DeFi rides Pokémon trading card boom as onchain marketplaces bring in $11m

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GM, Tim here.

Decentralised finance is notorious for being home to some pretty wacky ideas with dubious commercial viability.

Yet over the past year, developers have stumbled on one that not only works, but also happens to be quite profitable: letting users buy and sell virtual versions of trading cards.

Onchain marketplaces that allow users to speculate on the prices of Pokémon, One Piece, and sports cards have soared over the past year. They generated a combined $11 million in revenue last month, according to data from DefiLlama, generated on its new Pro dashboard.

Revenue on DeFi TCG marketplaces is up more than 9X year-over-year, with top marketplaces generating over $11M in April.

Chart created with DefiLlama Pro pic.twitter.com/3pUpFnQMhM

— DefiLlama.com (@DefiLlama) May 4, 2026

That’s no small sum for an idea that was basically unproven just over a year ago.

The success comes as trading cards — particularly Pokémon — continue their popularity. Nostalgia, financial speculation, and a post-pandemic boom in collectibles have caused prices to soar in recent years.

Pokémon cards, as measured through the Card Ladder Index, have produced a roughly 4,000% cumulative return since 2004, vastly outperforming the S&P 500, an index of the top 500 US stocks, which is up 513% over the same period.

Pokémon card factories are operating at maximum capacity. Despite producing over 10…