Let's Have An Adult Convo About Panini Blockchain
I’m back over here on Substack after my experiment with publishing articles on X (went okay, but not worth the subscription cost). I’ll be posting here from time to time, but it will likely be shorter pieces versus the longer newsletter type posts I was doing earlier. And I’m going to be combining physical and digital collecting topics on this Substack instead of splitting those out like I did earlier.
Panini Blockchain has been getting deserved positive feedback in social media and various Discords after their very successful (at least in terms of pack reselling) recent NBA Flawless drop. Packs have been selling north of $2k on the secondary market, which is quite a jump from the $250 Panini direct price. There have been some big sales of the key singles as well, but I think it’s fair to saw the overall value is maybe not quite what people were expecting.
If that’s the case, why have the pack sales been so successful? Panini America has made a few things work really well and when they have a product with some unpulled big hits with dwindling supply, pack prices can start moving up very quickly. Panini has whales who will rip, which is a very profitable aspect of their market dynamics and has a lot of overall market benefits as at least some of those proceeds gets reinvested.
The success also has some people wishing the inevitable away and trying to find ways to talk themselves into a story where the future of that blockchain is not difficult.
I’ve heard things ranging from Fanatics still wanting to buy Panini America in part for their NFT success (newsflash: Fanatics doesn’t care about NFTs and that antitrust lawsuit makes the possibility of a merger pretty unlikely) to Panini America putting together some standalone NFT licenses with the leagues they are about to lose for cardboard (that’s ain’t happening either).
I think it’s important that people understand three things about the future of the Panini Blockchain:
Secondary fees alone are not going to come close to replacing the revenue they’ve received from new product drops unless valuations or activity massively increases.
The remaining major licenses Panini Blockchain will have after the NBA (October 2025) and NFL (April 2026) deals expire come through the parent organization Panini Group, which has experimented with their own NFT platform in the past and currently has started issuing NFTs on the FIFA Collect platform.
As currently structured, the Panini Blockchain cannot operate without their own resources: in-house or outsourced labor and technology services.
With those in mind, it’s important to think about the business realities at play for Panini:
Panini America (PA) represents a tiny part of the Panini Group’s (PG) estimated overall revenue (PG is a private corporation). PA’s estimated revenue is between $50 and $165 million depending on what analyst you look at. PG’s revenue fluctuates quite a bit depending on when there’s a World Cup (WC stickers are huge business), but annual revenue estimates can approach $1 billion.
Per Cryptoslam.io (which admittedly is missing some data, including WNBA sales), Panini Blockchain revenue was $12.5 million in 2024 and is estimated in 2025 to be between $43-45 million based on YTD activity. Actual will be much lower due to the loss of NBA in the fall, but I think it’s worth noting so you see just how more successful Panini Blockchain has been recently.
Based on available data (which again excludes WNBA), I cannot differentiate between direct (Panini pack store and dutch auction) sales and secondary sales, but let’s assume a 40/60 split between direct and secondary. We’ll be generous and use the inflated 2025 estimated revenue, we’re looking at $8.68 million in revenue to Panini after estimated license and payment processing fees (45% of pack sales and 50% of secondary fees). Of that, about $8 million comes from direct sales and $668,000 comes from secondary sales.
So, if we assume the same level of secondary activity (which I think is way too generous, especially since secondary pack sales will not be as plentiful) and losing the NBA license to cut direct sales revenue by 50%, we’re looking at a drop off in 2026 revenue from $8.68 million to $4.67 million. This is likely optimistic since the NFL license expires in April 2026. In 2027, let’s assume (very generously) that they come up with $1 million in revenue from new licenses and the secondary revenue remains steady they will be looking at a drop from $8.68 million in 2025 to $1.67 million in 2027.
From that $1.67 million, Panini America has to cover the costs for their blockchain developers and administrators. This is critical because Splinter (no longer Hyperledger) Sawtooth has been archived as a project at least in part due to lack of interest by developers. So this is on a platform that is only going to become more niche by 2027 and holding onto technical resources that know the blockchain technology is going to be extra critical.
Additionally, Panini America has to cover the costs to maintain the infrastructure running their blockchain and related resources on AWS.
All of this while their overall business is losing a huge part of their revenue due to the loss of NFL and NBA league licensed trading cards.
If you have concerns about Panini America being able to continue operating as a business, you very much should have concerns about Panini Blockchain continuing to exist as a platform and you being able to continue accessing your collection.
Unlike when Topps decided they did not want to be in the NFT business any more, as currently structured the Panini Blockchain cannot survive without Panini America. And it’s beyond the general case of not paying the bills to host assets which does impact other platforms: the blockchain itself must be resourced by the company.
I don’t see Panini America wanting to continue to invest in the operations of Panini Blockchain when their business will need to restructure. It’s one thing with the NFTs was just some nice bonus revenue to squeeze from their overall licenses and it’s another when the money from direct sales starts to fall off a cliff.
There is something they should do for their customers: plan the next phase.
Panini should start executing on a plan now to remint on a public blockchain. It will not be easy. This took Topps over a year to execute and they were just moving from one public blockchain to another and they had active license agreements with their IP holders. So, if I were a Panini customer I’d want them to use some of this recent revenue windfall to execute Phase 2 of the Panini NFT journey before the business realities make that impossible.
As obnoxious as some of the louder voices in their community are, I don’t wish anyone loses access to the collections they’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of money putting together. That doesn’t do anyone in the digital collecting world any good.