The Web3 gaming industry is on the verge of a trading card game (TCG) boom that will attract venture funds and specialized ETFs in the coming years. This was stated by Kaj Leroy, known by the nickname Brad Punkhouse, a key developer of the XRP Ledger ecosystem and creator of the first major NFT collection built on XRP (XPUNKs).
In his assessment, the sector is shifting toward hybrid products at the intersection of the real world and blockchain, while the rest of the market is missing the trend.
“Trading cards have been around for over a century, so none of this is new. What’s new is crypto catching on,” the developer notes. In his view, the mass market needs tangible assets, because “normies want something easy to understand that they can hold in their hands.”
Physical cards and the opening of real booster packs ensure long-term user engagement, building much stronger social bonds within communities than passively watching the price chart of PFP collections.
Kaj emphasizes that the complexity of developing a blockchain TCG acts as a natural defense against quick speculative projects: “The hardest part isn’t the art or the hype. It’s building a game that’s actually fun and actually works.” Balancing game mathematics requires significant resources, since a deck of 150 cards can generate more combinations than there are atoms in the observable universe.
Projects that started development early gain a strategic advantage in logistics and production, because “physical products take way more time than anything onchain.”
Why burn NFTs for paper
As evidence of the trend, the creator of XPUNKs cites the figures of his own hybrid project, Fuzzycards, on the XRP Ledger, with an issuance of about 100,000 booster packs, where NFT holders burned them to have physical cards delivered. The process is already extending beyond the XRP ecosystem: the launch by Yuga Labs of Mudwater cards on the Solana blockchain, where each real pack in storage is tied to an NFT, confirms the institutionalization of the mechanic.
In the developer’s estimate, the current situation in the sector is comparable to the rise of the Pokémon franchise in the 1990s. He predicts that the hype will inevitably spread to other major brands (Mario, Harry Potter, Tolkien’s Middle-earth), which will move their TCGs onto onchain rails to control the secondary market.
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Summing up the prospects of a sector hidden from most before the arrival of institutional capital, Kaj added: “Next comes TCG ETFs, hedge funds, VCs and much more. The market is about to get a lot bigger. We’re early.”
