Arthur Hayes family office research director: Bullish on CARDS reaching $4 price this summer, on-chain card business momentum may surpass eBay.

Compilation: TechFlow

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Collector Crypt ("CC") tokenizes graded trading cards on the Solana platform and generates cash from it: an annualized profit of approximately $53 million in May, and about $109 million in June at this rate, with a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of around $500 million. This is a real product that transcends cryptocurrency, achieving strong product-market fit. It brings tangible cash and returns profits to holders, and is currently in a high-growth phase.

We are still in the early stages. The rotation from eBay to CC has just begun, and since the token first launched on decentralized exchanges (DEX), liquidity has yet to arrive. Venture capital-level upside potential with one of the lowest valuation multiples in the industry.

Positive Expected Value Collection

The majority of Collector's profit comes from gacha (digital card pack opening). Collector purchases trading cards in bulk at a 5-15% discount. After opening a pack, users have two choices: keep the cards or sell them immediately at 7-15% below market price. Most users hunt for rare cards and sell the majority of their cards. This creates a powerful business model: users get card packs with an expected return of about 2%, while Collector earns roughly 4.5% profit.

Players aiming to build a $100k card collection receive cards worth an average of $102k. Beyond gacha, users can also trade cards directly on the secondary market. Since CC launched its native trading platform in late April, trading volume has grown rapidly, with weekly cumulative trading volume reaching approximately $650k.

Beating eBay

Stablecoins disrupted cross-border payments. Hyper-liquid tokens disrupted 24/7 trading. Both have tenfold-improved flawed Web 2 processes on-chain and liberalized capital. CC is bringing the same transformation to trading card trading. This is a massive opportunity: eBay set a record of $22.2 billion in gross merchandise volume (GMV) in Q1 2026, with revenue of $3.1 billion. Collectibles are its largest growth driver.

Today, most card trading happens on eBay. The total cost of selling a Pokémon card on eBay ranges from 16% to 20% of the sale price. This includes standard final value fees (13.25%), fixed order fees, optional promoted listings, packaging, and shipping. It is an exploitative market structure with huge operational costs.

CC is a completely different story: fees are only 2%, instant settlement, cards stored in insured vaults, one-click trading. This is undoubtedly a disruptive change, obvious in hindsight.

Stellar Numbers

Business value; 93% repurchase rate); this approximates the overall profit margin of all card packs well. After deducting incentives, the net profit margin is about 4.44%.

Last month, CC had an annualized total revenue of $1.2 billion, implying an annualized gacha profit of $54 million. In June, we are on track to achieve $2.4 billion in annualized total revenue and $109 million in annualized gacha profit.

Beyond the gacha mechanism, other profit drivers include:

Market fees: Secondary market trading fees

Partnerships: Projects built on CC infrastructure

eBay Sniper: Allows collectors to set maximum bids on eBay auctions using USDC.

The gacha machine continuously onboards inventory, and we are approaching a tipping point where CC's on-chain liquidity rivals eBay. Secondary market trading activity and fees are expected to grow significantly.

Supply is about 40% tighter than FDV projections.

FDV is calculated based on a total supply of 2 billion. This significantly overestimates the final supply after all tokens unlock in September 2027. Over 50% of the total supply is allocated to the foundation and community, with most never entering circulating supply.

Community: Used for paying incentives. 2.5% allocated at TGE, with 0.75% distributed to users every three months. As the token price rises, the team will slow down distribution. Conservatively, half of the community token supply may enter circulation by September 2027.

Foundation: Used for future hiring and job openings. Given strong profitability, it may remain completely untouched. Conservatively, 30% of the supply may enter circulation by September 2027.

Even under the most optimistic assumptions, only 1.3 billion tokens will actually be in circulation after all unlocks. If you buy at an FDV of $500 million and hold through all unlocks, you are effectively buying at a valuation of about $325 million.

Buybacks

As of now, CC has accumulated approximately $23 million worth of trading card inventory and about $10 million in cash. This cash can be used for new growth opportunities and token buybacks.

Buybacks have already begun. On May 12, CC acquired shares from a pre-seed investor:

The settlement was very clear—funds were paid directly from the pool in the form of an escrow account, shared by both parties. The team may have also repaid the pre-seed investors.

Additionally, CC appears to have been buying on the market since June 11. Read this article for detailed analysis below.

Liquidity Marginalized

Like Hyperliquid, CC did not succumb to high centralized exchange (CEX) listing fees, instead prioritizing a decentralized exchange (DEX)-first strategy. Trading volume has recovered but is still insufficient for liquidity providers to build meaningful positions.

The next hit product initially looks like a toy.

CC is not just a trading card company. It is building financial infrastructure for an entirely new asset class. Trading cards and collectibles more broadly have become an emerging high-yield asset class—but until now, institutional investors have been unable to participate.

Imagine running a family office and wanting to allocate $10 million to trading cards. Would you place 10k orders on eBay and have sellers ship cards to your office? Obviously not. The emergence of trading cards opens the door to a whole new group of market participants.

Watches, cars, and wine—collectibles have long been a way for the wealthy to express status and identity. For younger buyers, trading cards are all the rage. As intergenerational wealth transfer accelerates, trading cards are becoming the next major collectible category.

CC, with its small but high-potential user base, has built a rocket ship at the intersection of crypto and Pokémon. The company has about 800 daily active users, yet its profitability surpasses many crypto giants. Today, the CC team is expanding into more collectibles, such as sports cards, and venturing into Web 2.0. It has become one of the most profitable companies in crypto—and this is just the beginning.

Maelstrom price target: $4 by end of summer. Not financial advice. Do your own research.