Let me tell you a story.

Logan Paul — yes, the same YouTuber who's caused scandals on multiple continents — sold a Pokémon card for $16.5 million. World record. The buyer was AJ Scaramucci, son of the infamous Anthony Scaramucci, the guy who lasted eleven days as White House Communications Director before getting kicked to the curb.

Sounds like a joke. It's not.

The card is the "Pikachu Illustrator," manufactured in 1998, with only a few dozen copies in existence worldwide. Logan Paul had bought the same card in 2021 for $5.3 million. He just sold it with over 200% return.

While you were arguing about whether to buy or sell, a Pikachu delivered 200% in four years.

Is the Circus Actually Right This Time?

My first instinct was the usual: another bubble, another circus, another rich-and-bored asset class for people looking to park money the Fed printed out of thin air.

But then the data shows up and wrecks the easy narrative.

According to Card Ladder, a card market analytics firm, monthly secondary trading volume has nearly doubled over the last two years. Their Pokémon index is up 145% in the past year. The S&P 500? 15.2%. Alphabet — Wall Street's Big Tech darling — rose 73% in the same period.

You read that right. A collection of cards with little Japanese monsters beat Alphabet on the year.

eBay CEO Jamie Iannone confirmed on the earnings call that collectibles — especially cards — were the company's biggest growth driver in the fourth quarter. eBay owns Goldin Auctions, which ran the $16 million Pikachu auction.

This is no longer a niche for nostalgic man-children. This is a market.

Scaramucci and the Debasement Trade

AJ Scaramucci — founder of Solari Capital and buyer of the most expensive card in history — isn't doing this out of nostalgia. He's doing it as an investment thesis.

His thesis is what the market calls the debasement trade: when governments print money and destroy currency purchasing power, capital migrates toward scarce, tangible assets that no central bank printer can replicate.

Gold. Bitcoin. Art. Rare real estate. And now: a 1998 Pikachu.

"The compound annual growth rate on these cards is off the charts," Scaramucci said. "And they should be treated as investments because that's exactly what they are. It's obvious."

Taleb would love this logic. A scarce asset, uncorrelated with equities, with value determined by genuine scarcity — not by some analyst's cash flow projection from a guy who's never risked a dime of his own money in his life.

But Hold On — Here's Where It Gets Ugly

Paul Karger of TwinFocus, a wealth advisory firm for people with a whole lot more money than you or me, has more sobering advice: "Think of it as passion first, investment second."

And he's right about the part that stings.

Collectibles have serious problems no influencer is ever going to tell you about:

First: zero liquidity. You can't sell a Pikachu Illustrator on a Friday afternoon because you need to cover a margin call. You wait for the right auction, the right buyer, the right moment.

Second: the price is whatever someone is willing to pay. There's no balance sheet. No earnings per share. The value is 100% narrative and demand. If the narrative dies, the asset craters.

Third — and this is where it really cuts deep: in the U.S., capital gains on collectibles are taxed at 28%. Depending on how you structure the deal, the situation can be just as brutal elsewhere.

So before you dump your whole portfolio for a box of sealed cards, take a breath.

So What Do You Do With This Information?

Here's what I actually think, straight up:

Collectibles can be a legitimate portfolio complement for people who already have their foundation built — fixed income, equities, capital protection. For those people, allocating a small slice to uncorrelated alternative assets makes sense.

But if you're still trying to build your emergency fund, the Pikachu can wait.

The real problem isn't the $16 million card. The problem is the guy with zero financial structure who's going to blow $800 on sealed packs after watching a YouTube video, convinced he's about to get rich.

That's the same old circus. New packaging, same show.

The difference between Scaramucci and that guy? Real skin in the game — and a capital cushion big enough to absorb a mistake without going broke.

Do you have that cushion?