QuantaResources
Sources
Every figure, date and quotation on the Quanta site and in these docs, with its outlet, title, date and link, grouped by theme
The figures on the home page close with a pointer to the docs, and this is the page they point to. Each number, date and quotation shown on the site or in these docs is listed here with the outlet that published it, the date and a link. Press and data-company figures describe the wider collectibles market, and Card Ladder's sales data also powers the 44-index board on the site (see Card Ladder below). When the press gives two readings of the same figure, we cite one and name the other.
How figures are dated
A figure appears only with a named source and a date, and only in the form that source published it. Index and price figures carry an "as of" date, and figures taken from live pages carry the date we read them.
Figures on the home page
| Figure on the site | Source | Date | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| 26.6M cards graded in 2025 | GemRate data reported by Yahoo Sports | 3 Jan 2026 | https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/major-authenticators-graded-more-26-051500958.html |
| $2.62B in card singles sold on eBay in 2025 (over 61.5 million transactions) | GemRate data reported by Yahoo Sports | 16 Jan 2026 | https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/more-2-6-billion-spent-154500186.html |
| $138M in on-chain collectible sales in August 2026 | DefiLlama, venue volume of Courtyard, the largest on-chain vault for graded cards, for August 2026 ($138.4M, its record month) | read 15 Sep 2026 | https://defillama.com/protocol/courtyard |
| 50,000+ on-chain trades a day | Privy case study on the same vault: activity grew from roughly 10,000 trades a day in late 2025 to more than 50,000 on many days in 2026, with daily volume on Polygon regularly above $2 million | 26 Aug 2026 | https://privy.io/blog/inside-the-stack-how-courtyard-is-reinventing-the-collectibles-marketplace |
Sports Illustrated reports the same GemRate data as 26.8 million cards graded (4 Jan 2026). The site uses the Yahoo Sports reading of 26.6 million.
Grading and the card market
| Figure or fact | Source | Date | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| 26.6 million cards graded in 2025, up 32% on 2024; 16.8 million trading-card-game and non-sport cards, close to double the year before; 16.1 million Pokémon cards; PSA graded 19.26 million, 72% of the total | GemRate data via Yahoo Sports | 3 Jan 2026 | https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/major-authenticators-graded-more-26-051500958.html |
| A single card (a 2025 Japanese McDonald's Pikachu) was graded 58,000 times in December 2025 | Sports Illustrated | 4 Jan 2026 | https://www.si.com/collectibles/pokemon-powers-2025-psa-s-biggest-grading-year-in-company-history |
| About six million Pokémon cards reached the market as PSA 10 slabs in 2025 | Sports Illustrated, same article | 4 Jan 2026 | https://www.si.com/collectibles/pokemon-powers-2025-psa-s-biggest-grading-year-in-company-history |
| Blue-chip sports cards (Card Ladder's CL50) fell 23% in 2022 and 9% in 2023 | Sports Illustrated | 3 Jan 2026 | https://www.si.com/collectibles/will-prices-crash-a-2026-vintage-card-preview |
| A Pikachu Illustrator PSA 10 sold for more than $16 million in February 2026 | CNBC | 29 Mar 2026 | https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/29/pokemon-card-values-rise-logan-paul-pikachu-auction.html |
| Individual sports cards ranged from -60% to +400% within months in 2026 (a rookie autograph up 400% since Opening Day, a rookie refractor down 60% year to date) | The Hobby Wire, "State of the Hobby, September" | 1 Sep 2026 | https://www.thehobbywire.com/p/the-state-of-the-hobby-september |
| A modern Pokémon chase card dropped 50%, from $1,600 to $832, while vintage cards kept setting records | PokemonPriceTracker blog | 6 Mar 2026 | https://www.pokemonpricetracker.com/blog/posts/pokemon-card-market-crash-2026-what-really-happened |
Card Ladder
Card Ladder is a data company that tracks sales of graded cards across the major marketplaces and auction houses and publishes indexes on the card market. Its sales data powers the index board on the Quanta site: all 44 board indexes take their levels and full history from it, refresh daily, and are shown in dollars, rebased so that every index starts at $1.00 in May 2004. Card Ladder recomputes its own indexes nightly with its own method. How the board fits with the rest of the index engine is covered in The data source.
| Figure or fact | Source | Date | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pokémon index +170.27% year to date; +21.67% over one month; 9,591 cards tracked | Card Ladder, Pokémon index page | data through 13 Sep 2026, read 15 Sep 2026 | https://www.cardladder.com/indexes/pokemon |
| Launched 23 June 2020 | Card Ladder pricing page (since our launch back on June 23, 2020); Sports Collectors Digest, Collectors Universe acquires Card Ladder | read 15 Sep 2026; 2 Dec 2021 | https://www.cardladder.com/pricing ; https://sportscollectorsdigest.com/news/collectors-universe-acquires-card-ladder-card-grading-values |
| Indexes for every major category and every player | Card Ladder Help Center, "What are Indexes" | 25 Jan 2023 | https://cardladder.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/11943014102167-What-are-Indexes |
| Indexes computed once a night, after the day's sales are approved | Card Ladder Help Center, index methodology article | 25 Jan 2023 | https://cardladder.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/11943684520471--Card-Ladder-Value-The-Intersection-of-Player-Indexes-Price-Modeling |
On-chain vaulting and settlement
The public sales record of vaulted graded cards on Polygon is the settlement layer the Quanta index engine reads. Every sale in it can be checked by anyone on a public explorer.
| Figure or fact | Source | Date | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Settlement prices and block numbers of the three cards shown on The data source ($47.71, $96.44 and $30.46 in USDC) | The public sales record on Polygon: trade events from the vault's marketplace contract, each sale identified by its transaction hash (listed below this table) | read 16 Sep 2026 | the three transaction links below |
| About 376,000 listed items in more than 40 categories; 256,373 Pokémon cards, about 68%; baseball 27,978, football 26,145, basketball 24,743, One Piece 13,249, Magic: The Gathering 8,631, Yu-Gi-Oh! 160; about 4,100 comics | Courtyard's public marketplace listing (category facets) | 15 Sep 2026 | https://courtyard.io/marketplace |
| No gas fee, because the platform is paying that on behalf of the user | Polygon Labs blog, tokenization spotlight on the vault | 9 Feb 2024 | https://polygon.technology/blog/tokenization-spotlight-courtyard-io-puts-analog-collectibles-like-pokemon-cards-onchain |
| Comics at 22%+ of the business by mid-2025 | Forerunner Ventures, investment note on the vault | 24 Jul 2025 | https://www.forerunnerventures.com/perspectives/investing-in-courtyard-a-modern-collectibles-experience-creates-a-marketplace-flywheel |
| The average card trades 8 times per month | Forerunner Ventures, same note | 24 Jul 2025 | https://www.forerunnerventures.com/perspectives/investing-in-courtyard-a-modern-collectibles-experience-creates-a-marketplace-flywheel |
| Luxury watches offered from February 2026, each in unworn or mint condition with box and papers; 20 watches listed on 15 Sep 2026 | Courtyard blog post announcing the category; its public marketplace listing | 26 Feb 2026; 15 Sep 2026 | https://courtyard.io/blog/post/collecting-watches-courtyard-new-category ; https://courtyard.io/marketplace |
| Sneakers announced with pre-registration | Courtyard app release notes (version 1.7.30) | 14 Sep 2026 | https://apps.apple.com/us/app/courtyard-tcg-watches-cards/id6748155184 |
| Graded comics added to the vault in June 2025 | CGC news | 18 Jun 2025 | https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/14191/courtyard-io/ |
| The vault takes graded cards and comics from PSA, BGS, SGC, CGC and CSG | Courtyard documentation | read 15 Sep 2026 | https://docs.courtyard.io/courtyard/about-courtyard.io/vault-your-cards |
| The vault's tokens moved to Polygon with their token ids unchanged | Courtyard documentation, Polygon migration notice | 3 Aug 2023 | https://docs.courtyard.io/courtyard/resources/polygon-migration |
The three sales behind the prices on The data source, as Polygon transactions:
- 1999 Sabrina's Jynx, PSA 8, $47.71, block 93,928,524: https://polygonscan.com/tx/0x4dbddb187382aa79a16908cbbc8db07869330778237b550c612c3a3a7e8adab4
- 2016 Hydreigon Break, PSA 10, $96.44, block 93,928,503: https://polygonscan.com/tx/0x16c488d6b4ed2927864e5e0134e80f1577d228f89beaa79fde965cce87a0d555
- 2024 Mime Jr., CGC 10, $30.46, block 93,928,505: https://polygonscan.com/tx/0x4510ad539224bbac8c9b22996d2b822cb63f3ce2fd9a5aa041118b286951f4bf
Each hash opens the sale in any Polygon explorer.
Prior art
The products that A world first compares Quanta with, as checked in September 2026.
| Product or fact | Source | Date | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
Hyperliquid NFTI-USD: an index perpetual on six NFT collections, pitched as an easy way to long or short the NFT market; listed 29 Nov 2023 |
Hyperliquid announcement | 29 Nov 2023 | https://hyperliquid.medium.com/nft-index-perp-18e49a874288 |
NFTI-USD delisted on 27 June 2024 and open positions settled at mark: will be delisted on June 27 at 08:00 UTC |
Hyperliquid announcement on X | 23 Jun 2024 | https://x.com/HyperliquidX/status/1804737248438722968 |
Trove Markets POKE-USDC, described as the world's first collectibles perpdex, on testnet through Hyperliquid HIP-3 |
Trove Markets documentation | 2025 | https://learn.trovemarkets.com/hip-3/trove-on-hip-3 |
| Trove Markets moves to Solana, abandoning Hyperliquid and rebuilding its platform on Solana | The Block, "Trove Markets announces sudden pivot to Solana, hours before token is set to go live" | 18 Jan 2026 | https://www.theblock.co/post/386072/trove-markets-announces-sudden-pivot-to-solana-hours-before-token-is-set-to-go-live |
| Pokeliquid, The first on-chain perpetual futures DEX for Pokémon TCG products: 67+ single-card and sealed-product markets, up to 25x, prices from TCGplayer every five minutes | Pokeliquid documentation | read 15 Sep 2026 | https://www.pokeliquid.xyz/docs |
| Watch and sneaker indexes (WatchCharts Overall Market Index, Chrono24 ChronoPulse, StockX Hype Index) are published as data only | WatchCharts index listing | read 15 Sep 2026 | https://watchcharts.com/watches/indexes |
Quotations used on the site
| Quotation | Who | Outlet | Date | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| There has never been a central registry or clearing house for this market. | ATH Labs research, quoted by CoinDesk | CoinDesk | 11 Aug 2026 | https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/08/11/pokemon-cards-are-becoming-multibillion-dollar-market-crypto-wants-to-fix-how-they-trade |
| As a childhood hobby becomes an asset class… | Bloomberg | Bloomberg | 24 Apr 2026 | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-24/pokemon-card-boom-sparks-a-crime-wave-as-values-soar |
| Trading cards are no longer simply consumer products. | Japan's ruling LDP, reported by the Japan Times | Japan Times | 23 Jul 2026 | https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2026/07/23/japan-weighs-regulating-pokemon-cards/ |
| Gen Z's favorite financial asset (on Pokémon cards) | Slate | Slate, "Pokémon Cards Have Become Gen Z's Favorite Financial Asset" | 31 Aug 2026 | https://slate.com/business/2026/08/pokemon-cards-gen-z-gambling.html |
The Bloomberg line is the summary the article shows outside its paywall.
History dates used on the site
| Site line | Source |
|---|---|
| 1991: PSA begins grading cards | Collectors Universe, Inc., Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 30 June 2018, filed with the SEC: in 1991 we launched Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA); https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001089143/000143774918016394/clct20180630_10k.htm |
| 1999: Pokémon cards reach the US | The Pokémon Company, corporate history, January 1999: "Pokémon Card Game: Base Set" is launched in U.S.; https://corporate.pokemon.co.jp/en/aboutus/history/ |
| 2020: Card Ladder publishes card-market indexes as data | Launch on 23 June 2020, see the Card Ladder section above |
| 2023: graded cards vaulted and sold on-chain on Polygon | The Polygon migration notice of 3 Aug 2023, see the vaulting section above; the vault first tokenized cards on Ethereum before the move |
| 2026: an index you can trade | Quanta's own milestone, see the Roadmap |