<p>Logan Paul has sold his rare Pikachu Illustrator Pokémon card for $16.4 million at a Goldin Auctions sale on Feb. 16. Paul tripled what he paid for it in 2021, but fractional investors who once owned stakes in the card say they never received payouts from an earlier buyback.</p><p>The Pikachu Illustrator card sale breaks the Guinness World Record for the most expensive Pokémon card sold at auction. Venture capitalist AJ Scaramucci, son of former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, won the bidding and received the card along with a custom diamond necklace valued at $75,000.</p><p>Paul originally bought the 1998 Japanese promotional card in Dubai for $5.275 million, a record at the time for a private sale. He wore it in the diamond necklace to his WWE debut at WrestleMania 38 in 2022.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Logan Paul actually sold the “Pikachu” card for $19,092,000 not $16,492,000.<br><br>Don’t forget his $2.6M raise from the Liquid Marketplace in 2022 in exchange for 51% fractionalized shares of the asset.<br><br>Shareholders got nothing. <a href="https://twitter.com/FBI?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FBI</a> are we letting <a href="https://twitter.com/LoganPaul?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@LoganPaul</a> get away with it? <a href="https://t.co/06YPVNaSkQ">pic.twitter.com/06YPVNaSkQ</a></p>— ₿🧞‍♂️ (@BR4ted) <a href="https://twitter.com/BR4ted/status/2023302221715386692?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 16, 2026</a></blockquote> <script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><h2>Liquid Marketplace investors say they were shut out</h2><p>There were a few controversies surrounding the Pokémon card, though, since Paul had listed the card on Liquid Marketplace, a fractional ownership platform he co-founded, at a $5 million valuation in 2021, at the top of the NFT bull run. The platform allowed users to buy small stakes in high-end collectibles, and 51 percent of the card’s ownership was sold to investors.</p><p>Liquid went dark at the end of 2022. Following the closure, Paul announced that he had purchased Liquid Marketplace’s share in the card for $250,000 in May 2024,&nbsp;<a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/logan-paul-sell-pikachu-illustrator-213000664.html">according to Yahoo Sports</a>. This figure represented roughly 10 cents on the dollar compared to the platform’s original $5 million valuation.</p><p>"We were told that the funds had been redistributed, and I assumed that was the case," Paul said at the time. "When I put my card up for auction, it was news to me that people on the platform couldn't withdraw their money."</p><p>Multiple investors posted on social media platforms,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/PokeInvesting/comments/1q16bga/comment/nxbpt91">including Reddit</a> that they never received payouts after Paul's buyback.&nbsp;</p><p>"I was a customer of Liquid Marketplace and probably had about $1000 worth of shares in the Pikachu card," the investor wrote on Reddit. "There was no communication from the company when they closed, and I only first heard about it today."</p><p>The Ontario Securities Commission filed enforcement proceedings against Liquid Marketplace and three executives, Ryan Bahadori, Amin Nikdel, and Dennis Domazet, with allegations of “multi-layered fraud in the crypto asset sector.” Paul was not named in the application, which is scheduled to be heard in June 2026.</p><p>What seems to be a key problem is that Paul bought back the card without the fractional owners' vote, despite holding only a minority stake. Posts from people who said they invested through the platform indicated Liquid Marketplace's terms of service gave the custodian control over items regardless of ownership stakes. Some said the terms allowed Paul to buy back the card at any time.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Logan Paul signed up on Polymarket to bet on his own auction?<br><br>I found an account that's 99% either an insider or belongs to Logan Paul himself.<br><br>3 huge bets. All green. Walked away with $300k+ profit.<br><br>His profile: <a href="https://t.co/ORutAbLiTj">https://t.co/ORutAbLiTj</a><br><br>He started buying a huge amount of… <a href="https://t.co/qVK6y9ODgB">pic.twitter.com/qVK6y9ODgB</a></p>— Alekzz (@AIexey_Stark) <a href="https://twitter.com/AIexey_Stark/status/2023309356473741752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 16, 2026</a></blockquote> <script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><p>Crypto X users also found that a fresh wallet placed bets with size and suspicious accuracy on Logan Paul's Pikachu auction through Polymarket. The said account walked away with over $200,000 profits.&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ppZhEYPcG9Y?si=3TMkOGkeQwZIEIXC" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>

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