ATH Labs Raises $2.5 Million Seed Round, Backed by Bullish Capital, to Build the Liquidity Layer for Premium Trading Cards
The funding will allow the Abu Dhabi-based Web3 developer to prepare Deadstock, its platform for premium graded Pokémon cards, for public launch and to expand the infrastructure connecting real-world inventory and on-chain operations to a global market.
ABU DHABI, September 14, 2026. ATH Labs Ltd, the company building Deadstock, today announced it has raised $2.5 million in seed funding led by Bullish Capital, the venture arm of Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), and a select group of angel investors. ATH Labs is building the liquidity layer for tokenized collectibles, connecting authentic offline card supply and custody with the blockchain. The round funds the public launch of Deadstock, ATH Labs' first product, and the vault, oracle, tokenization, and application infrastructure underneath it.
The trading card market is now one of the largest collectibles categories in the world, but the plumbing beneath it has barely moved. Cards change hands across dozens of disconnected venues, with no shared source of truth on what is authentic, what condition it is really in, or whether the card behind a listing even physically exists.
"There has never been a central registry or clearing house for this market," said Dominic Jang, co-founder and Chief Business & Operations Officer of ATH Labs. "This world starts offline, in Web0, and it has never been connected to modern infrastructure. We're bridging that authentic, real-world supply with Web3, so graded cards can live on-chain as digital assets, opening a beloved but fragmented category to collectors and investors at scale."
Deadstock differentiates itself on quality and authenticity. Every card is a PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator) 10, the top grade issued by the world's most recognized authentication service, sourced directly from Japan through an exclusive partnership with JTCC (Japan Trading Card Center), one of Japan's largest trading card operators. Cards sit in insured professional custody in a secure vault, and each physical card is matched one-to-one with a digital twin recorded on the Arbitrum blockchain. Ownership can move while the card stays safe in the vault, and owners can request physical delivery worldwide whenever they want.
Deadstock is currently in closed beta at deadstock.gg.
"When I was eight, I traded Pokémon cards at school, until everyone stopped trading with me. I didn't realize my cards were fake, let alone that fake cards existed. ATH is solving a problem that has persisted for decades by bringing verifiable authenticity, deeper liquidity, and seamless cross-border trading to a rapidly growing global market. What started as schoolyard games has evolved into a legitimate asset class, drawing giants like Target and Walmart into a multi-billion-dollar industry," said Sylvia To, Vice President of Bullish Capital.
The capital takes Deadstock from closed beta to public launch, expands the vault and sourcing operations in Japan, and continues building out the vault, oracle, tokenization, and application stack that other collectibles businesses can plug into.
About Deadstock
Deadstock is an on-chain platform for trading card liquidity. Powered by an exclusive supply partnership with JTCC and launching with PSA 10 Grails, Deadstock combines real, graded physical cards with verifiable ownership and a unified pricing reference, turning a fragmented category into a single, liquid surface.
Media contact: Olga Kosareva, press@ath.xyz
Links: Deadstock: deadstock.gg · X: @deadstock_app
About ATH Labs Ltd
ATH Labs Ltd is building the liquidity layer for the rapidly growing global collectibles category, historically underserved by technological and financial infrastructure. Headquartered in ADGM, Abu Dhabi, with engineering and operations across the globe, ATH Labs builds the technological infrastructure (vault, oracle, tokenization, and application modules) that any trading card and collectibles business can plug into. Deadstock is its first product.
About Bullish Capital
Bullish Capital is an investment company which offers strategic capital, industry expertise, and an extensive network of resources to support initiatives that connect conventional finance with the revolutionary possibilities of the digital economy. Bullish Capital, the venture arm of Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), operates within a larger ecosystem that includes Bullish Exchange, an institutionally focused digital assets spot and derivatives exchange integrating a high-performance central limit order book with automated market making to provide deep and predictable liquidity. Bullish Europe is regulated under MiCAR as a crypto asset service provider offering spot trading and custody services for digital assets. Bullish is also the parent company of CoinDesk, a leading provider of digital asset media and information services. For more information on Bullish Capital, please visit https://www.bullish.com/capital.