Venture Capitalist Predicts Pokémon Cards Would Become the 'Global Currency' After an Apocalypse

A gaming venture capitalist with more than half a million trading cards believes Pokémon could become more valuable than cash if civilisation ever collapsed.

Peter Levin, co-founder and managing director of Griffin Gaming Partners, made the prediction while discussing the trading-card market's extraordinary growth and Pokémon's global reach.

'If the world suffered an apocalypse tomorrow, the following day the global currency would be Pokémon cards,' Levin told The Hollywood Reporter.

Why Levin Thinks Pokémon Could Survive the Apocalypse

Levin's prediction was deliberately extreme, but his argument rests on two things: Pokémon's global recognition and the accessibility of its cards.

He said collectors do not necessarily need huge amounts of money to participate. Someone buying an ordinary pack from a shop can, in principle, pull the same rare card as a wealthy collector buying from the same product line.

That broad access, Levin argued, has helped keep the hobby alive while Pokémon has expanded from Japan into a worldwide entertainment franchise.

Levin knows the market from personal experience. He says he owns well over 500,000 trading cards and has collected since childhood, starting with baseball cards bought with his allowance.

His professional life is similarly tied to gaming. Griffin Gaming Partners, which Levin founded with Phil Sanderson and Nick Tuosto, manages about $1.5 billion and invests exclusively in the games industry.

Pokémon Cards Have Outpaced the Stock Market

The numbers behind the collecting boom help explain Levin's enthusiasm, although his claim that Pokémon has beaten the S&P 500 by '3,000 per cent' needs some context.

Card Ladder data cited in recent reporting put the cumulative rise in Pokémon-card values at about 3,821 per cent between 2004 and 2025, compared with roughly 483 per cent for the S&P 500 over the same period.

That does not mean every Pokémon card has multiplied in value. Prices vary enormously depending on rarity, condition, demand and professional grading. At the extreme end, individual cards can now sell for sums once associated with fine art.

In February, Logan Paul's PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrator sold for $16.492 million at Goldin Auctions, setting a world record for the most expensive trading card ever sold at auction. Paul had acquired the card in 2021 in a deal valued at $5.275 million.

Trading Cards Become Serious Business

Levin believes professional grading has played a major role in transforming cards from childhood keepsakes into tradeable assets.

Services such as PSA, CGC and TAG assess cards for condition and seal, authenticate examples, and place them in protective cases, giving buyers and sellers a more standardised way to establish value.

The enthusiasm now extends far beyond Pokémon. Levin highlighted the rapid rise of One Piece cards and the enormous growth of Magic: The Gathering, while entertainment companies including Disney and Hasbro continue expanding their own collectable-card businesses.

The Pokémon Company is also leaning further into the card-game boom, recently announcing Pokémon: Wild Card, a feature-length animated film centred on an aspiring Pokémon Trading Card Game player, for release beginning in 2027.

Whether Pikachu could really replace the dollar after doomsday is another matter. But Levin's apocalyptic prediction captures something real about the market: pieces of printed cardboard once bought by children for pocket money have become globally recognised collectables that can change hands for millions.