Pokémon trading cards could be the next major real-world asset to move on-chain, potentially bringing the $21.4 billion market into the blockchain ecosystem.
“Pokémon and other trading card games are about to experience their ‘Polymarket moment,’” said Bitwise research analyst Danny Nelson on Thursday.
“I expect the Pokémon boom to stick — a moment where an innovation unique to crypto breaks into the mainstream, similar to what Polymarket did for prediction markets.”
While real-world asset (RWA) crypto tokenization has surged to a $28.2 billion market in 2025, it is largely focused on traditional finance assets such as stocks, treasuries, commodities, private credit, and real estate.
These markets benefit from features like 24/7 trading and potential cost savings, but Nelson notes that they aren’t fundamentally transformed because “good enough digital rails already exist.”
In contrast, Pokémon card trading could gain much more from blockchain adoption, he added, since sellers still need to physically ship prized cards like Charizard, Pikachu, and Gardevoir to buyers.
Pokémon ETFs could be on the horizon — Nelson says it’s possible
Nelson highlighted that despite the current inefficiencies, market leader Whatnot facilitated $3 billion in Pokémon card sales last year. “This market remains largely informal. You don’t see Pokémon ETFs or investment funds yet, and probably won’t for a while. But maybe not as long as you’d think,” he said.
Pokémon cards and other trading card games like Magic: The Gathering have existed for roughly three decades, long before non-fungible tokens (NFTs) became a concept.
A new market leader is emerging
Nelson’s remarks coincide with the rise of Collector Crypt, a tokenization platform on Solana that allows Pokémon cards to be traded quickly and profitably.
Since its launch last Saturday, the token backing Collector Crypt, CARDS, has surged 10-fold to a fully diluted valuation of $450 million, Nelson noted. “Traders are rushing to price in revenue-generating potential,” he said, pointing to an annualized revenue signal of $38 million. Much of the early hype, he added, stems from the possibility that those yields could flow back into token buybacks.
The Pokémon card boom has also fueled interest in Collector Crypt’s Gacha Machine project, which generated $16.6 million in revenue over the past week.
NFT trading sees growth
Meanwhile, NFT trading volumes increased 9% month-on-month to $578 million in August, marking the highest tally since January, according to crypto analytics platform DappRadar.
However, the number of sales fell 4%, suggesting that “fewer assets traded hands, but collectors are paying more per sale,” DappRadar reported.
