This isn't scalping, this isn't investing. This is Money Laundering at high levels. I DO NOT CONDONE ANY OF THIS. I am merely pointing out the OBVIOUSNESS of the situation.
TCG Market is being used because like Sneakers and Crypto, it’s fast and discrete, hard to track and offloading can happen behind closed doors at TCG conventions/card shows or put right back on eBay or TCGPlayer.
By buying all available copies of a card or multiple high demand cards at once, such as all the Promos that's been pumping, they turn the illicit cash into tangible, portable assets that can later be resold or moved around, starting the laundering cycle.
After the illicit cash is converted into cards, the next step is artificially inflating the card’s perceived value, which you all have noticed with the everyday nonsense of "[insert card name] To the Moon" posts, and every one standing around wondering why this card is suddenly skyrocketing
This is done by flipping the cards between multiple fake accounts, spam shill Reddit posts, or creating fake listings to show “high demand.” Recently the City Mew and other promo cards experienced this entire set up
Essentially, they make it look like the card is more valuable than it really is. This pumping makes the card attractive to FOMO buyers and sets up the next stage, where the card can be resold or dumped for “clean” money. And the cycle continues every other day with a new card so the traceability of the transactions always changes.
by Hermes113