Momentum in the Collectibles Market
What’s the first thing you think of when you hear “Pokemon Cards”? Immediate eye roll, I imagine. It’s just cardboard, it’s so speculative, there’s no intrinsic value, etc. But yet, there’s a huge secondary collectors market, and it’s only trending upward.
Ebay’s recent earnings reports have consistently highlighted Trading Card Games (TCG) and other collectibles as core growth drivers for their business model:
They acquired TCGplayer for $300M in August 2022, during the middle of the bear market, and have been consistently growing this segment.
In Ebay’s most recent earnings report, the whole collectibles segment grew 26% YoY surpassing 40% of Ebay’s total Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV), which is $22B for Q2 2026.
Ebay Live, a live shopping experience, Q2 GMV grew 8x Y/Y. This shows a new form of spending rapidly growing. Also recognized by Whatnot’s $500M funding round valuing it at $20B.
So there’s a lot of momentum and growth in the collectibles space in the current state of things. TCG is recognized as the main driver. There are gacha companies, inspired by japanese capsule toy vending machines, quickly launching that buy up large quantities of cards, custody them, and then raffle them off to users who buy packs directly on their platform.
A few examples of these are Courtyard, Beezie, and a more crypto native one launched recently called LastPack. Courtyard raised a Series A $30M round in July 2025. Quickly after launch, these crypto native gacha sites are doing 8 figures in GMV. This space is just beginning to take off.
Riftbound
Riftbound is a TCG developed by Riot Games, the creator of the popular video game League of Legends and the producer of the massively successful Netflix show Arcane.
A key thing about a TCG is 1. the IP, and 2. the gameplay. And it’s entirely up to the TCG’s developer to figure out how to balance collectors and gaming enthusiasts. So far, Riot has shown to take what worked the best in prior popular TCGs (Magic The Gathering, Pokemon, YuGiOh), and made sure to avoid the mistakes in them as well.
The IP is worth so much, and it will only continue to grow and be more successful. League of Legends has been around for over 16 years with a flourishing enthusiast community and competitive scene. Arcane was a hugely successful TV show and there will be more shows set in the League of Legends universe. Riot also launched K/DA, a massively unprecedented successful global pop phenomenon. And one thing they did super well that Magic and YuGiOh failed at: the IP gets massive appeal from both men and women.
So Riot effectively created its own Disney World: you have the LoL competitive scene, LoL TV Shows, LoL music, and now a LoL card game. And Riot is pressing the gas on all fronts. And once you get immersed in one front, you naturally start to follow the other fronts.
Riftbound released its first set October 31st 2025. Since then it’s launched 3 more sets, the last one released on July 31st 2026. It releases ~4 sets a year, and does reprinting of those sets for the following 2 years as long as they’re allowed in official tournaments.
So we’re in the very, very early stages of Riftbound. How do you make money here? There are a few strategies we’ve modeled out. And of course, the main strategy here is very similar to our market making strategies in crypto, which were very profitable 😁
I won’t lay out the step by step playbook here in a public posting, as that would ruin my edge. The capacity is limited, the upside is insane comparing Riftbound to the most recently successful One Piece TCG, and the timing is sensitive. There’s a lot more broader market research I’ve done in the collectibles space, but I’ll save that for later posts.
If you want to know the specific details, feel free to reach out. We are extremely excited about this opportunity. We’ve been dabbling in this for the past 3 months and have taken a more significant interest the past 2 weeks. It feels like a very lucrative opportunity.
The key thing to note about the collectibles market is that it correlates strongly with Bitcoin. We are nearing the end of the 2022-2026 4 year cycle (3 year bull, 1 year bear) and starting the next one October 2026. The next 3 years for Riftbound will be insane. After all, crypto bros love League of Legends.
Regular stocks / crypto market updates to come soon.
Fun times.
Nik
Founder of Yai Capital
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