Tokenized Pokémon Cards Fuel Solana’s RWA Surge in August
Digital collectibles meet blockchain reality as Solana's tokenization ecosystem hits new stride.
Real-World Assets Go Mainstream
August witnessed Solana's RWA sector exploding—driven not by traditional assets but by tokenized Pokémon trading cards. The niche market's unexpected volume demonstrates how crypto-native communities bootstrap adoption where traditional finance hesitates.
Speculation Meets Utility
Collectors flock to fractionalized ownership of vintage holographics while purists scoff at digital receipts for cardboard. Meanwhile, Solana's infrastructure handles the surge without breaking stride—proving scalability where others stall.
Because nothing says 'real-world asset' like a Charizard that might've been in your childhood binder—if only you hadn't traded it for that questionable sandwich.
Solana RWA collectibles surpass XStocks
XStocks were one of the much-touted RWAs on Solana, off to a strong start. However, XStocks trading peaked in June. XStocks is still trying to expand its representation on various platforms, recently teaming up with the Moonshot marketplace. However, the momentum on Solana is currently siding with the actively growing collectible trading.
Package-opening and secondary marketplace volumes for Pokémon and other collections have already broken above $10M in weekly volumes, based on Dune Analytics reports.
XStocks are distributed among multiple exchanges, with some of the markets achieving $2M to $3M in weekly volumes.
Overall, XStocks showed a slowing trend in transfer volumes and relatively small activity on DEXs. In August, XStocks reported around $74.6M in volumes, while Pokémon trading expanded to $124.5M for a record month.
Solana’s Pokémon marketplace goes hyperbolic
As the market approaches the 30th anniversary of the Pokémon franchise, one startup decided card trading WOULD fit well with the Solana ecosystem.
Collectors Crypt is now the leading platform for card trading and new package openings. The platform took the good from NFT marketplaces and added an element of luck and value. Based on recent on-chain data, Collectors Crypto achieved over $16M in weekly card-trading volume, mostly based on new card buying.
Collectibles have the potential to speed up as Collectors Crypto launched its live Gacha machine on Solana. The platform offers $50 entry points, with the potential to win more valuable cards and trade them on the secondary market.
Collectors Crypt has also tapped all Web3 features on Solana, also launching a native token. The CARDS token trades NEAR its all-time peak at $0.23, with $7.4M in liquidity locked. CARDS is a way to bet on the growth of tokenized cards and tracks the general interest in Collectors Crypt.
As of early September, the collectibles market is at its peak HYPE phase. Collectors Crypt grew its user interest over the course of months, remaining in the background to stronger Solana trends like DeFi, lending, and memes.
Collectors Crypt will now have to prove its sustainability and growth of its secondary market. The ambition is to trade and settle Pokémon cards with permanent on-chain records, while offering immediate settlement. Some of the trades will include a mix of physical and digital items.
Pokémon cards are still considered “exotic RWA“ and will have to prove their use case is superior to NFTs.
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