Panini Blockchain hit $5m Monthly Volume

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Panini Blockchain Overview ⛓️ 

Over the years, when explaining what NFTs are, I would often point to Panini stickers.

So it’s ironic that Panini themselves, have grown into one of the biggest NFT businesses in the industry.

You read that correctly.

The heritage brand has posted some mighty numbers in 2025 so far, and it’s even more fascinating when you bring the macro perspective into the equation.

Last year, news broke that Fanatics would replace the sticker and card veterans as the provider of those products for the English Premier League from the 2025-26 season. Some thought it was if, not when, Panini would become extinct due to consolidation and market conditions.

Panini’s last reported revenue was $1.4bn in 2018, after a huge boost from that year’s World Cup. It’s unknown, however, just how much money Panini is making as a business right now, but you might hazard a guess that it can’t be much more than the reported 2018 number. The aforementioned competitor Fanatics made $1.6bn from collectibles in 2024 — so that is another indicator as to where the storied Italian brand’s revenues may sit.

In January 2020, Panini launched ‘Panini Blockchain’.

The concept is simple; Panini cards onchain.

The NFT arm of the business has several licenses; including the NBA, NFL, FIFA, La Liga and LFP (French Football).

Panini operate their own blockchain to bring this to life, using Hyperledger, an open-source distributed technology system started by the Linux Foundation almost a decade ago. Hyperledger is no longer operating, but Panini have built their own systems — so it won’t impact the business significantly in the short run.

There are some gamified differentiators to Panini’s NFT product compared to the physical counterpart.

Users can engage in regular challenges, and also participate in ‘crafting’, which essentially lets users burn NFTs to redeem ‘Block Points’. The product also teases ‘Staking’ although there is no information on what that might entail for users.

The Data Behind the 2025 Comeback 📈 

Although not widely known or discussed, Panini’s volumes have grown to be pretty impressive, against a backdrop where NFTs have faded in popularity, at least in terms of total volume.

Panini’s monthly sales volumes peaked back in mid 2021, before bottoming in 2024, like many NFT products.

But unlike many, Panini are on the path to eclipsing previous highs — and are indeed on track to do so in March 2025.

Indeed, 2025 so far already represents almost 10% of Panini blockchain lifetime sales volume.

If you annualised their March 2025 figures, they would hit between $60-70m, representing 5-10% of the entirety of Panini’s business revenue.

2025 is likely to be Panini NFT’s best year yet.

This comes against a backdrop of poor conditions for NFTs, which makes Panini’s NFT product success even more impressive.