The U.S. national debt is more than $40 trillion, and it’s only growing from here. Wage growth keeps stalling; job growth is staying stagnant; and grocery prices are trending up. With the 10-year Treasury yield nearing 5% as heavy government borrowing puts pressure on the bond market, some investors are looking for safer places to store their hard-earned cash.
Investing in alternative assets isn’t new: In recent years, there have been many different (let’s say creative) investment opportunities, from NFTs to tokenized gold, and from crypto to traditional market trading. But for one person, the draw of a childhood game brings back more than just memories: Collecting Pokémon cards has become a long-term investment vehicle with the upside of having beautiful art to relish.
“I love the way they look”
Peter Levin is not what you would call a casual collector. The 55-year-old venture capitalist, who is the cofounder and managing director at Griffin Gaming Partners, has collected countless cards since the age of 4.
“I’ve been collecting, you know, practically my whole life,” he told Fortune.
His lifelong hobby of collecting sports and Pokémon cards, bobbleheads, and collectibles has become a lucrative investment by nature. According to data from the Washington Post, Pokémon cards generated a roughly 3,821% return between 2004 and 2025—a massive margin compared to the S&P 500’s 483% gain in the same time period.
“Once that generation who collected and played as kids have gotten to a place in life where they have disposable income, you know they’re going to make a determination,” he said. “Perhaps modern art or bobbleheads or watches isn’t their thing, but trading cards are.”
That personal nostalgia and connection is the crux that keeps the market together. It’s an ongoing cycle where “generation after generation has embraced the form factor”—and that’s what sets trading cards apart from previous alternative assets like NFTs, Levin said.
“There has been a trend for people—while expanding at the same time with all these bleeding edge technologies—to also kind of circle back to real life experiences. More tangible things, and trading cards are very much that. There’s a stickiness to it. There’s a community to it,” he said.
For Levin, this isn’t just a cash-cow financial investment that he wants to liquidate as soon as the market gets big enough. If he was in it for the money, he said, he would have already sold it by now. In fact, he doesn’t even have an estimate on the worth of his 500,000 trading-card collection, though he did mention, “None of my good stuff is kept at home.
“The truth is, I like to collect all cards. I love to get my hands on cards,” he said. “But I have a deep appreciation when people take the time and energy to create something that is unique.”
He added, “There are certain cards where I just love the way they look, and I love the quality of the paper.”
A newfound profession
And that hobby-turned-financial-decision has seeped into Levin’s personal and professional life. He just attended his 31st Comic-Con this past year, and the man admits to being called “batshit crazy”: He sent Fortune a what he said was a never-before-seen photo of his wall covered in “tens of thousands” of pins ranging from Star Wars and Power Rangers characters to Hello Kitty and Nintendo characters.
Among his reserve includes a collection of 25,000-plus comic books and half a million trading cards—including about 100,000 Pokémon cards with the rest being made up of baseball, basketball, and collab cards like a Dodgers crossover of a “One Piece trading card.” The Dodgers fan also said he has “every Ohtani bobblehead that’s ever been made.” He even managed to bring that obsession into his profession.
“We have a cohort within Griffin that competes every other week,” he noted. “You know, we have Magic the Gathering get-togethers.”
For Levin, his aspiration of a Pokémon-card-led currency has its merits. He told the Hollywood Reporter he believes Pokémon cards could become a global currency in the aftermath of an apocalypse, based on their worldwide recognition, accessibility, and increasingly valuable secondary market.
He later told Fortune he was joking about the post-apocalyptic part—but he still believes Pokémon is globally unifying given how ubiquitous and universal it has become. Part of it is that it’s essentially a level playing field: Anyone can build a card collection, and everyone has an equal shot of getting a “rare” card. Wealthy investors are not the only ones getting the valuable cards.
“As a global currency, everybody knows Pokémon, it’s big everywhere. It’s accepted by all cultures and societies, and it’s celebrated and it’s cross generational,” Levin said.
“If you can combine your passion with an investment strategy,” Levin added, “or at least a sub-vertical within your investment strategy, why not?”
Gotta catch ’em all
The Pokémon card itself dates back to 1996, the same year the original Pokémon games debuted in Japan. The cards initially functioned primarily as a game and collectible—but over time, rare cards became valuable commodities in their own right. Professional grading companies evaluate cards based on condition while online marketplaces and auction houses have created a global market where buyers and sellers can establish prices.
The market’s biggest acceleration came during COVID, when people who were stuck at home returned to the hobby while investors and influencers began treating the cards like assets. Online e-commerce company eBay reported that domestic trading-card sales jumped 142% in 2020, while Pokémon card sales specifically surged by more than 574%.
And rare cards are reaching prices that would have been almost unimaginable during Pokémon’s original 1990s boom. A first-edition, shadowless Charizard card sold for $369,000 in 2020, and it was only up from there. Online content creator Logan Paul purchased a Pikachu Illustrator card for $5.275 million in 2021 and later sold it in February for approximately $16.5 million—setting a new record for a trading card in the process.
The market today has become large enough to attract major attention. Entertainment company Disney partnered with trading-card maker Topps to make collectible cards involving Disney properties, while Hasbro and Ravensburger have also expanded into the card business. The trading-card market is estimated at as much as $50 billion annually.
