Taking Over from $CARDS? A Deep Dive into the Pokémon Card RWA Trading Platform Phygitals
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Taking Over from $CARDS? A Deep Dive into the Pokémon Card RWA Trading Platform Phygitals
Can Phygitals bring the Pokémon card craze into the crypto world?
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy: San
Over the past half month, the Pokémon card RWA sector has seen a surge in热度, primarily driven by Collector Crypto—the blockchain-based Pokémon card trading platform—whose token CARDS surged nearly tenfold within two weeks.
CARDS launched at $0.04 in early September and has since consistently hit new highs, recently approaching $0.40, giving it a fully diluted valuation exceeding $668 million.
This rapid rise has brought the niche Pokémon card RWA sector into the spotlight. The pack-opening mechanism, combining blind box excitement with nostalgic Pokémon IP appeal, has triggered market-wide FOMO. According to Dune data, the top four platforms in the TCG (trading card game) sector generated as much as $31 million in pack sales over the past week.
Recently, another player in the Pokémon card RWA space, Phygitals, has drawn significant attention and discussion. A series of recent moves appear to hint at an upcoming token launch. Missing out on CARDS' 10x rally, many investors are now pinning their hopes on Phygitals.
A Canadian Startup That Said No to VC
From its hackathon prototype to market validation, Phygitals has maintained a distinctive identity.
Phygitals traces back to January 2023's Solana Hackathon, where founder "Mister Colada" introduced the concept of a "tokenized trading card marketplace." After nearly two years of development, the public beta launched in February 2024, followed by the official card trading market in March.
Unlike most crypto projects that seek VC funding early on, the Phygitals team has stuck to a zero-external-funding path, repeatedly stating publicly they neither need nor want VC investment.
This idealistic stance avoids VC liquidation pressure and preserves project purity—but also means growth relies entirely on cash flow. Fortunately, judging by current momentum, the team’s persistence is paying off: according to DeFillama, Phygitals earned over $2.4 million in fees alone over the past two weeks.
A New Card Collecting Experience
Visit Phygitals Official Website
At its core, Phygitals fully digitizes the traditional card pack-opening experience, ensuring digital cards correspond one-to-one with physical cards while offering strong secondary market liquidity. Pokémon NFTs obtained from packs can be redeemed for physical cards or traded on the secondary market, eliminating long-standing issues like low liquidity, high shipping costs, and authenticity verification in traditional card trading.
Users can choose from various priced packs on Phygitals: $1, $25, $50, $80, and $250. Higher-priced packs offer greater odds of rare cards. Due to surging demand, the $80 pack is currently marked as "sold out."
Phygitals’ biggest innovation is its instant buyback feature, allowing users to sell their opened cards back to the platform at 85%-90% of current fair market value. This mechanism introduces market-maker-like liquidity into the card trading ecosystem, effectively solving the persistent liquidity problem in NFT markets.
Currently, users can sell cards back within 30 minutes of opening; Phygitals plans to extend this window to seven days, making digital cards nearly as liquid as fungible tokens.
In addition, Phygitals recently teased entering its "Phase Two." From content shown on its website and Twitter, it may soon emphasize social features, including live streaming, enabling users to watch streamers open packs and try the experience themselves.
These design choices reveal Phygitals’ heavy focus on "liquidity." By offering reliable buybacks and liquidity for all "pack-openers," it lowers barriers for collectors to participate. Combined with the blind-box thrill and emotional connection to the Pokémon IP across generations, this fuels intense FOMO, driving endless pack openings and viral sharing on social media.
Token Launch Imminent? How to Position for Airdrops
Although Phygitals hasn’t released any tokenomics details, multiple signals suggest a token launch is in preparation.
On September 12, Phygitals tweeted a cryptic message hinting "something big is coming."
Combined with the existing point system for opening packs, and hints from the team that accumulated points and holding Phygitals-issued NFTs could lead to future rewards, many users believe a token launch is imminent. This speculation has attracted those who missed CARDS’ 10x rally, eager to catch the next major player in this space.
Currently, users earn points by purchasing packs of different values on the "Packs" page of the Phygitals website. Each pack purchase grants points equal to 100 times its price in dollars.
Considering the differing odds of obtaining high-tier cards across pack levels and the buyback mechanism, purchasing $50 or $80 packs currently offers relatively better cost-performance for accumulating points toward potential airdrops. However, pack opening remains a blind process: while there's a slim chance of hitting a rare high-value card, most outcomes will be common cards eligible for platform buyback.
Based on some users' experiences, common cards from a $25 pack typically buy back between $13 and $25. Lower-tier cards can be automatically sold back at 85% of fair market value, while higher-tier ones require manual confirmation. However, due to randomness in card rarity, these figures are only approximate.
While these signs strongly suggest a token launch is likely, issuance remains speculative for now, and investors should recognize that pack opening carries high uncertainty.
Divided Market Reactions
Market feedback on Phygitals is sharply divided—ranging from excitement over high-value pulls to skepticism about pack drop rates.
Positive feedback centers on liquidity and physical card redemption. A staunch supporter, @Legendarygainz, shared on Twitter that he pulled a misprinted card worth $3,000 on Phygitals, confirming the presence of high-value cards in the pack inventory.
Another Pokémon collector, @pominik, reported a smooth process converting his digital card into a physical one via Phygitals.
Criticism mainly targets transparency around drop probabilities. Some users report repeatedly pulling low-value cards from premium packs, suggesting possible algorithmic bias. Additionally, numerous users have posted identical cards opened at the same time, raising suspicions of coordinated marketing or fake promotions using staged content.
Overall, positive sentiment toward Phygitals exceeds 50%. Most users and KOLs believe Phygitals could succeed CARDS and elevate market FOMO to new heights.
Phygitals stands at the intersection of a multi-trillion-dollar collectibles market and the emerging RWA sector. Despite facing criticism, it’s undeniable that a wave of FOMO has taken hold. Many friends around me are happily spending dozens of dollars just to enjoy the blind-box experience.
Whether it's Collector Crypto or Phygitals, both have successfully merged Pokémon cards with crypto technology. After CARDS, users inside and outside the card-based RWA space are eagerly awaiting the next opportunity. Let’s see if Phygitals can bring the Pokémon card craze into the crypto world.
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