your next 100x isn't on the blockchain, it's sitting in somebody's attic.
COLLECTIBLES SUPERCYCLE.
Crypto prices might come back someday, but crypto as a hobby/industry will always be tainted.
It's not your fault or my fault, that's just how it is.
The pendulum has swung to collectibles over the past few years, because the promises of "Web3" fell short and the whole store of value angle doesn't work for a variety of reason (mostly fraud, but that's another essay for another day).
However - don't despair!
There's an alternative to your images on the blockchain, they're called physical collectibles.
Reason? Provenance. But we'll get back to that later.
This essay/article will essentially be a laundry list of reasons FOR physical collectibles and AGAINST crypto.
Mind you, there's also reasons FOR crypto, but these are too few and far between - main reason being the one I'll mention at the end of the article.
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Why collectibles?
0. Legacy IP Scarcity in the Age of AI Content Proliferation
This is one of my main reasons for why collectibles are the best way to have convexity on this.
You probably heard this before: "gen-z yearns for authenticity"
On its own, this phrase means nothing - but if you've been on X and other social media you'd see the outrages that happened when Seedance 2.0 came out.
Thesis in broad strokes:
AI tools are collapsing the cost of creating new entertainment to near zero, flooding the market with infinite "new" content across every medium.
This devalues some remixes of IP and new IPs (until a new one is made, breaks into the mainstream and cycle begins anew, but I digress)
It also devalues new physical products associated with legacy IP - why pay a premium when consumers can generate, remix, and fork their own versions endlessly and then have it made for them in a Chinese factory.
Therefore, the answer is: reject modernity, embrvce trvdition
Pre-AI legacy IP is: culturally authenticated, finite, and impossible to inflate away (even companies themselves can't print more of it because card stock and printing stock is never the same after 3 decades, and even the Chinese cannot replicate it so easily, trust me, they tried)
"Proof of human creative effort" becomes a luxury signal as the gap between the human-crafted era and the AI-generated era widens
Physical media and collectibles tied to legacy IP (sealed retro games, early-gen TCG cards, comic books like pic related) function as hard assets.
If it's:
✅ In excellent condition
✅ Nostalgic
✅ From a famous IP before said IP was famous
✅ 20-30y old
Congratulations - you got a gem.
Just buy the old stuff bros.
People have fond memories of certain collectibles/brands - not so many fond memories about crypto
The dream regarding cryptocurrency is one of equitable outcomes. Yet for many it's been a zero sum game and one where less savvy participants have been absolutely RINSED and BUTTBLASTED by those who were more savvy market participants.
This is not the case with collectibles - very rarely do you get extreme bubbles and point of no return (an item being -90% and never recovering), and hey, even if it does, at least you can physically touch it and look at it.
If you buy things you personally like and have a nostalgic bond to - you will almost never be a forced seller.
Second of all - certain TCGs and IPs have incredible lore that cannot be replicated.
200 crypto people cannot gather in a convention somewhere without some scandal happening, let alone 20000 people gathering on the street to pay respect to something - only possible with certain brands.
..which leads me to:
2. Dev is (usually) from Japan, not India
The "devs" are companies with 30+ year long established track records, and they stand to lose a lot if they make the wrong moves.
The authors (who retain, usually, some creative liberty) are also pretty sensible people and NOT motivated by profits.
That's just the way they are.
Conversely, when you buy an NFT you're trusting usually a collective that sprang up from nowhere - usually in an attempt to rip you off.
Maybe you saw them from a viral post/article on X, maybe someone from Web2 who might or might have not decided to come into crypto to make a quick buck and fuck off.
When you're buying a physical collectible you're buying into a company's and author's reputation and track record - and stakes are much different at that level.
Long high trust societies in an age of distrust.
3. Demographic changes and changes in habits.
Gen-Z wants authenticity, wants nostalgia, and has had enough of the lightning-speed "bundle coin tg bot scan CA set limit sell" terminally online experience that Crypto/Web3 are on by default.
This is the antithesis to it.
30s are the new 20s.
40s are the new 30s.
The pandemic has opened up an entirely new cohort to the physical collecting hobby and also is home to the quirky chungus maladjusted manchild archetype...which tends to be full of disposable income, somehow!
4. Counterparty risks are incredibly low - provenance
a record of ownership of a work of art or an antique, used as a guide to authenticity or quality.
Or in simpler English: chances of the "dev/team" fucking you over are next to none, because the asset is more or less detached from the company.
Pokemon Company decides to reprint Pikachu Illustrator?
The original still holds the same value because it comes from a set of 39 cards issued in a special event back in 1998.
Konami decides to reprint a Blue Eyes or Dark Magician?
The LOB 1st edition prices don't move.
China reverse engineers card stock? Difficult, but autists will find a way.
Konami/Pokemon decide to stop the TCG business altogether?
Nothing changes because the originals are already printed, on the market, if anything that'd probably be bullish because there's a set cap to a 30+ year long hobby.
Plus, many ways to ensure authenticity, "objective" condition of a card by companies that have been set up for decades now (PSA, Beckett's, now ARS as of recently too) and can vouch for authenticity, chain of custody, etc.
That's provenance.
5. Mainstream virality/main characters being formed + social aspect
It might have started with Logan Paul and Pokemon but it's definitely not ending there.
Finding zany/quirky/cool characters out in the open such as Kabuto King (he's a guy that collects so much of a worthless card so much so that he's a meme and that starts a feedback loop and snowballs, lol!!! funny!!!!) will be more and more of a thing as time goes by.
Everyone likes a successful and relatable success story, which crypto is not offering (because its a scam, more on that below)
In smaller TCGs you're already seeing similar copycats being formed, Skull Servant enjoyers in Yugioh, etc.
Filming content on unboxing is super viral too and there's business models around it too.
Even before this boom of last year, small niche communities and discords have banded around TCG creators creating content, despite knowing its -EV for them to participate in it.
Just like donations! People yearn to be part of something!
6. Self-custody is not as big of an issue as it is with crypto
*clicks the wrong approve on Rabby/Metamask*
*copypastes wrong address because he got poisoned*
*forgets computer password and/or seedphrase*
*animates his ape*
*loses entire networth*
While crypto's fungibility and self-custody of assets is a big boon, it's just as doubleedged of a sword for the average person (the person that is in charge of buying our bags with their salaries, something that's been missing from crypto since 2021)
Think about how "hard" it is to take care of your TCG?
Theft/burglary (also applies to crypto)
Fire/flood/tornado (fireproof vaults/safes exist, cost as much as a higher end crypto wallet, really)
Damage (hard to happen if properly slabbed and taken care of but ok)
We've yet to see people getting wrenched for TCGs, and there's probably a good reason for that:
Properly graded cards have barcodes and serial numbers.
Say you steal this card below from someone by holding them hostage in their own home and torturing them.
What's next?
If you break the slab, good luck getting this rated again as a PSA 10, your haul and payday could go from 50k to less than 10k.
If you keep the slab, who do you flog it to? It's in a database, the minute you put it on eBay you'll have cops on your ass.
PROVENANCE!
7. The valuations aren't actually that crazy [long term]!
The legwork involved in minting an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain was to akin to black magic to a layman back in 2020.
Now in 2026, a -2sd child with no limbs could do it, easily.
Taking care of a collectible for 20+ years takes much more effort and energy, as well as the process of grading it, shipping it, etc - and it's only right that this gets rewarded.
In the grand scheme of things, this screams long physicals and short (if its even possible anymore..) NFTs.
There's more reasons for "why collectibles" but I've already mentioned some before
Why not crypto? [reasons why crypto sucks]
*rant incoming*
TL;DR - too much fucking crime and get rich quick schemes that burned way too many casual participants from ever coming back (also they poor now cuz AI lol!)
Ease of deployment has been trivialized
In 2020/2021 you had to be somewhat knowledgeable to deploy a token on mainnet or another sidechain/EVM chain.
Yes, if you're coming from a technical background in javascript/solidity I know you will laugh at me for saying you needed technical knowledge to be a dev back then - but a barrier did indeed exist. As small as it was, minus lack of AI tools and the fact you needed to go manually into StackOverflow, it was still a deterrent.
Now, thanks to platforms like pumpfun and proliferation of "trenches" everyone is called a "dev", which by definition means no one is really a dev.
Saturation has been reached, the president of the USA and his wife have their own coins, obvious in hindsight, but the Rubicon had been crossed.
2. Digital-only collectibles (NFTs) have failed, the ERC standard hasn't
(Mature) markets all experience contractions and expansions - that's how it goes, but some never recover.
Here's a list of reasons off the top of my head why that is the case with NFTs:
Ultimately, no one's drinking the koolaid, the macro situation is such that even established assets (top10 majors) have issues catching a bid.
"Utility" NFTs failed because greedy teams always knew the equation. [community_benefits]<[team profits], this has happened with virtually every single NFT that signaled (if not directly promised) utility coming.
The level of crime by greedy teams has been hilarious, constant pivots to other blockchains, last ditch attempts to "provide value" to existing holders by having them buy the old NFT to mint the new one, promises of making video games, anime series, and other bullshit (never amounted to anything)
The standard (ERC-721 and many adjacent ones) still have a place, there's cool stuff that can be done with it such as connecting claims to physical goods (more on that later), yes, but the "digital only collectibles" angle is as dead as it will ever be.
Even founders have given up on their own projects and are now buying collectibles (case in point below)
3. Main characters are mostly crooks, corporations aren't (paradox!)
If someone was ever a main character in crypto, they're probably not beyond reproach and have a shady history that at some point ends up on the timeline.
If you've been around on X as long as I have, you'll know this is just a matter of time.
There's layers and nuance to it - people trying to cancel GCR or Cobie won't really get far, but they're not really founders in the traditional sense nor are they KOLs/main characters, they're quite a bit more than that.
It doesn't matter how successful or useful a product someone is founding, almost like clockwork, dirty laundry about founders and unethical past/current behavior comes out at some point.
This is the issue with decentralization and permissionless markets.
Most people would rather put their money in the hands of established gigacorpos than random third worlder founders who got lucky in mysterious ways.
4. In crypto promises come first, delivery later
The cartoon came first, then the trading cards.
The manga came first, then the trading cards.
The video game franchise came first, then __________
...am I the only one seeing the trend?
In crypto, it looks like this:
Founder innovates in some way (or pretends to pull enough wool over people's eyes to overplay the innovation)
VC invests (could also be getting scammed, but most likely in it to scam others)
A story is made (for the intent of scamming once token is out)
[METRIC FUCKTON OF PROMISES MADE HERE TO HYPE PEOPLE UP TO GET THEIR WALLETS OUT AND INVEST IN GARBAGE]
Once ICO/private sale/airdrop time comes around, the team and VC conspire to fuck over the outsiders at the benefit of the insiders, while trying to pretend the story is still just as valid as it was a year or two ago.
Rinse and repeat.
5. Crypto used to be a convexity play on adoption of new technologies and capital being allocated to the most efficient points on the risk frontier
...but AI and AI-adjacent stuff kinda stole its thunder.
There's a much more interesting game in town with new things happening on a weekly basis, and crypto's attempts at stealing back the spotlight have been cringe (at worst) and falling short (at best).
GCR once famously exclaimed:
Don't get me wrong - you should definitely have some exposure to crypto.
But don't bet on this being your meal ticket the way it was in 2020/21.
It's no longer the quirky chungus hobby of basement dwellers and /g/ enthusiasts (yes, I was there before it branched off to /biz/!)
Hyperliquid.
If you've made it this far, congratulations.
Nothing here was sponsored (yet, lol!), all trademarks and rights belong to their original companies/brand owners.
Any insults and derogatory terms are used for levity and comedic effect and do not represent any opinions of katexbt LLC, /KHAG/ and associates.
Not much more to say than:
a digitally-saturated individual yearns for a good % of capital to be in physical assets
humans are only spiraling further into addiction, further divorced from physical ties, and they yearn for something that can ease their suffering, a tramadol for their opiate addiction
buy physical collectibles
