Forget Bitcoin, S&P 500: Pokémon Cards Are Up 28% In 2026 and Beating Them Both

Pokémon cards are up 28% in value in 2026, beating both the S&P 500 and Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC).

Crypto platforms are now racing to tokenize the $13 billion to $15 billion market behind them.

The Numbers Behind Pokémon Cards' 2026 Rally CoinDesk reported Friday that through August 7, Pokémon cards climbed 27.9% year-to-date while the S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY) gained 12.8% and Bitcoin fell 28.8%, a 56.7 percentage point gap between cardboard and crypto.

Target reported trading card sales up nearly 70% last year, Walmart (NASDAQ:WMT) saw a 200% jump in online card sales, and eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) processed $2.62 billion in card sales in 2025 alone.

The market's headline moment came in February 2026 when Logan Paul sold his Pikachu Illustrator card for $16.5 million to AJ Scaramucci, son of financier Anthony Scaramucci, earning over $8 million in profit on a card he bought for $5.275 million five years earlier.