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I don’t really know when it began to happen, but all of a sudden, seemingly overnight, friends I knew were forcing me to accompany them to search for packs of Pokémon cards. I’ve been to the Best Buy in Union Square and local game shops in Brooklyn, vending machines in Penn Station and multistory Barnes & Nobles, where disgruntled shop employees point angrily at signs that say they are already sold out and they don’t know when they restock. Most of these rooms smell obscene.
These are not friends who have effusively expressed admiration for the anime in the past, nor have they been collecting cards past the previously socially acceptable threshold of 13 years old. No, these are definitely New Pokémon Trainers—and they’re not alone. Pokémon cards have had a massive new resurgence over the past few years, and in 2026, it’s now hitting a saturation point and nobody can be normal about it. Trading-card grading volume is growing year over year, hitting a record high this April, and so is counterfeit activity. Several robberies targeting Pokémon cards have occurred across several states in 2026 alone. The most expensive Pokémon card to date was sold this year at an auction in February—a 1998 Pikachu card held by prank-YouTuber-turned-boxer and eternal online ragebaiter Logan Paul. It went for almost $16.5 million.
In data provided to Slate by Bunjang Global, South Korea’s largest resale marketplace, the e-commerce app saw 211 percent growth in transaction volume of Pokémon cards in just the first six months of the year, with some of the most expensive U.S.-based purchases on the app being valuable Pokémon cards.
The most elusive, highly coveted cards have long been an important factor in making Pokémon the world’s highest-grossing media franchise. They’re collectibles like any other: Some are rare, some are limited releases, and that scarcity makes them ripe fruit for reselling. It’s built a long-standing resale market where nerds and weeaboos everywhere turned Charizards into cold, hard cash. But in the age of social media, interest has spread much farther, and pushed prices higher than ever. Videos of first-time buyers ripping rare cards on TikTok have racked up millions of views, and new collectors have sprung up everywhere as a result of the fandom reaching fresh audiences on social media.
“Unlocked a new addiction,” TikTok creator @saraecheagaray posted to her 8.1 million followers in June, as she vlogged her first time opening and reacting to her packs of Pokémon cards.
Collectibles have become a major trend of social-driven e-commerce, with everything from Sonny Angels to Smiskis to Monchichis to Labubus all having their moment in the TikTok Shop sun. This preexisting craving for blind boxes—the thrill of cracking open a piece of plastic to find a pleasant surprise underneath, the desire to buy more and more to keep abreast of the trend cycle—lends itself well to the resurgence of Pokémon cards. They were some of the original-format blind boxes. And they’re easier to buy than Beanie Babies. (Do stores even sell those anymore, or do they only exist as marked-up listings on eBay?)
Pokémon cards aren’t just some gaping money hole for you to throw cash at, either. They’re a liquid alternative asset, basically the closest thing you could get to a sparkly cartoon slot machine, where one lucky pull could mean hundreds of dollars in profit. It makes sense, given the growth of nontraditional investments, particularly among younger investors. Alternative assets of all kinds have seen a surge, not just Pokémon cards. Gen Z investors are four times more likely to own cryptocurrency than retirement accounts, Fortune reported last year, and everything from sports betting to meme stocks has seen a push from younger people who often feel disillusioned with the traditional strategies to build wealth.
It’s a Fuck it, we ball mentality that’s sitting in the financial driver’s seat right now. In a job market where the worst person you knew in high school could become a millionaire seemingly overnight by making reaction videos on TikTok, or the least competent co-worker you ever had could fumble their way into a six-figure payout on Kalshi, what’s the point of carefully stowing away money for a down payment anymore? If SpaceX is allowed to try really hard to infiltrate your sensible money-market index fund, why not put it into something you’re actually passionate about, like an ultra-rare mint condition Umbreon card? At least Elon Musk will never be able to get his grubby little ravioli paws on your sticker-adorned binder of crystal card pulls.
The promise of building wealth slowly and sensibly feels more fantastical than ever for many people, as more households feel the brunt of rising costs and tightening budgets. If we’re in something of a casino economy now, where the world feels like one gigantic slot machine, the logic of working hard to make more money feels more like a fairy tale than the potential get-rich-quick schemes that are seeming to pop up everywhere. And for anyone who’s actually serious about making money off their cards, it feels like a valid enough strategy for now. The Pokémon card market outpaced both the S&P 500 and Bitcoin over the past three months, according to reporting from CNBC. We know it probably won’t last forever, but we also never thought that people would be able to put their DoorDash on Klarna or that an A.I.-generated short-form soap opera about cheating anthropomorphized fruits would become a massive success online, so what do we really know anymore?
