Exciting to see
@GrailCo gaining momentum.
Been following since the beginning. It’s refreshing to see
@1confirmation take a venture studio approach and execute in house, especially with all the current discourse around why crypto VCs stopped pursuing unique ideas.
It’s time to stop gatekeeping it :)
I want to write a deeper piece, but for now a few observations:
1. Collector insight/edge comes from true passion!
Grail is tokenizing trading cards, mostly sports.
The market for tokenized cards and digital packs is already crowded, but collectibles are not just a distribution problem. Value is driven by passion, taste, and collector pulse and platforms should act like good curators.
You need to know what people actually care about before the market fully prices it.
A good example is gWemby, the fractional token for Wemby cards.
Wemby is one of the hottest players in the NBA right now. The 1confirmation team had the insight and right timing to acquire Wemby cards and list the asset around 20 days ago.
Since then, the physical Wemby card market has moved up 20- 30% and gWemby is backed by 50 of them.
2. Fractionalized cards are the killer feature
- The EV on Grail packs is the highest I’ve seen in the market.
I’ve personally ripped a few dozen packs and saw 20 to 50% markups.
The fractional element is what makes this interesting. You can scale digital packs faster, with lower stock turnover, while market activity around the fractions helps to fund higher EV.
That is very different from my experience on other platforms, where you spend a few hundred dollars and end up down 20 to 30%.
- Better price discovery for blue chip cards
Fractionalized cards make even more sense for high end blue chips.
Cards that trade for hundreds of thousands or millions are usually extremely scarce, which means fewer market signals. But a lot of people still want exposure.
@altxyzofficial, Grail’s vaulting partner, recently acquired a Kobe card for $3.15M.
That is exactly the type of asset that can only have real 24/7 live pricing through onchain fractionals.
$gMJ feels closer to that endgame. I also think limited drops, rare photo matched can benefit from it even on non huge valuation.
3. Collectibles x PM angle
With Wemby, and sports cards more generally, real world events and cultural relevance directly impact the market.
Player performance, playoff moments, injuries, narratives, nostalgia, taste. All of it matters.
Anchoring onchain assets to external reality is one of the most exciting parts here(Different from pure RWA approach where price discovery is mostly taking place off chain)
Grail recently gamified this by offering to double gWemby for holders if the Spurs won the game.
Collectibles are a phenomenal vehicle for this kind of prediction market hybrid. They already behaves like prediction markets with fandom attached.
Would recommend paying close attention.