Gm, finally back from a 3 week vacation in Japan. As some of you might have heard, @Azuki went through a recent company restructuring with numerous employees being laid off, including myself. I thought I’d be more bitter about it but honestly, the last two and a half years working at Azuki have been an absolute blessing. Being able to move to LA, be surrounded by some of the kindest and most passionate individuals I’ve ever worked with, and having the privilege of learning and growing from tech and media professionals with decades of experience and excellence has been a dream. They say you should strive to never be the smartest person in the room, and at Azuki I never was - and it was awesome. You can’t buy that kind of learning and growing opportunity. I have nothing but appreciation and respect for Azuki and my former team for giving me the opportunity to grow, come in every day, and work my ass off doing work I love doing. Big love to @Zagabond, @locationtba, @2pmflow, and @hoshiboyzen for giving a bean like me a chance to be part of such an incredible journey. Huge thanks to @DemAzuki, @emilyrosemcg, @elaineazuki14, and @dgtlemissions for being such incredible bosses, mentors, and friends. The countless memories and hardships I shared with a dope team in the most battle-hardened NFT project and community will never be forgotten. Thank you, Azuki. ⛩️ All that being said, with 2 years of content creation and 3 years of Web3 community building, strategy, and business development under my belt, I’m now looking for new opportunities to pursue. My DM’s are open - and I’m ready to build. 🫡

Another day, another show 🙏

Walked away from LA Card Show with my usual purchases…. 🍃

Omw to spend too much money on colored pieces of cardboard 🤣

Huge shoutouts to @MediaGiraffes and @Slabzapp for inviting me to their official launch event tonight! Had a lot of fun vibing with fellow TCG degens and collectors while gambling to win some slabs and rip some Slabz and @Collector_Crypt packs. Great way to end the week 🫡

I guarantee if these Eevee Lego sets had an accompanying Lego x Pokémon promo card in them, there would be fist fights at every shop carrying them. 😭

Just walked by a local Pokémon vending machine where a guy was sitting across from it, just waiting. Curious, I walked up to him and asked if he had gotten anything. He proudly told me he had just gotten a Black Bolt booster bundle earlier and showed me a bunch of bulk cards and no chases. He then proceeded to shill me his little binder full of $5-10 cards that he had pulled previously and told me if I bought a bunch, he would sell them at a discount to me. He said he needed the money to buy the next booster bundle and that he wasn’t getting paid until the next day so he couldn’t afford to buy the next bundle that dropped from the machine. In that moment, I felt like I was part of a dystopian system where people who shouldn’t be spending money on cards, are spending every last dollar in their bank accounts to not only buy the products, but ripping them for an overall net negative expected value. Watching this felt surreal. I felt sad for humanity. For what the state of the hobby had turned hard working people into. Then I spotted a really nice gradable Yamper IR in his binder and bought it from him. Crazy world we live in.

Shoutouts to my fellow pissed off collectors 🤣🙏

From 1-10 how mad would you be if the upcoming Mega Rayquaza set’s chase was one of these fuck ass FUR cards instead of a beautifully illustrated SIR? 💀

Nah. Over 2 hours of waiting in queue only to be kicked out and accused of being a bot while real bots get in and buy products. Fix your shit. @PokemonTCG

This card exists because of a manga artist, a meme, a national election, and the most underrated Pokémon of all time. Let's dive into the Simisear VSTAR SAR from VSTAR Universe (or SIR from Crown Zenith) 🧵👇

All I want is to pull @rev_akira’s beautiful Mega Darkrai SIR card Is that too much to ask 😭

Idk who needs to hear this, but if anybody ever prices their cards based on what it might grade into, they are scamming you and you should buy from someone else. I said what I said. Never thought I’d say this, but I stand fully with @jasonpaigeshow on this one now.

Bet you didn’t know this 🫵👀 Taking care of YOUR CGC 9 slabs 🤝❤️

“According to Pokémon collectors and investors” Bruh. I promise you most of them probably started buying Pokémon cards last year, who tf are these aforementioned “collectors and investors” 😭😭😭

As someone who mainly collects Pokémon cards, I think some people seriously underestimate just how big Pokémon is. Don’t get me wrong, One Piece is clearly doing extremely well right now. But saying it’ll be worth more than Pokémon because Pokémon is running on nostalgia feels like a stretch. A lot of the most popular Pokémon cards today aren’t even nostalgic vintage cards. Things like the 151 SV set cards, Evolving Skies Rayquaza, Moonbreon, Van Gogh Pikachu, and many of the modern Illustration Rares exploded because people genuinely love the artwork and the Pokémon themselves. I also don’t think it’s accurate to say One Piece is more well known. One Piece has an incredibly passionate fanbase, but Pokémon is one of those franchises that’s recognized almost everywhere in the world, even by people who have never played the games or collected the cards. I could probably go to just about any third world country and hold up a picture of Pikachu and someone will recognize it. Maybe there are One Piece collectors who see things differently, and I’d love to hear their perspective. But from where I stand as a Pokémon collector, I don’t see Pokémon going anywhere. It’s been one of the biggest franchises on the planet for decades (over $100 billion in lifetime revenue), and it’s still attracting new collectors today. The level of depth that the collector base holds is crazy - people collect every single little thing connected to the Pokémon TCG. Hell, a CGC 9.5 of the cardboard insert in the Ancient Mew promo packs just sold for $30 recently. Not the card itself- the damn cardboard insert that describes the card. The fanbase is ridiculous. Could One Piece cards do really well? Absolutely. But betting against Pokémon has been a losing bet for a very long time.

Nah you’re telling me that within the 4 days that @PSAcard announced they were going to be pausing value submissions, people submitted 4 million cards for grading? Yall some demons 😭😭😭