The rise of scalping Pokemon: or how I learned to live without having Pokemon.

Reason no. 2,345 that we cannot have nice things.

By now we have seen the videos of degenerate homunculi committing various assaults against polite society. Why is this happening?

Why Pokemon? What to do?

That Pokemon tin is mine!

The desperation is REAL.

With the downturn of the economy and inflation deeply effecting the vast majority of people. There are a number of metrics that can confirm this reality.

From stagnant wages, the dearth of affordable housing to constant increases in pricing everywhere have sent people's real personal income (income adjusted for inflation) spiraling. This is in addition to layoffs and a stagnant job market.

The ability for average people to put food on the table has become a challenge that many cannot overcome.

This has created perfect storm of circumstances where opportunists, finance bros and the desperate combined to make Pokemon scalping a meme.

An all too familiar sight for Pokemon fans of all ages.

Even Pikachu is helpless.

We are starting to see the Pokemon Company forced to react to the fervor and the complaints regarding the obvious botting of their Pokemon Center drops.

Implementing a queue system that has been in place in Japan for years. Including extra captcha's and Imperva security measures.

However it is only a matter of time for botting developers to devise software schemes to combat the new security features. Most already have capcha solvers and automate the entire process. So will the Pokemon company invest the capital required to eliminate scalpers botting? Or at least make the process easier for legitimate Pokemon fans?

These are the only Pokemon battles we condone

While the entire collectibles and Trading Card Game market has seen robust growth, Pokémon TCG experienced a dramatic, speculative boom, particularly around 2020-2022, leading to short-term returns on rare items that far surpassed the general market's already healthy growth rate.

Unfortunately this feels like the NEW normal.

Like I've covered in another article this is NOT a fad.

Pokemon has become the largest and most successful intellectual property of all time.

In under 30 years!

This is an new asset class. And everyone is climbing over each other to be "early" adopters. Not only has Pokemon outperformed the S & P 500 (in some cases by 3000%) it has outperformed the entire collectables industry.

As we have seen with the popularity of the tours of 90's bands. There is a strong pull of nostalgia for Millennials and Gen Zers. With uncertainty looming in the next 18 months, is it really surprising to see a surge in things that make people remember when times were simpler?

Recent sale of rare Pokemon Promo PSA 9 for over $37,000

Jump the line and visit our store Poke Drip.

We make Pokemon EASY. 

If you are interested in Authentic sealed Pokémon boxes, packs and related gifts.

With over 25 different Pokemon packs, descriptions of each set, featured Pokemon, and pictures of each chase card. Cheers!