Users spent a record $324 million on onchain gacha in June 2026, even as Bitcoin fell more than 20% to a 21-month low and spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $4.5 billion in outflows. The figure, reported by Blockworks Research, marks a sharp increase from roughly $50 million a year earlier, showing that the bear market did little to cool demand for randomized tokenized Pokémon card packs.
What is onchain gacha?
Gacha, borrowed from Japanese vending machines, gives buyers a random item for a fixed payment. In trading card games, this typically takes the form of booster packs containing cards of wildly different values — from a few cents to hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on rarity, condition and year of release. Global Market Insights values the physical trading card market at $9.2 billion, while Mordor Intelligence puts it at $15.11 billion.
To ensure authenticity, independent graders like PSA, Beckett and CGC inspect cards for centering, corners, edges, surface and stains, then assign a grade and seal them in plastic slabs. The grade heavily influences price; two identical cards can be worth vastly different amounts. Projects such as Collector Crypt and Courtyard take graded physical cards, hold them in vaults, and issue NFTs representing ownership. When a user buys and opens a digital pack, they receive a token backed by a specific real card, which can be traded, sold back to the platform, or redeemed for the physical item.
Why the surge?
Pokémon has been booming: research firm Circana reported that the franchise became the top toy brand in the US in 2025 with $2.5 billion in sales, up 87% year-over-year. Demand for grading has been so intense that PSA temporarily suspended submissions across four service levels in June while working through a backlog of nearly 10 million cards. Tokenization plugs into this frenzy by removing friction — no need to find a buyer, verify authenticity, or ship the card. "Traditional marketplaces are slow and expensive," Dakota Campbell, head of marketing at Collector Crypt, told Cointelegraph. "With tokenized trading cards, collectors can buy, sell, trade, and verify ownership instantly while the physical asset remains securely vaulted."
The instant buyback mechanism, available on most platforms, creates a rapid gacha loop: users can sell an unwanted card back for about 85% of its value and immediately open another pack. This gamified experience, akin to loot boxes in video games, drives repeated spending. Collector Crypt has tokenized roughly $40 million worth of cards and comic books, with about $23 million in its own inventory; it buys around $2 million worth of cards each week to meet demand.
Not just speculation
Despite the gambling-like appeal, genuine collectors are active. According to Dune, users burn 5% to 8% of Courtyard's issued NFTs each week, each burn representing a physical card claim. Campbell said about 30% of Collector Crypt users eventually redeem a card, and many hold beyond the 72-hour buyback window. In the past 30 days, the platform shipped 5,400 assets to 634 unique users at $3.29 million insured value. The record June spending reflects a convergence of Pokémon's mainstream popularity, efficient tokenization, and the addictive pull of randomized rewards — a dynamic that has long existed in the physical TCG market, now accelerated onchain.