Logan Paul sells Pokémon card for $16.5M, years after fractional NFT row

YouTube prima Logan Paul has acceptable a caller Guinness World Record, selling his uncommon Pokémon paper for astir $16.5 cardinal connected Monday — the astir costly paper merchantability successful past — though the caller grounds merchantability didn’t travel without controversy.

The auction for the Pikachu Illustrator Pokémon paper — 1 of 39 created successful a contention successful the 1990s — was won by AJ Scaramucci, the lad of American financier Anthony Scaramucci, outbidding respective others who made offers successful the seven- and eight-figure range.

Paul is believed to person made an $8 cardinal nett aft auction fees connected Monday. He bought the paper for $5.3 cardinal successful July 2021.

However, the grounds merchantability reignited disapproval implicit Paul’s determination to fractionalize ownership of the paper connected Liquid Marketplace successful 2022 earlier the level went offline, leaving investors scrambling for returns and prompting a suit successful Canada.

In a station to X connected Monday, Delphi Labs wide counsel Gabriel Shapiro said Paul’s “Pikachu NFT fractionalization fiasco” is simply a “classic lawsuit of ‘slop tokenization.’”

“The token is fundamentally conscionable ‘juxtaposed’ with spot but has nary rights to it,” Shapiro said, urging investors to work the presumption of work and to halt rushing into “legal scams.”

Paul addressed the criticism, stating that Liquid Marketplace went offline for reasons beyond his power and that, erstwhile alert of the issue, helium paid to reconstruct the tract truthful users could retreat their funds. 

Only 5.4% of the paper was fractionalized to owners who paid astir $270,000, Paul noted.

Source: Logan Paul

Paul isn’t named successful the Liquid Marketplace suit brought by the Ontario Securities Commission, Canada’s apical securities regulator, successful June 2024. A proceeding is scheduled for June.

Logan Paul’s past NFT drama 

It isn’t the archetypal clip Paul has had to support himself implicit his engagement successful NFTs. His CryptoZoo NFT task failed to present its promised play-to-earn game, drafting capitalist backlash and a class-action suit successful 2023. 

Related: US prosecutors driblet OpenSea NFT fraud lawsuit aft appeals tribunal reversal

He set up a buyback program and yet paid investors backmost aft they agreed to waive ineligible claims, and the class-action fraud suit was yet dismissed successful 2025.

Other NFT investments by Paul person besides flopped, including an anime-style integer avatar from the 0N1 Force postulation helium bought for astir $635,000 successful 2021 that is present valued astatine nether $2,000.

NFT marketplace continues to slide

The grounds Pokémon paper merchantability besides stands successful opposition to the struggling NFT market, which deals successful integer collectibles. 

While the NFT marketplace started beardown successful the archetypal 2 weeks of 2026, the full NFT marketplace headdress has since fallen by much than 50%, from $3.2 cardinal to $1.55 cardinal amid a broader marketplace pullback.

Change successful NFT marketplace headdress implicit the past 3 months. Source: CoinGecko

Last month, NFT marketplace Rodeo and Nifty Gateway announced successful the past week of January that they would upwind down operations, adding to the sector’s drawstring of high-profile closures.

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