WWE Superstar Logan Paul has addressed the controversy surrounding his ownership of the PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrator card after it sold for a staggering $16,492,000 at Goldin Auctions on Saturday night, setting the Guinness World Record for the most expensive trading card ever sold.
The sale, which took place during a livestream from Goldin Auctions headquarters in Kenilworth, New Jersey, saw 97 total bids over several hours of extended bidding.
The final price more than tripled what Paul originally paid for the card — approximately $5.275 million — when he acquired it from a Dubai-based collector in 2021.
The winning bidder appeared on stage with Paul and Ken Goldin after the auction, revealing plans for a "planetary treasure hunt" that includes acquiring a T-Rex fossil and a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence.
However, the celebration was immediately overshadowed by backlash from fans and critics who raised questions about Paul's ownership of the card and the fate of fractional investors who had purchased stakes through Liquid Marketplace, a platform Paul co-founded in 2022.
Logan Paul Addresses the Controversy
In a statement posted after the sale, Paul laid out his version of events to clear the air.
I had originally offered to sell up to 51% of the Illustrator on Liquid Marketplace but ultimately only 5.4% of the card was sold for about $270k in the Summer of 2022 to fractional owners associated with LM," Paul wrote.
Loading tweet...
Paul stated that he bought the card back in May 2024 for the same price it was sold for, per the terms of the platform, and that funds were made available for users to withdraw. He claims many fractional owners did withdraw their funds during the approximately one year that followed.
For reasons outside of my control, the LM site then went offline," Paul continued. "When I learned users could no longer withdraw their funds on LM's site, I personally paid to get the site back up.
Paul directed users to liquidmarketplace.io to withdraw their funds and stated they had been notified via email.
The Bigger Picture
The controversy runs deeper than Paul's statement suggests. The Ontario Securities Commission accused Liquid Marketplace of operating a "multi-layered fraud" in June 2024, alleging that top executives — CEO Ryan Bahadori, CTO Amin Nikdel, and former CFO Dennis Domazet — diverted approximately $3 million of investor funds for personal use. Paul was not named in the OSC's proceedings, which are expected to be heard in June 2026.
The OSC also alleged that Liquid Marketplace sold $2.7 million in tokens that it claimed were unregistered securities, and that the platform falsely told buyers those tokens represented legal ownership in underlying collectibles. YouTube investigator Coffeezilla had also been looking into the platform before Paul filed a defamation lawsuit against him in 2024.
Critics on social media were not satisfied with Paul's explanation. Many called for the fractional owners to be compensated based on the card's $16.5 million sale price rather than their original investment amount, arguing they should share in the massive appreciation given they were sold ownership stakes years ago.
Paul closed his statement by calling the sale "bittersweet" and thanking the Pokémon community, Ken Goldin, and his team for making it "a historic moment for the hobby."
Congrats to the buyer for an iconic purchase the entire world will remember," Paul wrote. "Although bittersweet, I was proud to be a steward of the greatest collectible in the world for the last 5 years.
The full-time WWE Superstar, who performs on Monday Night RAW as a member of The Vision alongside Bron Breakker, Bronson Reed, and Austin Theory, noted during his livestream that he needed to get some sleep after the auction because he was heading straight to Memphis for tonight's episode of RAW.
