Recently, more and more key players of the sports are announcing their plans to release their trading cards as crypto collectibles.

This comes at no surprise, considering that the sports industry served as an attractive collector’s market for a long time. In particular, trading cards have been very sought-after since the very early days.

Before Crypto Collectibles: The Most Expensive Trading Card

Wagner Baseball Card. Most expensive trading card in history. From the era before crypto collectibles existed.

In detail, the first company started printing baseball trading cards in the 1860s. The most expensive trading card of all time being the Honus Wagner T-206 from 1909 (see above). To be precise, an anonymous buyer paid a total of $2.1 million for the card in 2016.

Therefore, we can see that trading cards not only have the ability to maintain their value over a long period of time, but also that they can even increase their value considerably.

Art as Crypto Collectibles

Just years ago, the invention of the blockchain sparked the emergence of crypto collectibles. The first application of blockchain trading cards came from the art and video gaming industry.

Age of Chains also is one of the earliest projects to create crypto collectible cards with a focus on art and video gaming. We depicture blockchains as highly advanced characters in an intergalactic setting. See for example Thanatos the Rippler :

Our focus is on high-quality art. You can easily start your own collection of crypto collectible cards by shopping some of our Series 2 cards.

Sports Themed Crypto Collectibles

Another example is the Rare Pepe project. They not only put art on the blockchain, but also the very first sports themed blockchain trading card (JORDANPEPE):

Throughout the the past years, more and more projects focusing on crypto collectibles entered the market. While the majority of these projects were oriented around art and video gaming, a few also centered around sport as a topic.

MLB Crypto Baseball had been the first project to release baseball blockchain collectibles. However, it did not get the mainstream attention of the traditional sports collectors industry.

But 2020 seems to be the start of something big. Just recently, key industry players of the traditional trading card industry announced their plans to release sports themed crypto collectibles on the blockchain.

The most relevant names include Panini, the UFC and Bayern Munich. Panini already auctioned the first sports themed blockchain trading cards for prices of up to more than $40.000. This truly highlights the sheer potential of sports themed crypto collectible cards.

Panini Sports themed crypto collectible cards

Soccer Clubs Are Jumping On Board

Not long ago, soccer clubs such as the FC Barcelona, Bayer Leverkusen and Juventus Turin declared their plans to release crypto collectibles. So likely we soon will see Cristiano Ronaldo on the blockchain.

In summary, this is just the beginning of a market that just began to evolve. Over time, more people will begin to understand and use the blockchain. Its ability to verifiably limit digital goods of any kind makes it a perfect fit for trading cards of all sorts. The sports industry is a huge and established market for trading cards. It is just natural for that market to merge with the blockchain space in order to produce crypto collectible cards.

With Age of Chains, we also are creating blockchain trading cards. If you are into crypto collectibles, why not start your own Age of Chains card collection?

Together, we can keep the galaxy decentralized!

Cosmic Hugs
Kilian Kunst
CEO & Founder