Blockchain

[Tripredacus]

Originally Posted by Frankish

I like the idea of tracking the history of cards to avoid trimming, other frauds, sales after theft, etc., but blockchain probably wouldn't make the most meaningful contribution in this case. The card is a physical asset that would need to be tagged permanently somehow. And if that were done then a simple registry at the time of its initial tagging (high res photo files, etc) would be sufficient for many of the issues.

If the card itself weren't tagged, what would stop someone from simply cracking the case, altering or selling the card, and tossing the slab in the trash?

That said, I'm not dismissing that blockchain technology can't be used in a meaningful way in this industry...just that there is a base, physical layer to the problem that must be addressed first.

It depends on how it is used, but honestly this concept can be done even without blockchain. The difference with blockchain is that the information is public.

So consider this situation where this type of data can be stored in blockchain:
- year / set / card number / card name
- grading company
- grade / subgrades
- cert number

That's great but grading registries are already pretty much free as it is right? Regrades aren't going to become magically tracked just because the data is public. What is the percentage of regrades or crossovers that are done where the grader is sent the card in the original slab? Because to me, that is the only situation where a regrade can be tracked, and that would require the grading company to connect the old cert to the new cert. Then how many times do these actions take place where the card is cracked out of the slab and sent to the company?

So in the situation where the original slab isn't sent, there is no way to know if that particular card was graded before. Putting info into blockchain isn't going to make any sort of difference. What would need to come first are ways to issue forensically unique identifiers to cards... which is what (as I understand it) that automated grading company is supposed to do. And even then (again) blockchain doesn't make a difference as long as the information is already public, and of course that type of identification will only apply to graded cards going forward and would not apply to anything that came before it.