This should be a huge development for market maturity if it lasts / expands to graded cards… Will allow people to partially hedge downside exposure. Thoughts?
Here is an example ruleset:
“This market will resolve to “Up” if the Ungraded Price of Pikachu ex (Ascended Heroes, Special Illustration Rare 276/217) on August 31, 2026 according to Collectr is greater than $1,093.18.
This market will resolve to “Down” if the Ungraded Price of Pikachu ex (Ascended Heroes, Special Illustration Rare 276/217) on August 31, 2026 according to Collectr is less than $1,093.18.”
Yeah that’s probably why they’re starting with ungraded if i had to guess. They’ll probably evolve to some sort of monthly average calculation to prevent a single sale from blowing up the market
this will be huge for speculation and gambling, not for any sort of “market maturity” or recognition of Pokémon cards as an “investment” or “asset class”
Last year the WSJ article was a huge game changer for Pokémon cards’ mainstream acceptance as a legitimate asset class. Will this be another huge game changer?
I wrote this last week: "Pokémon cards have been standardized into a tradeable commodity within each grade; there is now guaranteed authenticity & minimized friction. It’s not quite as easy as trading stocks, but that is the direction this is headed. Buying and selling no longer requires handling a physical item and P&L vs last mark can be viewed instantly on many different apps. Trading fee compression will naturally occur over time as this market transitions from legacy eCommerce toward a true market (even if grading fees continue to increase). This asset class is now ripe for trading – inflows of sophisticated capital will further improve liquidity & push prices higher as there is a fixed supply of non-modern cards."
I think stuff like this if done correctly will help increase comfort levels for people who are nervous about deploying capital into an unfamiliar asset class. Using this Polymarket instance as an example, if you have a card up for auction, you can take the under on a Polymarket market to partially hedge the risk of a bad auction print due to visibility, etc… Just a thought
I know this is annoying for people who truly enjoy the collecting hobby but it feels like we’ve crossed the rubicon into futher financialization
I honestly mourn things like this. For one, I hate the rapid proliferation of online gambling. I think that it is not well-regulated currently in the states and that it is going to cause a lot of harm to people through ease of access. Second as a lifelong collector, I honestly don’t care what my collection is worth (currently several grand, so I’m not saying this as someone who is in theory unaffected by market upswings) and actively root for the market to collapse. Speculation ruins hobbies through making products increasingly inaccessible to people in certain income brackets either through being unable to obtain products on the primary market due to scalpers or making the secondary market financially difficult to engage in.
Yep. That unfortunately seems to be the direction this hobby is headed. It feels like collecting in the near future will be less about fandom and more about projecting social status, similar to luxury watches or handbags.
No way?? Grading companies don’t even know what cards exist. This is a really bad idea.
It also makes me think we are not far off from casinos being able to operate anywhere because you will bet on the event contract rather than bet if you win or lose.
This is 2007/8 all over again building layers of leveraged speculation.
Bets like this have existed off and on since the end of last year. I find a derivatives market for Pokemon interesting, but so far short term bets like this only serve degen gamblers, and the bet sizing reflects this. Volume isn’t high enough for anyone to seriously hedge a real life position, nor is it high enough to outpace the cost to manipulate the underlying asset.
