NFTs gain traction as Pokémon trading cards drive interest in tokenized collectibles

Tokenized Pokémon trading cards have quietly become one of the fastest-growing segments in the digital collectibles space, with platforms that vault physical graded cards and issue blockchain-based representations seeing explosive growth throughout 2025 and into 2026. The numbers behind the nostalgia wave Courtyard.io, a tokenization platform built on Polygon that partners with Brinks for vault custody and works with grading companies like PSA, BGS, and CGC, hit over $78 million in trading volume in August 2025 alone. That figure represents a 5.5x increase from January of the same year. Courtyard’s sales climbed from roughly $50,000 in January 2024 to $50 million by July 2025. Collector Crypt, a competing platform on Solana, has scaled even faster. By June 2026, it reported cumulative trading volume of approximately $1.3 billion and protocol revenue exceeding $64 million. The combined tokenized Pokémon TCG trading volume reached $124.5 million in August 2025. The broader physical Pokémon card market itself is estimated at $10-15 billion. Why Pokémon, why now Pokémon celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2026, and The Pokémon Company has been leaning into the milestone hard. A global a...