I agree with a lot of the points @pfm made, most importantly the part about how all Pokemon cards are not the same.
I think what a lot of well-informed people have been predicting since 2020 is starting to happen in the modern market. Supply/demand imbalance has reversed to a point where grading literally anything is no longer sustainable, modern box prices are down, the floor on most lower-graded cards has collapsed, and prices are being driven more by availability than pure collectability. We can argue as to the cause of it, either more supply (instagram LLCs, printing to oblivion, grading back to full throttle) or less demand (fewer market participants, less free money in the system, people have less to spend) but the results are the same either way.
A great example of this that hasn’t been mentioned yet is the Japanese modern market and things like VSTAR Universe singles. This is arguably one of the greatest sets of all time, packed with incredible special art cards, shiny Charizard, you name it. @zubat had a great post a month ago where he compared the prices 2 weeks post-release to today. That was a month ago, and prices have fallen even farther since then. Top 3 Pokemon SARs on release day, a month ago, and today:
Charizard Vstar 17,800 → 3,980 → 2980 (83% loss)
Charizard V 8,980 → 2,980 → 1780 (80% loss)
Mewtwo Vstar 11,800 → 2,780 → 1680 (86% loss)
The Radiant Charizard I remember settling at like 1000 yen for awhile, although I could be incorrect. I bought a few in September at 480 yen. I bought more last week at 310 yen. It’s now 220 yen ($1.55 USD), for a shiny Charizard.
So yes, some parts of the market are stagnating. The people who got in on the modern hype train are probably going to get hurt the most as others have pointed out. For many of us with cost basis in pre-2020, we aren’t going to feel it too bad, but it will definitely affect the entire market. Vintage prices seem to be falling as well, although not as much as modern stuff, which I think can be directly tied to the slowdown in the rest of the market and the decline of easy money. You can’t CGC-bulk-grade-Japanese-modern your way to trophy cards anymore.
Personally, I don’t think the last several years were ever going to be sustainable and people who based businesses off of that are in for a rude awakening.