on Solana, trading volumes have exceeded $124 million. Market participants link this to the uniqueness of the offline market and the potential profitability of new digital products.
Bitwise analyst Danny Nelson noted that most real-world asset (RWA) projects focus on familiar instruments such as government bonds, real estate, gold, and stocks. Tokenization makes them easier to manage but does not fundamentally change them. He believes the situation with Pokémon cards is different: this is a multi-billion-dollar market that until recently was almost entirely offline.
According to Nelson, users literally mail each other cards featuring Charizard, Pikachu, and Gardevoir, sometimes with expert grading, but often without. In 2024 alone, the auction app Whatnot processed $3 billion in goods, primarily thanks to Pokémon cards.
Collector Crypt Attracts Traders
The launch of Collector Crypt on Solana was the key event. The project offers digital NFT “packs” that can be exchanged for physical cards. Alongside the platform, the CARDS token was introduced, whose market capitalization grew from $23 million to $83 million within days. Its fully diluted valuation (FDV) reached $386 million.
“The value of the CARDS token increased tenfold in less than a week after launch. Traders are rushing to evaluate its income potential. Current data indicates that the project is on track to achieve annual revenue of $38 million,” Nelson stated.
According to CoinGecko, citing Rugcheck.xyz, the developers of Collector Crypt retain the ability to change the token supply or even pause trading. Despite this, the price continues to rise.
The project team promised to soon reveal how the token will be used within the platform. They also stated that all presale funds will be directed to purchasing physical Pokémon cards, which will become part of the ecosystem. This announcement added further excitement, Nelson noted.
The most popular product so far has been digital gacha boxes, which work like loot boxes: users receive random NFTs that may correspond to rare cards. According to the team, these machines have already generated $70 million in revenue. More than 18,000 tokenized cards are listed on the Collector Crypt website.
In August, trading volume of tokenized Pokémon cards across the four largest platforms exceeded $124 million. That is four times higher than in January.
Nelson believes this growth could be sustainable. He compared the situation to Polymarket, when a niche crypto industry product broke into the mainstream and created demand for a new type of service.
Back in July, analysts highlighted which assets were most likely to benefit from tokenization. Based on the latest data, Pokémon cards appear to be one of those assets.
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