Protos revisited 32 public predictions about non-fungible tokens and argued that most of the grand claims made during the sector’s boom years have not held up. The review spans insurance, real estate, ticketing, gaming, social media, digital identity, music, retail, and the metaverse, citing comments from Kevin O’Leary, Mark Cuban, Brian Armstrong, Mark Zuckerberg, Justin Sun, Tyler Winklevoss, and others. According to the piece, even many high-profile corporate and celebrity NFT efforts were later shut down, removed, sold, or quietly abandoned. Protos also contrasts old market forecasts with current figures, noting that CoinGecko places NFT market capitalization at roughly $1.7 billion, far below Stephanie Wissink’s projection that it would exceed $80 billion by 2025. In gaming, the article highlights Michael Wagner’s claim that Star Atlas could attract billions of users, while saying the latest economic report for SAGE: Starbased showed 2,000 monthly active users when that metric stopped being tracked. One of the few examples Protos presents as relatively successful is Pudgy Penguins, where CEO Luca Netz said he would turn a failed project into a brand known inside and outside the NFT market; the report says the brand has since placed derivative toys in major stores and improved its standing in NFT rankings.

According to CoinDesk, the Pokemon trading card market is now valued at roughly $10 billion to $15 billion, with demand strong enough to trigger lines at retailers including Costco. The report pointed to a $16.5 million sale of Logan Paul’s Pikachu Illustrator card as one of the clearest signs of how far the category has moved beyond hobby collecting. Sales at major chains such as Target and Walmart, along with eBay’s $26.2 billion in card sales in 2025, were cited as evidence that trading cards have developed into a major alternative asset class. CoinDesk also said the category has recently outperformed both the S&P 500 and Bitcoin. Against that backdrop, ATH Labs has launched Deadstock, a blockchain startup that aims to tokenize high-grade cards and store them in vaults. The project is trying to address a fragmented market structure and slow transaction speeds, though it still faces liquidity constraints and the network-effect advantage held by incumbent platforms such as eBay.

Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party has moved to put the trading card market under closer scrutiny after a rare Pokémon card sold for about $16 million in February. On July 23, a cross-party parliamentary group, the Trading Card Promotion Parliamentary League, was formally launched in the Diet to examine risks tied to counterfeit cards, bulk hoarding for resale, and money laundering. According to the report, caucus head Seiji Kihara said trading cards are an industry that can compete globally, but the market is now facing visible structural problems. He listed three main concerns: circulation of counterfeit products, large-scale stockpiling for resale, and the use of cards in money laundering because individual cards generally lack unique identifiers, making ownership transfers hard to trace from printing to resale. Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry estimates the domestic trading card market grew from ¥177.6 billion in fiscal 2021 to ¥338.4 billion in fiscal 2025, nearly doubling in four years. The report also pointed to a pricing imbalance: franchises such as Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! originated in Japan, but card values are heavily influenced by grades assigned by U.S. authenticator PSA. The caucus is expected to keep gathering views from manufacturers and grading firms before drafting policy proposals.

This week's crypto highlights: XRPL activates permissioned DEX for institutions; Strategy acquires 2,500 BTC via preferred shares; Animoca receives Dubai VASP license; SEC reduces stablecoin capital haircut to 2%; Tether discontinues offshore yuan stablecoin CNH₮.

A PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrator card owned by Logan Paul sold for $16.492 million, setting a world record for a trading card at auction. A newly created wallet that bet on high price bands on Polymarket before the sale has fueled insider trading concerns.

CryptoZoo drew attention with a GameFi-NFT pitch, but delays, missing features and refund disputes pushed the project into controversy. Logan Paul’s $1.8 million refund pledge remained unresolved as of December 2023.

Logan Paul plans to auction his PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrator card in early 2026, and Polymarket traders are betting it will sell for more than $4 million, though confidence fades sharply at higher price levels.

Logan Paul plans to auction his PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrator card in early 2026. Polymarket traders bet heavily on a sale above $4 million, though confidence drops at higher thresholds. The card is the rarest Pokémon collectible, but legal disputes over Liquid Marketplace add uncertainty.