[an0malous]

I would guess it’s the same force driving absurd stock valuations — the money supply doubled around COVID and all the new money has to pool up somewhere. Some of it ends up in stocks and real estate, but once those become obviously overvalued it starts pooling up in more fringe investments like trading cards. It’s the same dynamic that created exotic mortgage backed securities that led to the 2008 financial crisis. There’s literally trillions of dollars of capital that’s slowly losing value from inflation and the owners of that capital are desperate to find investments that will preserve or increase their wealth.

[Ekaros]

And on lower end for many it feels that they are out of options. So flipping or speculating on anything they can get their hands on is only way to make it in life now. Pokemon cards is biggest example of this. People camping and literally fighting over in essence scraps for very small amount of product to then just resell it to someone else. Who probably speculate on it themselves or need for it to run some type of other scheme like gambling...

It really is weird market from outside. Like millions of cards waiting to be encapsulated in plastic with tiny label on them naming a number. Depending on number the value can go up multiple times. Each of these paid at least something like 20 dollars...