Roadmap

What’s built, and what’s next.

Ordered, not scheduled. There are no dates on this page and there will not be — this is one person, and a roadmap with dates is a set of promises rather than a plan. Every cost below is a real published price, not an estimate dressed up as one.

  1. 01Working

    Working now

    • Card price search across Magic and Pokémon, free and unlimited
    • Every result links out to its marketplace listing
    • The stage, with real signed bidding and a server-held clock
    • Re: CYCLE intake, stored durably
  2. 02In progress

    Before launch

    • Catalogue the existing collection of graded cards into the vault
    • Photograph real slabs, so lots show the actual card and not stock art
    • A proper admin surface for listing lots
    • The data bill covered by fees rather than out of pocket
  3. 03Next

    At launch

    • The token mints — the address appears on this site first
    • Auctions settle in the token
    • Every settlement burns half and adds half to liquidity, on chain
    • Monthly drawings for holders, alongside the auctions
  4. 04Later

    After that

    • More games beyond Magic and Pokémon
    • Our own marketplace affiliate links, so outbound clicks fund the data bill
    • A permanent public corpus of sold comps for cards nobody else bothers to price
    • Grading more than one card a month

What it costs

The whole operation runs on $193 a month.

Cumulative, and ordered by what each dollar actually unlocks — the tool working at all, then the cardboard, then the part that reaches people who did not win an auction. Postage is not on this list because the flat $5 shipping charge already covers it.

$30

per month

The data bill

Every paid lookup the tool makes, in one line: the $9 sold-comps tier — 2,000 lookups a month instead of the free 100 — plus the keyed endpoints that stop the search flapping.

This is the tool working at all rather than working sometimes. It is already subscribed and coming out of one person's pocket; this rung is what stops that. Nothing else on this list matters if a search comes back empty.

$43

per month

PSA's API

PSA's basic tier, $149 a year — about $12.42 a month, billed annually rather than monthly like everything else on this list. Cert verification, population reports and their price guide, by cert number.

Right now a slab's grade is checkable by hand on PSA's own site and nowhere else: their pages sit behind a bot wall, so every population and valuation figure on a lot has to be typed in by a person reading a screen. This is the difference between a lot that cites its numbers and a lot that asserts them.

$143

per month

One graded card a month

About $100 to send a single under-water card to a professional grader and put the slab up as a lot.

The headline absurdity, funded on a schedule instead of whenever there happens to be money. It also restocks the stage, which otherwise runs dry.

$193

per month

Drawings for holders

$50 a month of cards drawn for token holders, on top of the auctions.

The auctions reward whoever pays most. This is the one thing that reaches somebody who just turned up.

Where money goes

Data and cardboard.

Sold-comps quota

Paid tier

2,000 / month

Reading current usage…

Funding goals and what comes next

What money buys, in the order it buys it. Costs are real; there are no dates.

Funding goals

Each rung is a monthly running cost, cumulative. The whole operation costs $193 a month to run at the top rung, which is roughly what one graded card costs to produce.

  1. 01 The data bill

    $30 / month

    Every paid lookup the tool makes, in one line: the $9 sold-comps tier — 2,000 lookups a month instead of the free 100 — plus the keyed endpoints that stop the search flapping.

    This is the tool working at all rather than working sometimes. It is already subscribed and coming out of one person's pocket; this rung is what stops that. Nothing else on this list matters if a search comes back empty.

  2. 02 PSA's API

    $43 / month

    PSA's basic tier, $149 a year — about $12.42 a month, billed annually rather than monthly like everything else on this list. Cert verification, population reports and their price guide, by cert number.

    Right now a slab's grade is checkable by hand on PSA's own site and nowhere else: their pages sit behind a bot wall, so every population and valuation figure on a lot has to be typed in by a person reading a screen. This is the difference between a lot that cites its numbers and a lot that asserts them.

  3. 03 One graded card a month

    $143 / month

    About $100 to send a single under-water card to a professional grader and put the slab up as a lot.

    The headline absurdity, funded on a schedule instead of whenever there happens to be money. It also restocks the stage, which otherwise runs dry.

  4. 04 Drawings for holders

    $193 / month

    $50 a month of cards drawn for token holders, on top of the auctions.

    The auctions reward whoever pays most. This is the one thing that reaches somebody who just turned up.

Nothing is funded yet. There is no revenue, so there is no progress bar — when fees start arriving, this shows the real figure and not before.

Roadmap

Order, not timing. One person builds this; a date would be a promise rather than a plan.

Working now

Live
  • Card price search across Magic and Pokémon, free and unlimited
  • Every result links out to its marketplace listing
  • The stage, with real signed bidding and a server-held clock
  • Re: CYCLE intake, stored durably

Before launch

In progress
  • Catalogue the existing collection of graded cards into the vault
  • Photograph real slabs, so lots show the actual card and not stock art
  • A proper admin surface for listing lots
  • The data bill covered by fees rather than out of pocket

At launch

At launch
  • The token mints — the address appears on this site first
  • Auctions settle in the token
  • Every settlement burns half and adds half to liquidity, on chain
  • Monthly drawings for holders, alongside the auctions

After that

Later
  • More games beyond Magic and Pokémon
  • Our own marketplace affiliate links, so outbound clicks fund the data bill
  • A permanent public corpus of sold comps for cards nobody else bothers to price
  • Grading more than one card a month

Everything above is a present intention, not a commitment. Plans change, projects stall, and this one can be wound down at any time.

Data

There are two kinds of price, and only one of them is free. What a seller is ASKING comes from Scryfall and pokemontcg.io at no cost — but an asking price is just an opinion, and on cheap cards it is usually optimistic. What a card actually SOLD for has to be bought, one lookup at a time. Fees pay for those lookups.

Cardboard

Graded cards bought out of bulk lots and shop bins — the ones worth less than the plastic around them — then auctioned back here. What each one cost is posted alongside it, so you can see the whole trade rather than the asking price.

These are intentions rather than a guaranteed allocation, and no percentage split of fees is promised.

$RETCG · Solana

A later phase, not a live one.

There is no $RETCG and nothing to buy. When there is, auctions settle in it — 50% of what is paid burned and 50% into the pool, neither half reaching the operator — and the address appears here before it appears anywhere else. The panel below reads the chain itself rather than taking our word for it.

Contract

Checking…

The chain could not be reached, so the status below is unconfirmed. This is a problem with the lookup, not a statement about the token.

The address will not change