Regulated Digital Market Infrastructure Powers World's First Tokenized Collectible Card Fund for Professional Investors

HONG KONG SAR, 2nd March 2026 — EVIDENT, a licensed digital market for private assets, today announced that its platform has been selected as the tokenization and secondary market infrastructure for the world's first institutionally structured fund focused on collectible trading cards. The fund was developed and is managed by MemeStrategy, Inc. (HKEX: 2440), coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the Pokémon franchise.

The project represents a further expansion of EVIDENT's regulated market infrastructure into cultural assets — building on its established presence in fine art to extend the platform's capabilities into collectibles, an asset vertical that meets EVIDENT's core criteria for institutional structuring: demonstrable market depth, verifiable provenance, quantifiable scarcity, proven investor demand, and strong long-term fundamentals.

Why Cultural Assets — and Why Now

The institutionalization of alternative assets has long centred on private equity, private credit, and real estate. EVIDENT sees a structural expansion underway. Collectible assets — characterised by scarcity, global demand, and a generational shift in how value is stored — present a compelling case for professional capital allocation, provided the right infrastructure exists.

The global collectibles market is projected to reach USD 628 billion by 2031. Within that, collectible trading cards alone are expected to grow from approximately USD 15 billion in 2026 to over USD 37 billion by 2034. These figures point not to a hobbyist trend, but to an emerging investable category — one that has lacked the regulated infrastructure to accommodate institutional participation.

Pokémon cards illustrate this most clearly. According to the Wall Street Journal, their value has appreciated over 3,000% in the past two decades, outperforming the S&P 500 — a performance profile that warrants institutional-grade access.

What Made This Project a Fit for EVIDENT

EVIDENT evaluates asset verticals against a defined set of institutional criteria before extending its platform infrastructure. This project met those standards across several dimensions:

• Market depth: The underlying asset — the PSA Grade-10 "Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat" card, created from the official collaboration between The Pokémon Company and the Van Gogh Museum — has a market capitalisation exceeding USD 94 million with consistent daily trading activity across established platforms.
• Verifiable scarcity: Distribution of the card was halted due to demand, permanently capping the PSA-10 population at approximately 47,000 units — a fixed, auditable supply.
• Provenance and grade integrity: The fund exclusively holds PSA-10 (Gem Mint) specimens, the highest attainable grading standard, with each card independently authenticated and graded.
• Appreciation trajectory: Over 400% price* appreciation since limited release in late 2023, driven by structural scarcity and sustained global demand.
• Proven investor demand: The asset class has attracted sustained and growing interest from professional investors seeking uncorrelated alternatives, supported by a clear trajectory toward institutional adoption.

These attributes — combined with MemeStrategy's specialist expertise in cultural collectible assets and institutional custody capabilities through its Grade10 Vault service — made this a natural fit for EVIDENT's platform.

How EVIDENT's Infrastructure Supports the Fund

EVIDENT provides the tokenization layer, regulatory compliance infrastructure, and secondary market through which professional investors can access and trade positions in the fund. The platform operates under EVIDENT's SFC-licensed framework, ensuring that every element — from token issuance to custody coordination to secondary trading — meets the standards expected by professional investors.

Physical assets are authenticated, insured, and stored in museum-grade vaults by MemeStrategy's Grade10 Vault. The underlying holdings are subject to annual Proof-of-Reserve audits by a Big Four international audit firm.

MemeStrategy serves as General Partner through its subsidiary RWA Labs Limited and also participates as a Limited Partner — reflecting its own conviction in the asset class.

Expanding the Asset Frontier

Florian M. Spiegl, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of EVIDENT, said:

"A core element of our strategy is to partner with leading specialists in every asset category we bring onto the platform. In MemeStrategy, we found a partner with deep domain expertise in cultural collectibles and a custody infrastructure purpose-built for this asset class. We worked closely together to structure this fund to the same institutional-grade standards we apply across every vertical — market depth, verifiable scarcity, provenance integrity, proven investor demand, and long-term fundamentals. Collectibles met that bar. As we continue to expand into new asset verticals, the approach remains consistent: identify the strongest issuer in the category, apply rigorous institutional criteria, and deliver regulated market infrastructure that professional investors can rely on."

Ray Chan, Chief Executive Officer of MemeStrategy, said: 

"This initiative is about capturing the alpha of cultural assets through institutional finance rigor. The collectibles market is booming but institutions have been sidelined due to logistical and security barriers. We are solving that problem. For the first time, we are providing a regulated, convenient, and secure structure that allows professional investors to access this market’s growth potential without the burdens of physical ownership. This underscores our core mission to bridge culture and capital, creating compliant and accessible investment opportunities for the professional market.”

EVIDENT remains focused on driving innovation in asset and wealth management through its digital market infrastructure — expanding access to new asset verticals while maintaining the institutional-grade standards that define the platform.

About EVIDENT 

EVIDENT is an SFC-licensed digital market for private assets, connecting wealth management firms and their clients with alternative investment opportunities from leading asset managers. Its institutional-grade market infrastructure, powered by asset tokenization on blockchain, simplifies access, digitises and automates administration, enhances liquidity, and enables seamless investing in alternative assets.

Through EVIDENT, professional investors access diversification and growth opportunities in alternative markets, all within a regulated framework.

For more information, visit https://www.evident.capital/

About MemeStrategy 

MemeStrategy (HKEX: 2440) is Asia's publicly listed digital asset venture, managed by the team behind 9GAG, a globally acclaimed meme platform with over 200 million users. Leveraging its social media and Web3 expertise, MemeStrategy adopts a people-first approach to strategically invest in three key growth pillars: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, and Culture, aiming to bridge the new economy with traditional finance and accelerate the development of decentralised technologies.

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*Price Charting: https://www.pricecharting.com/game/pokemon-promo/pikachu-with-grey-felt-hat-85