Card Game Project Study Report

On-Chain Physical Card RWA Line, has recently become noticeably popular.
It's easy to understand because blockchain leverages its strengths in transaction features to solve issues like lack of immediacy, efficiency, and fair pricing in card trading, making it a perfect fit.
Its mechanism is also relatively simple: physical cards are stored in a vault, while on-chain assets handle trading, liquidity, pack opening, redemption, and financialization.
Existing projects in the market can be categorized into three mechanism types:
1/ Pack Opening: Pack-opening / Gacha / Vending
Representative projects:
- Courtyard io
- Collector Crypt
- Phygitals
- RIP FUN
This category is most like bringing the offline pack opening experience onto the chain:
Buy digital packs, randomly reveal NFTs corresponding to physical rated cards, users can hold, trade, or burn NFTs to redeem physical items.
Advantages are obvious:
- Strong user experience, pack opening naturally promotes sharing
- Platforms can implement live odds, VRF, fairness proofs
- Secondary markets, leaderboards, buyback mechanisms are easier to grow
But risks are also concentrated:
- The mechanism can be questioned as gambling
- Pack EV, probability, inventory transparency are critical
- Custody, insurance, auditing, redemption speed determine trust foundation
2/ Trading: Marketplace / 1:1 Physical NFT
Representative projects:
- Courtyard marketplace
- Collector Crypt marketplace
- Only Gems (early case)
- 4K Protocol (general physical asset protocol)
This category is closer to standard RWA:
An physical card corresponds to an on-chain certificate, the card exists in a vault, and NFTs handle transfer and redemption rights.
Advantages:
- Reduces cross-border transaction and logistics friction
- Lowers costs for authenticity verification and repeated delivery
- Can integrate with DeFi scenarios like collateral, lending, portfolio management
Shortcomings:
- Liquidity still concentrated in popular IPs and a few high-value cards
- On-chain prices need to be anchored by offline markets
- Legal ownership, custody bankruptcy isolation, audit frequency must be clear
3/ Fragmentation: Fractional / Shards
Representative projects:
- Market Cards
- Grail
- Dibbs (historical case, now transitioned/non-active)
This type aims to lower the barrier for high-priced cards:
Break down assets like Messi, Haaland, Pokémon grail cards into smaller shares, allowing more people to participate in trading.
Advantages:
- Lower entry barrier
- Potentially increase liquidity for high-value cards
- Can enable collection, bidding, profit sharing, and other gameplay
But liquidity is the biggest challenge:
- AMMs are easiest to manipulate, but very prone to "Christmas tree" schemes that detach from the card’s intrinsic value
- Order book mode may have poor user experience
Regarding these mechanisms, I personally dislike pack opening because if luck isn’t good, you basically can’t break even, but the gambling nature naturally attracts a lot of traffic, and trading volume indeed proves this point;
1:1 is because high-priced cards inherently reject most participants, but I wonder if common cards will have people willing to play and provide liquidity;
Fragmentation might be a mode suitable for most people to take a gamble, but it faces liquidity challenges.
I’ve participated in both Grail and Market Cards experiences; currently, my Speed has been trapped in 😂.