🥛 The Pokémon ETF is real 🎮

GM. This is Milk Road Degen, the crypto newsletter that’s more addictive than ripping open a fresh Pokémon booster pack.

Here’s what we got for you today:

✍️ Forget memes, it’s cards season
🎙️ Milk Road Degen Podcast: Why $PUMP Could Flip $HYPE & How to Trade the Next Leg w/ Deeze
🍪 Solana treasuries top $4B with 17.1M SOL held

Swords of Blood is a fast-paced role-playing game where players battle, progress, and earn rewards. Play the game now.

Prices as of 8:00 AM ET.

FORGET MEMES, IT’S CARDS SEASON

Degen, let’s get nerdy.

I’ve been getting this question a lot: should I be buying Pokémon cards?

And tbh the answer is no, you shouldn’t.

Pikachu and his friends are apparently in the middle of a massive bull market, but top-blasting into collectibles is rarely a winning move. The right time to buy was 2–3 years back, not now.

That said, there's one corner of the space that actually does interest me: the physical/digital connection.

Last week I got dragged into a Moonbirds RWA sale (yes, those Moonbirds that once reached a $100k floor). I dropped $300 on a case with a physical component tied to a digital one. Turns out the marketplace it was on - Collector Crypt - is actually dominating the volume charts on Solana.

Source: MagicEden

And when I checked DeFiLlama, I noticed something: the 30-day revenue chart is getting crowded with these Pokémon card marketplaces. Sitting in spots #14 and #23 for 7-day revenue is no small thing, especially with six-figure daily rev.

Source: DeFiLlama

Turns out, this may be a real thing.

So today, let’s look at the tokens making noise in this “phygital” card game meta. As sidelined non-nerds, these may be the beta plays we can afford.

$CARDS - The segment leader (for now)

This is the one that pulled me in, and probably the leading ticker to watch for the whole sector.

Collector Crypt runs a warehouse that stores real cards. Each one gets an NFT version, and you can buy them online through their “gacha” vending machine system. The kicker: you can sell back instantly to the machine, creating a sticky loop.

Source: @notpratty

I tested it myself: bought a $50 spin, pulled a PSA 10 1996 Caterpie, and instantly had the option to sell back for $40. Not bad!

Source: Collector Crypt

The site itself is clunky, but the revenue is real. And in crypto right now, revenue drives narrative. Think Hyperliquid. Think Pump. If $CARDS holds steady revenue, the token could be repriced higher.

Source: @sjdedic

How I’m playing it

I’m watching for a retrace. Smart money has been exiting since early September, but if Solana has a run this Fall, $CARDS could easily make another leg up. Below $0.18 is knife city, but it’s still in a nice short-term uptrend.

Source: DEXscreener

How to buy

Buy on Milk Road Swap
Buy on Axiom (my referral code)
CA: CARDSccUMFKoPRZxt5vt3ksUbxEFEcnZ3H2pd3dKxYjp

IS THIS THE NEXT 100X GEM IN GAMEFI?

GameFi has been quiet…

But with the bull market heating up, this sector is primed for a comeback.

The project to watch? Swords of Blood by Hit Box Games.

It’s a fast-paced role-playing game where players battle, progress, and rack up rewards:

50,000+ total users
8,000 daily active users
41% 7-day retention rate

And here’s the kicker: the game goes live before the token ($HBOX) launches.

A proven game + smart tokenomics = the perfect setup for liftoff.

Don’t miss the $HBOX presale.

FORGET MEMES, IT’S CARDS SEASON (P2)

$PKMN - The ETF of Pokémon cards

This one could be huge - but the token doesn’t exist yet.

Phygitals is a rival marketplace to Collector Crypt, with its own gacha system. They’re doing half the 30-day revenue of Crypt - still massive - and now a new token is coming: $PKMN on Hyperliquid.

Source: @androolloyd

It’s being described as an ETF of Pokémon cards. Cards will be tradable for tokens and vice versa. Users will likely get airdrops based on holdings. And the project is backed by Hypurr, one of Hyperliquid’s OG protocols.

The mechanics aren’t fully clear yet, but if $CARDS is worth $80M FDV, you can imagine the hype here.

Source: @reubs_btc

How I’m playing it

Two steps:

Sign up for Hyperliquid and get USDC ready.
Use Phygitals now. Buy a $25 pack, flip it, and build points toward the airdrop. Worst case you lose a few bucks, best case you get free tokens.

I’ll be trading packs aggressively to rack up volume before launch.

Notable mentions

Not a third main pick today, but worth flagging:

$ZARD: A vault holding only Charizards (Pokémon’s holy grail). They hold them on Phygitals and Beezie. I’m surprised more people haven’t done this for non-Pokémon cards.

Beezie: Just closed a massively oversubscribed funding round. TGE coming Q4. Similar mechanics to Collector Crypt and Phygitals.

Wrapping up

As a tourist in this niche, my timeline is short. Ideally I’d grab $CARDS on a retrace, ride it for a 2-3x, and get out.

But the bigger point is this: learning these new metas is alpha in itself. Even if you never buy a token, you’re sharpening your eye for where attention and revenue are moving.

And right now, phygital cards are on the board.

MEMECOINS, MENTAL GAMES & $PUMP 🚀

In today’s episode, we sat down with Deeze to talk about PumpFun, conviction-driven trading, and the reflexive meta shaping the current cycle.

Here’s a peek inside:

Why $PUMP’s business model is a “Ponzi with revenue” that still has legs
The mental traps of missing entries and sizing in late
Punk Strategy: the experimental token buying and selling real CryptoPunks
Why chasing influencer coins is a losing game, and where the real edge is

It’s a banger of an episode, don’t miss it 👇

YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

Solana treasuries surpass $4B with 17.11M $SOL held by public firms. Major holders include Forward Industries and others each holding around 2M $SOL in reserves.

PayPal adds crypto to peer payments with new PayPal Links feature. Users can soon send $BTC, $ETH, or $PYUSD via personalized links across apps and borders tax-free.

Sui approves $50M buyback as token vaults surpass 100M $SUI. The move aims to boost price momentum, with targets set near $5.20 after key resistance zones.