Are Bitcoin and Pokemon card prices correlated at all? Not exactly is the short answer.
The longer answer is that it seems like Bitcoin and Pokemon are correlated because they both have some of the same people investing in them. Bitcoin investors may be trading in more than just Bitcoin and may have added Pokemon cards into their investments as well. Or at least that’s what it appears like on the surface.
The demographics of bitcoin investors skews young, with Gen Z and Millennials making up a good chunk of investors. Males also dominate with something like 70% of investors being men. Bitcoin investors also in general are highly educated and have significant disposable income. Both groups grew up watching and playing Pokemon.
Pokemon has a somewhat diverse range from tiny kiddos to 50 year olds. The exact makeup is not known like we know about Bitcoin investors. But a group anecdotally stands out as collectors, the ~ 25 to 35 age group. This group also seems to be male dominated and have disposable income, like Bitcoin investors. You can guess that thanks to the endless years of seeing a bunch of men buying entire shopping carts of Pokemon product. It is just a guess, but I think we can agree it’s a good one. So a lot of males with some money is what we’re looking at here for both Bitcoin investors and Pokemon buyers.
Now what I think is happening to Pokemon cards recently, with all of the ridiculous increases in prices, is that Bitcoin investors are taking profits from the surge in Bitcoin’s price and then seeking Pokemon cards as an alternative investment to diversify their holdings. Even just a small amount of Bitcoin investors doing this could cause a significant tick up in Pokemon card prices. And these investors are already familiar with Pokemon, I’m sure fewer of them are familiar with the collectible coin market. Buying Pokemon cards just makes more sense.
Selling a single Bitcoin nets you $100,000 after all and that money has to go somewhere. A tenth of that, a $10,000 investment in Pokemon buys you quite a few cards. Now multiply that by just 100 Bitcoin investors and we have $1,000,000 extra dollars in the Pokemon marketplace all buying cards up. So there is potential for serious price pressures to be caused by Bitcoin money floating around.
It is speculation. It sounds about right. I think there is some correlation between Bitcoin’s increase in price and Pokemon cards increase in prices.
However… Pokemon cards recent run up in prices could also be explained by the hype surrounding Prismatic Evolutions and the upcoming Team Rocket set. Both have people acting like fools. And there is the upcoming 30th Pokemon anniversary as well. We are basically in a state of Pokemania and there’s no way Bitcoin was the cause all by its self.
So maybe there is correlation between Bitcoins price and Pokemon card prices but we’re not going to know definitively without a study and I do not want to be the one sorting through all that data. I guess these days I could get AI to do it. But anyway, I just have a suspicion that Bitcoin is playing a role in the runup in Pokemon card prices.