Pokémon Card Heists on the Rise — Can Tokenizing Physical Collectibles Be the Solution to Security Risks?
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Pokémon Card Heists on the Rise — Can Tokenizing Physical Collectibles Be the Solution to Security Risks?
When physical collectibles are financialized, trading risks and institutional gaps begin to emerge.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAt the start of 2026, unsettling news began emerging from Pokémon card collecting communities around the world.
In Los Angeles, USA, a collector was robbed at gunpoint outside a card shop called RWT Collective, losing approximately $300,000 worth of rare Pokémon cards in a brazen daylight heist. Around the same time, another break-in occurred at Simi Sportscards, a collectibles store in Simi Valley, where multiple high-value Pokémon cards were stolen.
Almost simultaneously, Hong Kong saw a series of Pokémon card robbery incidents. Within just two days, planned meetups for card trades at Lam Tin and Sha Tin MTR stations turned into violent robberies. Two victims lost a combined total of 26 authenticated premium cards valued at nearly HK$300,000. Authorities suspect these cases may be linked, possibly part of an organized dual-operation crime spree.
Looking back further, in 2025 Singaporean police revealed that since the second half of the previous year, hundreds of e-commerce fraud cases involving Pokémon cards had been reported over several months, with total victim losses amounting to nearly one million Singapore dollars.
These incidents span different regions, legal systems, and transaction environments—but they all point to the same underlying issue:
As physical collectibles grow increasingly valuable, yet trading practices remain heavily reliant on offline, personal, and trust-based interactions, risks are being systematically amplified.
When collectibles become financialized, infrastructure fails to keep pace
For decades, Pokémon cards have been seen as tokens of hobby, culture, or nostalgia. But recent market behavior clearly shows they are also high-value, highly liquid assets capable of cross-border transfer.
The problem is that the mechanisms for trading and transferring these assets have not evolved alongside their changing nature.
Face-to-face transactions are still considered the most trustworthy method, yet expose individuals to physical danger. Private meetups, community transfers, instant messaging negotiations, and direct e-commerce messages have become breeding grounds for scams and robberies. Authenticity verification, grading status, and ownership history lack real-time, verifiable public records. In the event of loss, there are virtually no cross-jurisdictional tracking or coordination systems.
The transaction models still widely used—offline in-person exchanges, private group meetups, chat app conversations, and direct messages on e-commerce platforms—are not sustained because they are secure, but because the market has long lacked better alternatives. As card values rise, these methods increasingly expose users to personal risk, fraud, and ambiguous accountability.
Once individual cards reach significant value, physical threats, fraud, and unclear liability cease to be low-probability outliers.
In other words, collectibles have become financialized, but the infrastructure supporting their trading and risk management remains stuck in a pre-financial era.
From local card shops’ self-help measures to systemic market limitations
In response to recent incidents, brick-and-mortar card stores across regions have begun adopting similar countermeasures.
In Hong Kong, prominent retailer MOONROAD announced it will formally implement a “buyback application form” system, requiring all resale transactions to go through in-store forms and documented procedures to enhance transparency and security.
Following the armed robbery in Los Angeles, the owner of RWT Collective stated plans to install additional CCTV cameras and discuss with property management the deployment of armed security personnel within the store and building premises.
These responses share a common direction: attempting to re-contain risks within manageable boundaries through procedural, spatial, and human interventions.
Yet they also clearly reveal inherent limitations. Such measures only function within individual stores or localized areas. Trust remains anchored in specific physical spaces and personal relationships, making them inadequate for handling custody, verification, and transfer needs across cities or borders.
This isn’t a problem unique to any single shop—it’s a structural limitation facing the entire physical collectibles market.
Card tokenization is underway, but ‘provable ownership and custody’ remains the key hurdle
Notably, in recent years, numerous Web3 projects focused on Pokémon and other trading cards—such as “on-chain booster packs” or “physical card NFTs”—have emerged, aiming to address real-world issues like transaction risk and limited liquidity using blockchain technology.
Market data shows that the current scale of on-chain TCG (trading card game) transactions stands at around $630 million, roughly 8% of the global TCG market. Among this, tokenized Pokémon card-related assets account for about $150 million. Demand for linking physical cards to blockchains already exists and has been partially validated by actual trading activity.
More importantly, these figures reflect a broader trend: for high-value, globally tradable assets, physical objects are no longer the sole medium of value transfer. Digital provenance and traceable ownership records are becoming central to asset liquidity. As the market increasingly recognizes the advantages of on-chain systems in terms of transaction efficiency, geographic reach, and cost structure, this proportion is expected to continue rising.
However, a trend existing does not mean problems are solved. In most cases, so-called “physical asset NFTs” are essentially just ERC-721 smart contracts tied to a card number or image, claiming a 1:1 mapping and declaring the asset “on-chain.” Yet critical questions remain unaddressed:
Is the physical card actually received and held by a third party? Can the custody location be verified? Is responsibility clearly defined? Can users find on-chain verifiable proof corresponding to the real-world asset’s condition?
If custody is opaque and verification non-traceable, then “going on-chain” only solves the presentation layer—not the actual existence, responsibility, or risk associated with the physical asset in the real world.
This is why simply minting physical cards as NFTs does not constitute genuine systemic improvement.
Why on-chain custody is emerging as a practical solution
If physical collectibles are to achieve true cross-border mobility, the key isn’t merely representing cards as NFTs—but building a system where transactions, custody, status updates, and responsibilities can all be verified. It is precisely under this context that new initiatives are beginning to tackle the problem at the infrastructure level.
Take Renaiss, the first project on BNB Chain targeting TCG real-world assets (RWA), as an example. While it has maintained leading levels of activity in on-chain pack openings and secondary market trading since launching nearly two months ago, its core focus isn’t gamified trading or application-layer features. Instead, it aims to establish dedicated smart contract standards and a comprehensive framework for custody verification and asset circulation tailored specifically for physical collectibles.
Each card’s NFT is not minted unilaterally by the platform, but only after authorized third-party custodians or vault operators scan, authenticate, and digitally sign off on the process. The NFT represents more than just a serial number—it becomes a verifiable digital identity linked to the custodian, asset status, and physical location, creating a strong binding between on-chain data and off-chain reality, eliminating disputes over authenticity or substitution.
Cards enter a verifiable vault network, clarifying responsibility boundaries, while transactions and transfers occur seamlessly on-chain.
Under this model, the blockchain becomes not just a transaction layer, but a shared system for recording custody, verification, and settlement.
A card in Hong Kong doesn’t need to be sold locally; a collector in Los Angeles no longer needs to risk armed encounters to complete a deal. The repeated physical handling that brings personal and logistical risks is transformed into institutional risk—one that can be managed, insured, and scaled. Liquidity and trade are no longer constrained by city limits or geography.
Not everyone needs on-chain collecting, but the market needs on-chain order
The surge in robberies and fraud doesn’t mean the collectibles market is declining. On the contrary, such events often occur during periods of peak liquidity and when asset values are most widely recognized.
Not every collector will choose on-chain custody. Not every transaction must happen via smart contract. But when thefts, scams, and gray-zone dealings recur repeatedly, the market is sending a clear message: relying solely on “being careful” or “trading with people you know” is no longer sufficient to support the scale of value now in motion.
From this perspective, the real value of on-chain custody isn’t generating more trading hype—it’s filling the long-missing layer of order in the physical collectibles market.
As collectibles enter the age of assetization, security, verification, and custody should no longer be risks borne solely by individual players, but integral components of the market itself.
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