Card Collectibles x Crypto
BlockchainBrett
2 min read·
The success of @Courtyard_io and its card vending machines has kicked off a wave of new projects building at the intersection of card collectibles and crypto.
We're seeing teams reimagine card collecting as a fully digitally native experience—using NFTs to represent real-world cards like Pokémon, NFL, NBA, and more.
Some of the new players building in this space:
Why Crypto Matters for Cards
Crypto hasn’t created a brand-new category for card collecting—but it does improve the existing one in meaningful ways:
Instant ownership of digital cards (with vaulting support)
Less reliance on centralized trust
Composable marketplaces (e.g. sell directly on OpenSea)
Fractionalized exposure (ETFs for players and characters)
Meanwhile in web2, we’ve seen huge success in this category too. @Whatnot raised at a $5B valuation earlier this year—over half their volume comes from physical card collectibles. eBay, with vaulting and live auctions, has grown ~3x over the past five years into an ~$80B company.
The demand is clear. But the experience could be so much better.
As someone who recently fell deep into the rabbit hole of collecting Pokémon, NFL, golf, and tennis cards, I’ve seen first-hand how fragmented it is today. Here’s what’s missing:
A fully digital experience to buy packs/boxes
Rip and vault them instantly
Seamless grading
One-click listing for resale
Digitally native formats for breaks and repacks
Clear education on which products/cards are valuable
There’s also a big knowledge gap. For any given player or character, it’s hard to know:
Which products to target
What the top chase cards are
How many have already been pulled or graded
Current market pricing
My partner @NTmoney has a slightly different collector thesis. Rather than opening packs, he wants exposure to specific players (like Victor Wembanyama, the NBA player) without needing to understand all the products. That could potentially be achieved with a card ETF—a basket of graded vaulted cards backing an ERC-20 token that provides fractional exposure.
Crypto adds real utility here—but the real opportunity may be bigger than just putting it onchain. It’s to build a digitally native eBay for all collectible card experiences: Packs. Boxes. Breaks. Repacks. Card ETFs. All in one place, with real-time education and liquidity.
Another exciting vision: the next great TCG—or even the next wave of sports cards—may be entirely digital from day one. NFTs unlock digitally native collectible experiences where scarcity, provenance, and ownership are built in at the foundation. Think “the next Pokémon” or a new kind of sports card platform that never needs to be physical at all.
We’re starting to see this take shape:
Digitally native TCGs:
Digitally native sports cards:
@NBATopShot (NBA)
@PaniniAmerica NFTs (NFL, NBA digital-only drops)
Through diligencing this space, I’ve had a lot of fun becoming a card collector myself—and I plan to keep collecting for the long term.
At 1confirmation, we take a user-first approach and invest in category-defining products we personally understand. If you’re building in this space—or any new consumer frontier—reach out. I’d love to connect.
Agree completely with this thesis and despite all the flak this category has gotten since TopShot, it's never lost my interest, so appreciated this uplifting write-up : )