The market for Pokémon trading cards has moved far beyond a childhood pastime. Financial Times, citing dealers, analysts and marketplace data, reports that the cards are increasingly being treated as a standalone asset class, with the overall market valued in the billions of dollars.
The newspaper says demand for the rarest items has surged sharply. Individual cards are selling for millions of dollars, and market participants describe current conditions as overheated.
As an example, FT points to the story of 34-year-old Briton Jordan Dann. In 2025, he left his job as a data analyst at a law firm in Chester after his hobby began generating more income than his main employment. He says he moved from earning £70,000 a year to running a multimillion-pound business.
According to Dann, the market has gone “crazy” over the past 12 months as bankers, investors, lawyers and cryptocurrency enthusiasts have poured in. He said many buyers are trying to acquire almost anything they can, regardless of price.
Adam Ireland, eBay’s global head of collectibles, told FT there is a “double effect” at work. People are buying items that remind them of their youth, while at the same time they now have disposable income. In his view, the big money is no longer being spent by people who simply want to play with friends, but by those who see the cards as a “significant asset class.”
Oz Kara, co-founder of the collectibles platform Cardfolio, said the market has effectively split in two. In his view, nothing prevents The Pokémon Company from reprinting modern cards, while vintage cards are genuinely scarce.
FT notes that only 35 copies of one version of Pikachu from the 2002 Legendary Collection series have received a PSA 10 grade. A card at that level is worth about £250,000, while the same card graded one point lower, PSA 9, is worth around £15,000.
The paper also says the boom has put grading services under heavy strain. In August, PSA processed more than 1.3 million Pokémon cards, ten times more than in the same month of 2021. The audience for the market has also expanded: attendance at the Card Con event in the UK doubled to 10,000. FT reported that some buyers arrived with sealed boxes of cash, while several dealers declined to reveal their names for fear of theft.
In February, South China Morning Post reported that the rare Pikachu Illustrator card, previously owned by American blogger Logan Paul, sold for $16.5 million. The sale set a record, making it the most expensive card ever sold at auction anywhere in the world.
In April, the BBC wrote about Briton Andrew Brownd, who managed to pay for his wedding by selling three Pokémon cards. Their combined value was £32,800. Brownd had collected the cards between the ages of 8 and 15, and years later, during a family move, rediscovered the collection in the attic, including several rare items.
