Before we dive into this subject let me walk through a few things. First – I understand that NFTs and Digital Cards are a controversial topic among physical card collectors for obvious reasons. I also understand there have been challenges with solvency and rug pulls on NFTs over the last few years, and the risk is understood. If you dont care about digital cards, this article wont pertain to your interests. If you are curious about this subject, or a fan of the platform, I welcome your input as a complete and utter noob.

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If you were following this site or my other blog Digital Card Central back in 2015-2018, you know how much I used to do with the Topps Digital apps for MLB, NFL, Star Wars, and of course WWE. Now that NFTs have replaced the original style of digital cards, the Topps apps seem dated and hard to engage with. It seems that only a few of them are still up and running anyways, especially with all the license moving that has taken place and will take place over the next few years.

Yesterday, Panini released the first batch of NFTs for WWE that has ever been released in digital card format. After some deliberation, I decided it was worth a shot to dip my toes into this pool, even though I hadnt really done anything with digital cards in years. The platform was completely foreign to me, the marketplace is much more real time and transparent, and I was a newbie all over again. Lucky for me, the new landscape was easy to navigate, and there are a lot of people who are more than willing to help.

Here is a video I made to commemorate the launch:

Differences Between Topps Digital and Panini NFTs

For people who are expecting the Panini NFTs to be similar to the original apps they loved on the Topps side, things are different in about every single way. First, there is a desktop site to match the mobile app, and that is a gamechanger. You can access all your stuff from your computer, instead of burning the battery on your phone wheeling and dealing.

Secondly, most of the market is completely different because the way the cards are made available to collectors is entirely different. Topps basically had everything housed inside the application, and the only options for acquiring new cards were trading or buying packs. On this site, there is no trading available, but buying and selling with real money (not in game currency), makes things really easy to gauge how much you are spending.

More importantly, because everything is synced to the Panini Blockchain, all sales are public, all sales history is available, and you have a clear market trend to base your transactions off of without much of an effort. In the Topps apps, this was always a mystery, and many new collectors found themselves taken advantage of by experienced collectors who knew what they were doing.

Lack of trading and in app messaging is a huge drawback for this platform though, as its clear that a fraction of the transactions that are done could be exploded by the trading abilities that made the Topps apps a fun game. Honestly, the lack of in app community is really lonely, something that made apps like Slam and Bunt so much fun. There are discords available for the Panini NFTs, but its just not the same.

This NFT experience really is market based, but still has the feeling of a game, which is something I think most collectors of physical cards really dont get. Digital cards have always been about the gaming aspect of the cards, and less about physical ownership, something that has created a ton of people with visceral negative reactions to NFTs.

Lastly, Topps kept people engaged with daily releases of content and lots of fun set collecting challenges, where this is more akin to sister products being released along side physical hobby boxes. I think Panini has a huge gap there, and I doubt there are plans to shift given licensing concerns.

Understanding what an NFT is can be a challenge in its own right, as most collectors lived through the NFT explosion in 2020-2021, but never really found it interesting enough to learn more. Basically, you buy packs on the platform, open them to reveal contents of serially numbered digital cards, and then collect, buy and sell them on the platform. You can also keep the packs sealed and buy/sell those as well.

Each NFT card is displayed in your digital wallet, and can be viewed by the public as part of your collection. The sales of the NFTs are tracked real time, and ownership history of a single card is displayed in app. You can find out how much each individual serial number was bought and sold for, as well as who the buyers and sellers were.

Payment can be tied to your crypto wallet, credit card, PayPal account or any number of other options. This means you dont necessarily have to incrementally add cash to your account if you have cryptocurrency available to spend.

Collectors also have a spotlight, where they can show off their goods, something I really like. If you have an offer on a card, you can go into the person’s account and see what they are all about. It gives a level of personality to every deal.

Understanding the Marketplace

To put this simply, its easy to buy and easy to sell. Once you open a pack, you can list the card for sale within minutes. Its not a long process to list cards, just a few clicks, and that is a really big advantage of this platform. If you buy a card, you pay instantly. If you sell a card, you get paid instantly. There is nothing else to it.

You can list a card for sale in one of two ways, third if you include the crypto market, which requires crypto wallets to participate. The first is listing a card in the public gallery, which is basically a display that shows any number of cards for sale at a given time. You can add a price if you want, or just leave it open for offers.

The second way is an auction, which is pretty self explanatory. Post a card, include a starting bid, and let it run for a day or multiple days. If someone bids, and they win, they pay instantly, and money is delivered instantly.

Ive come to understand a few things over the last couple of days, and I am still VERY new to the whole value spectrum that exists across different aspects of the gallery and auction block. Basically, buying and selling on this platform has been gamified to a degree – as all offers, sales, and transactions are publicly visible, including the historical ones. Most cards display on their page what the sales history looks like, and that is awesome.

Right now, there are a number of people still trying to feel out the different aspects of WWE value, as its a brand new expansion of the Panini NFT app. For that reasons, values can be all over the place, especially for the most rare cards available. Similarly, base cards and cards of lower tier subects tend to sell very inexpensively, with most base selling for the minimum $1 cost.

Selling on the platform does come with fees from both Panini’s back end programming and any fees from Paypal, so its important to keep that in mind as you go. Luckily buyers dont really have to worry about it, and if you sell with your digital wallet, the fees can be much lower.

Navigating the Available NFT Cards

As we have seen in Panini’s previous NFT releases, there are a ton of cards available. Somewhere in upwards of 2200 WWE ones for Elite, with varying levels of rarity. They start at base level with uncommon rarity /243 copies and go all the way to Legendary rarity which are all 1/1s.

The FOTL Elite packs which were the first release under the WWE banner had lots of rarer cards available, with one red /20 card per pack featuring an XFractor like pattern. These included the different base, inserts and autographs across the platform.

Similarly there are challenges that will take place, which require people to collect certain types of cards, and in return, get very rare and desirable rewards for their efforts. We already know that Roman Reigns and Becky Lynch will be among the first two subjects.

As for what determines the value other than rarity and subject, there are a lot of nuances to the platform that I have yet to figure out. As the base set and more cards are released, I have a feeling the legacy Panini sets like Prizm, Select, Immaculate, etc are all going to carry significant value upon release. I hope they continue to release stuff regularly.

Understood Risk of Diving In

As with any money driven collectible, there is always risk to the investment you make into acquiring the different pieces of your collection. What is different here, is that because the collectibles are not physical and are vulnerable for that reason. Given the history of NFTs, there is inherent risk of what is known as a rug pull, where a coin, token, or collectible can be closed out without notice.

Because Panini has established their blockchain years ago, and will continue to make improvements, I think the risk of a rug pull at this point is pretty low. I also think their larger user base makes the markets volatile, which is also something that is risky of buying NFTs early on in the release before things settle in a bit.

There is also licensing risk, because post 2026, Panini will no longer have the ability to produce NEW content for NFL, NBA, UFC, WWE, MLB and other licenses that were acquired by Fanatics in the grand takeover scheme that has been playing out. I dont think this will impact the currently available NFTs, but there could be risk as people get bored and leave with no new content.

Panini also uses what is referred to as a private blockchain, which means that the NFTs are held in a walled off way from more publicly available NFTs that have become commonplace over the last 3-4 years. There is still hope of opening these walls up, but nothing has been communicated that I am aware of. We have already seen major issues with Topps Digital pushing apps to their archive and basically giving up on their NFT platform, but I dont think its an apples to apples comparison.

My Experience Ripping Packs and Making Moves on the Marketplace

Here is where things get fun. I ripped a number of packs as soon as they were released, and immediately found myself addicted to the fun animations and sound effects of the experience. After going back for more a few additional times, I ended up with a number of rare cards, including 2 legendary 1/1s – a Roxanne Perez Pen Pals auto black 1/1, and a Santos Escobar Pen Pals auto black 1/1.

If you didnt already guess, I immediately started chasing all the available Becky Lynch cards, and found that they were popping out of the packs pretty quickly. I was able to get most of them for very inexpensive prices comparable to my expectations of seeing what had transpired for other sports, including the awesome acquisition of the 1/1 autograph Pen Pals black.

I also was able to move some of my bigger pulls as well, selling the Roxanne Perez 1/1 auto and a few others to more than make up for what I spent on the packs earlier. As values began to settle, I was able to start to make more progress on my personal collection, picking up some nice Rhea Ripley, LA Knight and Roman Reigns cards.

Funny enough, many of the WWE purchases were among the higher dollar transactions on the platform for the day, which was really cool to see. I have a feeling that as the base packs are released, and the challenges start, we will start to see a lot more movement than we have now. Cryptoslam is already showing a number of active sellers and buyers, which is good news for WWE on the NFT launch, but seeing that Elite is not one of the main sets that drives value on the platform (Prizm AHEM), I hope this isnt the last set either.

Overall, much like my experience learning the Topps Digital apps, this was a journey, and Im not even close to being up to speed. I had to figure out discord to get on the healthy server they have there with close to 10k participants, and that’s just the start of it. Cant wait to see how this goes, its always fun to get some experience in a new market.