A Pokémon card sold for 517 million yuan! Japan forms a card-lawmakers alliance to crack down on fake cards, stockpiling, and money laundering all at once

A rare Pokémon card sold for about $16 million, making Japan’s ruling party uneasy. On July 23, the cross-party lawmakers’ alliance “Trading Card Promotion Parliamentary League” (“トレーディングカード振興議員連盟,” hereafter the Card Parliamentary League), which focuses on the collectible card market, was formally launched in the Diet. Chairman Makihara Seiji called out three major issues: counterfeiting, hoarding for resale, and money laundering.
(Background: Pokémon card $16.5 million breaks the world record! Logan Paul makes a cool $8 million, but NFT fractionalization investors get wiped out)
(Additional context: Bankless: a look at Pokémon card tokenization platforms)

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• The Card Parliamentary League is launched; Makihara Seiji flags three key issues
• Pricing power rests with the United States
• The financialization of collectibles—something the crypto circle isn’t unfamiliar with

A Pokémon card sold this year in February for a record-breaking $16 million (about NT$517 million). The seller was influencer Logan Paul. The figure unsettled Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party: on July 23, the cross-party lawmakers’ alliance “トレーディングカード振興議員連盟” (the Card Parliamentary League), which specifically watches the trading card market, held its founding general meeting in the Diet. Makihara Seiji, its chair, directly said that collectible cards are “an industry that can compete in the world,” but problems like stockpiling, resale, counterfeiting, and money laundering have already come into view.

The Card Parliamentary League is launched; Makihara Seiji flags three major issues

The founding general meeting of the Card Parliamentary League was chaired by Makihara Seiji. Diet member Masayuki Ishihara reported on the alliance’s operating direction, while Junichi Kanda proposed discussions on regulatory direction. Makihara Seiji summarized the risks of the card market into three major issues:

First, counterfeit goods circulating—right now it is largely kept in check by private grading and authentication organizations.

Second, large-scale hoarding for the purpose of reselling.

Third, money laundering being abused; the root cause is that trading cards lack unique individual identification codes, meaning a card cannot be tracked from printing to ownership transfer.

Put more bluntly in numbers. According to statistics from Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, this business was still only 177.6 billion yen in fiscal year 2021, but by fiscal year 2025 it has already climbed to 338.4 billion yen—nearly doubling in four years, which translates to about $2.1 billion. When the money grows, the nature of the paper changes: an internal assessment within the LDP says it plainly—these cards have long crossed the line beyond consumer goods, and buying and selling is increasingly close to operating a financial asset.

Pricing power rests with the United States

The more awkward layer is behind that. Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh were both born in Japan, but what price a card ultimately fetches depends on how many points the US grading company PSA gives it across the Pacific: the score determines the market, the market determines liquidity, and by extension determines whether the card can be treated as an asset to be used as collateral, split, or settled.

The pain point the Card Parliamentary League zeroed in on after hearing industry views is exactly this structure: IP grows at home, but the authority over certification and valuation is held by others. For assets that emerge from Japan’s own content industry, Japan has almost no room to set prices.

Financialization of collectibles—something the crypto circle isn’t unfamiliar with

When a physical collectible gets used for money laundering because it has a high enough unit price, is easy to carry, can circulate across borders, and lacks individual identification codes, the reaction path of regulators is actually identical to that of cryptocurrencies: first, let the market grow wild; then, only after the scale and number of cases become too big to ignore, come back to add licensing, disclosure obligations, and transaction-tracking mechanisms.

This time, Japan chose to lay groundwork early—on the one hand, to secure positions before counterfeiting and money laundering spiral out of control; on the other, to avoid the cards repeating the same fate as cryptocurrencies, where talent fled to other countries.

What’s thought-provoking is that “pricing power leaking out” segment: Japan has the IP, but valuation is entrusted to the US’s PSA. In a way, it resembles one of the most commonly cited pain points in the real world when it comes to asset tokenization—content or assets may be local, but whoever truly acts as the arbiter of value is held by someone else.

Going forward, the Card Parliamentary League will continue to gather input from manufacturers and grading organizations. Whether the final policy draft it produces will also become a reference template for other countries to deal with the “financialization of collectibles” is something worth watching.