Topps is one of the biggest name in trading cards. It was founded in 1938 and is responsible for some of the most well known trading cards the world has seen. In addition to baseball and football (soccer), the Topps company also put put WWE along with Garbage Pail Kids. The Star Wars series is also theirs.
One of the biggest benefits of blockchain is that it is a public record for all transactions. This makes it ideal for collectibles since people are often concerned about the "track record" of something they are buying. Counterfeiting is big business and blockchain can help to offset this a great deal.
The company announced that it is going to be joining the WAX blockchain, which is a sister chain of EOS using the EOSIO software. This will allow for people all over the world to be able to look up all the information regarding a particular card. Since blockchain records are permanent, all of a card's transaction history is stored. Information such as creation date, rarity, and ownership records can all be looked up prior to purchase.
Another aspect of this is that it will likely increase liquidity of these assets. One of the major advantages of blockchain along with cryptocurrency is the ability to take a non-liquid market and make it liquid. Trading cards certainly fall into the non-liquid category since finding buyers is a tedious process. Through the digitization, trading cards will be traded like stocks. One simply needs to log into his or her account and a transaction can be facilitated in a short period of time.
At its peak, the sports card industry alone topped $1 billion. While the official numbers saw this decline over the last 20 years, many feel it is misleading. Sports cards are usually traded as single items, using platforms such as Instagram to establish contact. Thus, it is hard to account for the true activity.
Incorporating blockchain will establish an exchange system where all trading cards can be traded. This will not only help to grow the industry but also give people a better feel for how it really is.
Here is the full story about the Topps decision to utilize the WAX blockchain.
Why is this important?
Part of the shift to mainstream use is the on-boarding of people. For years, non-crypto people asked "what can you use it for?". Now we are starting to see use cases popping up.
The key in the paradigm shift is when the 'lunatic fringe" is joined by mainstream companies. An institution like Topps adds a lot of legitimacy to the entire idea of trading assets on the blockchain. Thus, it only makes sense that it will lift the entire industry.
For success, we are going to have to see at least $10 trillion of the global economy moved over to blockchain. That will require a lot of innovation which will be further fueled by the increase in activity. This will not be achieved overnight. Instead, it will likely start with a billion dollars at a time.
With Topps making the move, there is a good chance that the other trading card companies are not far behind. While it is a declining industry, it is only one aspect of the very large sports memorabilia industry.
Collectibles are something that does not get a lot of attention in the crypto-media yet they are ideally suited for blockchain. People like to collect stuff and there are hundreds of thousands of different categories of things people like to amass. All of that can end up on blockchain if manufacturers will simply create a digital version on the blockchain.
NFTs are going to allow for the creation of purely digital assets which will likely become a huge business. In fact, it is likely that the digital asset is the largest class of assets by the end of this decade. With technologies such as virtual reality likely to become mainstream, the possibilities of creating digital assets such as "real estate" are enormous.
In the end, we are likely to see quadrillions of dollars in value generated here. The advantage digitization has is that there are few limits. A developer can always create another layer to go on top of what already exists.
Ultimately, everything will look like a game.
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