Logan Paul turned a Pokémon card into a marketing asset by treating it not as a collectible to be stored in a vault, but as a wearable prop in an ongoing public performance. He spent $75,000 on a diamond-encrusted casing set on a 10-karat gold chain, wore the card around his neck at WrestleMania 38 in front of millions of viewers, and made it part of his personal brand for years before selling it at Goldin Auctions on February 15-16, 2026, for $16,492,000 — a world record for any trading card sold at auction. The sale itself doubled as a product launch for his new collectibles trading platform, Ripit, turning what could have been a quiet auction into a media event watched by over 45,000 people on livestream.
The playbook is worth studying regardless of your opinion on Paul himself. He acquired the PSA Gem Mint 10 Pikachu Illustrator card — one of only 39 ever made, and the sole copy graded at that level — in July 2021 for his PSA Grade 9 copy plus $4 million in cash. Four and a half years later, he walked away with roughly a 3x return while simultaneously launching a business and generating wall-to-wall media coverage without spending a dollar on traditional advertising. This article breaks down how he did it: how visibility inflates provenance, how auctions can function as marketing events, and what the whole episode says about where the high-end Pokémon card market is heading.
Table of Contents
- How Did Performance Art Transform a Pokémon Card Into Something More Than a Collectible?
- Why the Auction Was a Product Launch Disguised as a Sale
- The Buyer and What the Purchase Signals About the Market
- How Celebrity Provenance Changes Card Valuation
- The Risks of Turning Collectibles Into Content
- What Ripit Tells Us About the Future of Card Trading Platforms
- Where Does This Leave the Pokémon Card Market?
- Conclusion
How Did Performance Art Transform a Pokémon Card Into Something More Than a Collectible?
The pikachu Illustrator card was already legendary before Paul got involved. Created for a Pokémon illustration competition in the late 1990s, only 39 copies exist, and the particular copy Paul acquired is the only one ever graded PSA Gem Mint 10. It did not need a celebrity owner to be valuable. But Paul’s contribution was understanding that a card’s story can be as important as its condition. By physically wearing it — not just owning it — he attached his own narrative to the card’s provenance in a way that no previous owner had attempted. The WrestleMania 38 appearance in 2022 was the clearest example. In Arlington, Texas, in front of a stadium audience and a global pay-per-view broadcast, Paul wore the most expensive Pokémon card in existence around his neck during his WWE in-ring debut.
That single moment merged high-stakes collecting with sports entertainment in a way that made the card visible to millions of people who had never thought about the Pokémon card market. It was performance art in the most literal sense — the card was a costume piece, a character detail, a talking point. The comparison to traditional collecting is stark. Most owners of elite cards keep them in bank vaults or safety deposit boxes. The card accrues value through scarcity and condition, but it remains invisible to the public. Paul inverted that model. He treated visibility itself as a value-add, wearing the card to major events over the following years and making it part of his public identity. Whether you find the approach admirable or grating, the financial results are hard to argue with.
Why the Auction Was a Product Launch Disguised as a Sale
The February 2026 auction at Goldin was structured less like a traditional collectibles sale and more like a media event with a transaction attached. Bidding initially held at $6.882 million before a flurry of last-minute offers during an extended bidding period lasting several hours drove the final price to $16.49 million across 97 total bids. The drama of the extended bidding was not incidental — it kept 45,000 livestream viewers glued to their screens for hours. Paul used that captive audience to introduce Ripit, his new collectibles trading platform. The site promises “VIP early access to rip packs that represent real, physical, graded cards.” During the livestream, more than 4,100 people signed up for early access.
He also unpacked $1.5 million worth of pokémon boxes on camera during the event, a live content play that kept audiences engaged between bidding updates. The auction was the hook, Ripit was the pitch, and the card ripping was the entertainment that held the whole thing together. However, this model has a significant limitation: it only works if you already have the audience. Paul leveraged 23.6 million YouTube subscribers and 26.8 million Instagram followers to drive viewership without traditional advertising. A collector without that built-in distribution would not be able to replicate the same results simply by livestreaming an auction. The strategy is instructive, but it is not a template that transfers easily to someone without an existing media platform.
The Buyer and What the Purchase Signals About the Market
The buyer was identified as AJ Scaramucci, a venture capital founder and the son of Anthony Scaramucci. The purchase is notable because it suggests that ultra-high-end Pokémon cards are now attracting buyers from the same financial world that drives fine art and rare wine markets. Scaramucci is not a YouTuber or a childhood Pokémon fan making a nostalgia purchase — he is a VC founder making a capital allocation decision. This matters for the broader Pokémon card market because it signals that cards at the very top end are being treated as alternative assets rather than collectibles. When a venture capital founder pays $16.49 million for a trading card, the calculation is not purely emotional.
There is an expectation, implicit or explicit, that the asset will hold or increase in value. The Logan Paul provenance — the WrestleMania moment, the years of public appearances, the record-setting auction — adds a layer of story that makes the card more liquid and more marketable to the next buyer. For everyday collectors, this is a double-edged development. It validates Pokémon cards as a legitimate asset class, which supports values across the market. But it also means that the highest-end cards are increasingly priced for institutional or ultra-high-net-worth buyers, not for hobbyists. The gap between a $50 card and a $16 million card is not just a matter of rarity — it is a matter of who the market participants are.
How Celebrity Provenance Changes Card Valuation
There is a long history of provenance affecting value in traditional collectibles. A baseball signed by Babe Ruth is worth more if it was the ball from a specific historic game. A painting’s value changes based on who previously owned it. Paul applied this principle to Pokémon cards, but with a modern twist: he manufactured the provenance in real time, on camera, in front of millions of people. The tradeoff is that celebrity provenance is inherently volatile.
A card associated with a beloved public figure may increase in value if that person’s reputation holds. But public figures fall out of favor, get embroiled in controversies, or simply fade from relevance. A PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrator will always be rare — there will always be only one at that grade — but the premium attached to “Logan Paul’s Pikachu Illustrator” is tied to a human being’s public standing, which is unpredictable. For the buyer, the question is whether the card’s intrinsic rarity is sufficient to justify the price independent of the celebrity story. By comparison, the previous record for a Pokémon card sale was Paul’s own purchase in 2021, and before that, prices for elite Pokémon cards were already climbing on the strength of rarity and nostalgia alone. The celebrity layer accelerated the trend but also introduced a variable that traditional collectors may find uncomfortable.
The Risks of Turning Collectibles Into Content
Paul’s approach worked spectacularly in this case, but it carries risks that are worth naming. When a collectible becomes content, its value becomes partially dependent on engagement metrics. The 45,000 livestream viewers and 4,100 Ripit signups are impressive numbers, but they also mean the card’s sale was entangled with platform dynamics — algorithm reach, notification timing, competing livestreams — that have nothing to do with the card’s intrinsic qualities. There is also the question of sustainability. Paul unpacked $1.5 million worth of Pokémon boxes during the auction livestream, which is entertaining but also reinforces a culture of spectacle around card collecting that can distort market expectations.
When new collectors enter the hobby because they watched a $16 million auction on YouTube, they may arrive with unrealistic expectations about returns and liquidity. Most Pokémon cards are not PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrators, and most sellers do not have 23 million followers to amplify their sales. A final warning: the line between “performance art” and “marketing stunt” is thin, and it depends largely on who is drawing it. For collectors who care about the cards themselves, the spectacle can feel like a distraction from what makes the hobby meaningful. The market does not care about that distinction, but individual collectors should be honest with themselves about whether they are collecting cards or chasing clout.
What Ripit Tells Us About the Future of Card Trading Platforms
The Ripit launch is arguably the most strategically interesting part of the entire episode. Paul used a one-time event — the sale of a unique card — to seed a recurring business. Ripit promises to let users rip digital packs that correspond to real, physical, graded cards.
If executed well, it merges the dopamine hit of pack-opening content with actual card ownership, and it does so on a platform Paul controls. The 4,100 early signups during the auction are a modest number by tech startup standards, but they were acquired at zero customer acquisition cost, during a moment of maximum attention. Whether Ripit succeeds will depend on execution — card authentication, shipping logistics, pricing, and whether the platform can sustain interest beyond the launch hype. But as a case study in using owned media to launch a product, the playbook was efficient.
Where Does This Leave the Pokémon Card Market?
The $16.49 million sale establishes a new ceiling for Pokémon card values, and more broadly, for trading cards as a category. It is now a matter of public record that a single Pokémon card can sell for more than many houses, more than many businesses, and more than most fine art pieces. That fact will continue to attract new money and new attention to the market, for better and for worse.
The more interesting question is whether the Paul model — acquire, display, narrate, sell — becomes a repeatable strategy for other high-profile collectors. If it does, we may see a shift in how elite cards are valued, with visibility and narrative history becoming explicit factors alongside condition and rarity. For the average collector, the takeaway is simpler: the cards you own are worth what someone will pay for them, and story still matters more than almost anything else in determining that number.
Conclusion
Logan Paul’s Pikachu Illustrator saga demonstrates that in the modern collectibles market, visibility is a form of value creation. By wearing the card publicly for years, staging the auction as a livestreamed media event, and using the moment to launch Ripit, Paul extracted far more value from the card than a quiet private sale would have generated. The roughly 3x return on a $4 million acquisition, combined with the free launch of a new business and massive media coverage, represents a new template for how celebrity collectors can monetize rare assets. For Pokémon card collectors and investors, the lessons are practical even if the scale is not replicable.
Provenance matters. Story matters. The context in which a card is sold can be as important as the card itself. Whether you are selling a $16 million Pikachu Illustrator or a $200 Charizard, the principle holds: a card with a story attached is worth more than the same card sitting anonymously in a binder.
