Author: Nancy, PANews

Recently, the TCG project Collector Crypt stormed into the top 10 of the entire network’s revenue rankings and briefly topped the list of the highest-revenue protocols on Solana, sparking heated discussion in the community.

While most crypto projects are still struggling to survive in the bear market, Collector Crypt has become one of the few money-printing machines in the market thanks to its strong profitability. The tokenized TCG track represented by Collector Crypt is bringing the fun of collecting and card-drawing on-chain, quickly capturing the attention of the crypto market.

Is On-Chain TCG “Outperforming” NFT? Solana Captures 80% of the Market

Since last year, TCGs (Trading Card Games), which blend IP, collectibles, social, and gaming attributes, have entered a new growth cycle, with market enthusiasm continuing to rise.

This TCG wave is also beginning to migrate on-chain. Since 2025, a number of tokenized TCG players have emerged in the crypto market, including Collector Crypt, Phygitals, Courtyard, Ready Cards, Beezie, and more.

Compared with traditional physical cards, tokenized TCGs significantly improve liquidity and trading efficiency while reducing risks such as counterfeiting and theft, with advantages particularly evident for high-value cards. However, due to heavy reliance on centralized vaults and custody systems, they have also raised market concerns: if the platform fails or the vault encounters problems, it could result in asset losses.

To address these issues, some on-chain platforms are beginning to introduce more robust physical anchoring and risk control mechanisms. For example, Collector Crypt operates an approximately 28,000-square-foot physical storage vault in Montana, USA, to store real card assets, and uses grading systems like PSA for authentication and endorsement, enhancing asset transparency and user trust.

Benefiting from the continued prosperity of the physical collectibles market and growing demand for asset tokenization, the on-chain TCG market has entered a phase of rapid growth in recent months, becoming one of the more prominent growth sub-sectors in the current crypto bear market.

Data from Artemis shows that in June 2026, on-chain TCG market trading volume exceeded $490 million, a 7.6-fold increase compared to the same period last year; monthly active users numbered around 5,300, up roughly 253.3% year-on-year; cumulative monthly protocol revenue reached about $11.8 million, more than 1.8 times that of the previous year.

Looking at the NFT sector, CryptoSlam data shows that over the same period, NFT market trading volume was about $150 million. Although both are on-chain digital collectible assets, TCGs demonstrate higher user engagement and trading activity. The main reasons are that they combine the real value backing of physical cards, continuous usage scenarios driven by competitive and gaming attributes, and the high liquidity, asset composability, and global circulation capabilities enabled by on-chain trading.

From the perspective of the public chain ecosystem, tokenized TCG projects are currently deployed mainly on mainstream chains like Solana, BNB Chain, Polygon, and Base. Among them, Solana, leveraging its technical advantages, first-mover effect, and the hit application Collector Crypt, has become the core battleground for tokenized TCGs. According to Artemis data, Solana has captured 80.8% of the on-chain TCG market share, far surpassing other chains, making it the most active and liquid ecosystem for tokenized TCGs today.

However, from an overall market perspective, on-chain TCGs are still in their early stages. According to a Global Market Insights report, the global TCG market size is expected to reach or has already crossed approximately $9.2 billion in 2026, and is projected to reach $16.9 billion by 2035.

Compared to the vast physical market, the penetration rate of on-chain TCGs remains limited, which also means there is significant room for growth in asset on-chaining, trading infrastructure, and global liquidity.

Collector Crypt Dominates, but 97% of Revenue Is Driven by Whales

The explosive growth of the on-chain TCG track this cycle is inseparable from the push by Collector Crypt. As the most dominant project in the current track, it has opened a significant gap with other platforms in terms of trading scale, revenue-generating ability, and market share.

Artemis data shows that since its launch, Collector Crypt's cumulative trading volume has surpassed $1.4 billion, with cumulative protocol revenue reaching $68 million, far exceeding other on-chain TCG platforms.

Looking at market performance over the past week, Collector Crypt’s trading volume was about $127 million, accounting for 74.3% of the entire on-chain TCG market; during the same period, other platforms mostly had volumes of only a few million dollars or even lower. In terms of revenue, Collector Crypt’s weekly protocol revenue was about $5.2 million, while other platforms generally had only tens of thousands of dollars, with some even operating at a loss.

In addition to continuously expanding its lead in the on-chain TCG track, Collector Crypt’s profitability is also beginning to join the top tier of the entire crypto industry.

Recently, Collector Crypt entered the top ten of the entire network’s protocol revenue rankings alongside protocols like Tether, Circle, and Hyperliquid, demonstrating its commercial capability to compete with leading projects in mature tracks such as DeFi and stablecoins. Meanwhile, according to DeFiLlama data, as of June 26, Collector Crypt had become the second-highest-revenue protocol on Solana, behind only the meme money-printing machine Pump.fun.

In fact, since the start of this year, almost all of Collector Crypt’s core business metrics have entered a phase of rapid growth.

Artemis data shows that in June of this year, the platform's monthly trading volume exceeded $330 million, up about 3.4 times from January’s $97.5 million; over the same period, monthly active users grew from 276 to 735, an increase of about 2.6 times; and protocol revenue grew from $4.4 million to $13.4 million, more than tripling.

However, while Collector Crypt is growing rapidly, it also faces pressure on profitability. Blockworks data shows that as of June 26, the platform had achieved cumulative total revenue of $707 million, but net income was only $46.33 million, a revenue retention rate of about 6.5%. At the same time, affected by factors such as an increasing proportion of high-priced, low-margin card packs and an extremely high instant repurchase rate, the platform's gross margin has continued to decline, dropping to 2.74% as of June 24, a notable decrease from 6.03% at the start of the year.

Moreover, from the user structure perspective, Collector Crypt's revenue remains highly dependent on a small number of high-net-worth players, making it a veritable "whale paradise" for on-chain TCGs.

Dune data shows that over the past six months, the platform had about 14,594 on-chain paying users, contributing nearly $500 million in trading volume. Among them, only 80 players (0.6% of total users) who spent over $1 million contributed 51.8% of revenue; 522 users (3.6%) who spent between $100,000 and $1 million contributed 35.6% of revenue; and users spending between $10,000 and $100,000 (10.4%) contributed 9.7% of revenue. In contrast, users who spent less than $250, accounting for over 42.1% of total users, contributed only about 0.1% of revenue. In other words, about 14.6% of Collector Crypt's users currently contribute about 97.1% of the platform’s revenue.

This highly concentrated revenue structure, on one hand, reflects that Collector Crypt’s high-net-worth users have strong spending power and consumption stickiness, providing the platform with considerable profitability, though it is difficult to completely rule out wash trading; on the other hand, it also means that if the platform is to achieve sustainable, scalable growth, it still needs to expand its user base and reduce its dependence on transactions from a few whales.

With Fewer Than 1,000 Daily Active Users, How Did Collector Crypt Break Into the Revenue Top 10?

One of the key reasons driving the explosion in Collector Crypt’s trading is the on-chain gacha mechanism introduced by the platform. This model draws on the card-opening gameplay of traditional TCGs, using random rewards, scarce cards, and instant feedback to continuously amplify players' anticipation and willingness to spend repeatedly, becoming the core engine of the platform’s transaction growth.

Currently, Collector Crypt has become the largest on-chain gacha market on Solana, capturing about 87.4% of the market share.

Blockworks and Artemis data respectively show that in June alone, the platform’s gacha transaction volume reached $127 million, accounting for nearly all of the platform’s total transaction volume. Over the same period, cumulative pack-opening value surpassed $100 million, nearly doubling from the start of the year. At the same time, the number of participants has continued to grow. As of June 23, the platform had 811 daily active gacha users, while in previous months the number typically fell short of 300.

It is worth noting that Collector Crypt's high transaction volume is not only driven by increased activity, but also thanks to the large spending continuously contributed by the whale users mentioned earlier. Blockworks data shows that the average gacha spending per user reached as high as $7,829, and briefly surged to $9,858 over the past two months.

In addition to the gacha mechanism, the Pokémon IP and token economic model have also become important drivers of Collector Crypt's sustained growth.

Among them, the Pokémon IP is the platform's most core source of traffic. Blockworks data shows that in June this year, the tokenized collectible value (TCV) on the Collector Crypt platform reached $26.1 million, with approximately 73.8% coming from Pokémon cards. Among the popular pack-opening products, about 76% of the packs were Pokémon series, and the $1,000 Pokémon bundle accounted for nearly half of all pack openings. In other words, premium IP remains a crucial foundation for driving user spending and trading.

On the other hand, the CARDS token has constructed a growth flywheel for the platform. Since its launch, Collector Crypt has released a total of 4.75% of the CARDS supply to the community, including a 2.5% initial airdrop during the TGE phase and three quarterly airdrops, each releasing 0.75%, with the latest quarterly airdrop valued at approximately $4 million.

Compared to mere airdrop incentives, Collector Crypt has also established a dual buyback mechanism: on one hand, it conducts instant buybacks of card assets to provide continuous liquidity for trading; on the other hand, it uses protocol revenue to continuously buy back CARDS tokens to strengthen the token's value support.

As platform trading continues to grow, protocol revenue increases in tandem, and the scale of CARDS buybacks expands; the rising token price further stimulates user willingness to trade, open packs, and hold, thereby creating a flywheel effect.

As a result, CoinGecko data shows that CARDS has surged more than 412% this year, with the current FDV reaching $510 million. Recently, Maelstrom, the family office under Arthur Hayes, gave CARDS a target price of $4 by the end of summer in its research report, further heightening market attention.

It is worth mentioning that according to a report by Maelstrom Fund analyst Lukas Ruppert, wallets associated with Collector Crypt's operations center have cashed out a total of $45.7 million USDC.

It is important to note that the CARDS token will face continuous unlocks. Currently, Collector Crypt has completed approximately 23.6% of token unlocks, with the remaining tokens locked until November 2027. The next unlock will take place on June 29, with an estimated release of about 28.84 million CARDS, worth approximately $7.46 million; additionally, the official team recently disclosed that a Pre-Seed round early investor has sold about $1.5 million worth of CARDS tokens to a liquidity fund via OTC trading.

As operating capital flows out, tokens continue to unlock, and early chips begin to cash in profits, the circulating supply in the market will gradually increase, and investors should keep monitoring the potential short-term market selling pressure.

Overall, the rise of Collector Crypt validates the viability of the on-chain TCG business model and propels this sector into a rapid development phase. However, on-chain TCG is still in its early stages of development, and there remains significant room for growth in terms of user expansion, asset supply, and infrastructure.