The Gacha Protocol: How Pack Buying and Card Yields Work on Graded

The Gacha Protocol turns graded cards into a pack-opening experience with real economics behind it. You buy a pack, pull a random card from a pool of graded slabs, and either keep it or sell it back instantly. On the other side, collectors deposit cards into the pool and earn a cut of the pool's earnings every time a buyer cashes out. Graded takes a 3% cut. That's the whole system.

This guide breaks down exactly how it works for both sides — pack buyers and contributors — with real dollar amounts so you know what you're getting into.

The Three Roles

Every pack sale involves three parties:

• Pack Buyer — pays for a pack, pulls a random card from the pool
• Contributor — deposits graded cards into the pool, earns a cut of pool earnings when buyers cash out, plus a payout if their own card is kept
• Graded Protocol — runs the vault, insurance, and marketplace. Takes 3% of contributor earnings (not 3% of the pack price — 3% of what contributors receive)

How Packs Work (For Buyers)

A pack costs 87% of the pool's average card value. If the pool has 50 cards averaging $120 each, a pack costs $104.40.

You buy the pack and pull one random card. That card could be worth $50 or $500 — the pool has cards of varying value, and the pack price is based on the average. That's where the thrill comes from.

After You Pull

You have two options:

• Keep the card. It's yours. Ships from the vault or transfers to your digital wallet.
• Take the buyback. Sell it back instantly for 85% of that specific card's fair market value. Cash hits your account immediately.

Example: You Get Lucky

Pack price: $104.40. You pull a card worth $200. Keep it — that's $95.60 in instant profit. Or take the buyback: $170 cash, still $65.60 profit. Either way, you win.

Example: You Don't

Pack price: $104.40. You pull a card worth $80. Keep it — you're down $24.40 but you own a graded card. Or take the buyback: $68 cash. You lost $36.40, but the buyback softened the blow compared to getting nothing.

The Math on Risk

Any pack could contain a card worth 5-10x what you paid. But you can also pull below the pack price. The 13% discount on the average and the 85% buyback are both designed to tilt odds in your favor, but they don't eliminate risk. If you can't afford to lose the pack price, don't buy the pack.

How Contributing Works (For Card Owners)

Deposit a graded card into the pool. Your card gets vaulted and insured. From that point on, you earn a cut of pool earnings every time a buyer cashes out — proportional to your card's value relative to the total pool value — plus a direct payout if your own card is ever kept.

Deposit a $200 card into a pool worth $10,000 total? You own 2% of the pool and earn 2% of pool earnings from every pack that gets cashed out.

Where the Yield Comes From

Two scenarios play out when someone buys a $104.40 pack:

Scenario A: Buyer Takes the Buyback (Most Common)

The buyer pays $104.40 and sells the card back for the buyback price. Say the pulled card is worth $120 — buyback is $102 (85% of $120). The pool earns $104.40 − $102 = $2.40 per cash-out. Graded takes 3% ($0.07), leaving $2.33 to be split across all contributors by their share of the pool. The card returns to the pool and keeps generating yield. This is where your recurring income comes from.

Scenario B: Buyer Keeps the Card

The buyer pays $104.40 and walks away with the card. This time the money doesn't go to everyone — it goes to the person who owned that specific card, as compensation for losing it. They receive MIN($104.40, $120) × 0.97 = $101.27, about 84% of the card's value. The card leaves the pool permanently, but its owner isn't wiped out, and no one else is diluted. (If the pulled card is worth less than the pack price, the owner is capped at the pack price and the surplus is shared with everyone else — so no one can farm cheap cards.)

Withdrawing Your Card

You can withdraw your card anytime — as long as it hasn't been pulled and kept by a buyer. If it's still in the pool, it's still yours.

The Risk: Your Card Can Be Taken

When a buyer pulls your specific card and chooses to keep it, you lose that card. You keep all the yield you've earned up to that point, but the card is gone. That's the trade-off for earning passive income on a card that would otherwise sit in a case.

The Number That Makes or Breaks It: Buyback Rate

Your income comes from packs that get cashed out. Your cost is the ~16% gap you eat each time one of your cards is kept. Those two have to net out positive — and the variable that decides it is the buyback rate: the share of buyers who cash out instead of keeping.

Below roughly an 89% buyback rate, contributors lose money — and more volume just loses it faster. Above 89%, you profit, and because you redeposit a card whenever one is taken, that edge compounds: more volume means more income on the same deployed capital. So the real question isn't “how big is the pool” — it's “do most buyers take the buyback on their pulls?” A generous 85% instant buyback is designed to make sure they do.

The Industry Benchmark: 93%

This isn't an aspirational number. On-chain data from DeFi Llama shows that in Q1 2026, the largest gacha platform on Solana — Collector Crypt — paid out $151.73M in buybacks against $163.09M in pack sales. That's a ~93% buyback rate: ~93% of every dollar that gets spent on a pack flows back out as cashouts. Users overwhelmingly take the buyback. They're not collectors hoarding pulls — they're rippers cycling capital.

Plug 93% into the contributor math at our 87% pack / 85% buyback / 3% fee:

• Breakeven sits at 89%, you're at 93% — you are 4 percentage points above breakeven.
• On a $120 card in a $60K pool moving 50 packs/day, that's a net ~26% APY on cost basis after take-losses, with a card pulled-and-kept roughly every ~4.7 months.
• The economics aren't theoretical. The largest competitor is already running 400 bps above our breakeven on a daily basis.

The cap on the downside — your card's comp if it gets kept is MIN(pack price, card FMV) × 0.97 — means you can't be farmed by someone listing a $10 card into your $120 pool. Combined with an instant 85% liquidity floor on buyer cashouts, the contributor side starts to look less like a yield experiment and more like a covered-call on graded inventory: you collect ongoing premium for letting the protocol underwrite pack risk against your card, and your downside is capped at the spread between pack price and your card's FMV.

The Formulas

Here's the exact math behind every number in the protocol:

Banded Pools: Why You're Only Up Against Similar Cards

Pools are split into value bands — a $40 common never sits in the same pool as a $1,000 slab. This keeps the pack price (87% of the pool average) close to your card's actual value, which matters twice: you're not subsidizing someone else's expensive card, and if your card gets kept, the pack-price comp makes you nearly whole instead of handing you pennies on the dollar.

A bigger pool spreads pulls thinner, so any single card survives longer before it's taken — but note that a larger pool changes the timing, not the underlying return. What actually drives your yield is the buyback rate and how much volume the band does. Bands are kept wide in dollar terms so there's still real upside inside one.

Depositing Cards

You can deposit graded cards from any trusted issuer: Courtyard, Collector Crypt, phygital tokens, or any platform Graded has integrated. The card gets verified, vaulted, and added to the band that matches its value. Your yield starts accruing with the next pack that gets cashed out.

FAQ

How much does a pack cost?

87% of the pool's average card value. If the average card in the pool is worth $120, a pack is $104.40.

What's the buyback?

85% of the specific card you pulled. Pull a $200 card, buyback is $170. Pull an $80 card, buyback is $68. It's instant cash.

Can I lose money buying a pack?

Yes. If you pull a card worth less than the pack price and take the buyback, you'll get back less than you paid. The discount and buyback reduce the downside but don't eliminate it.

How much do contributors earn?

It depends on pack volume, the buyback rate, and your share of the pool. A $200 card in a $10,000 pool earns 2% of pool earnings from every pack that gets cashed out.

What happens if my card gets pulled and kept?

You keep all the yield you've earned, and you're paid compensation of about 84% of the card's value (the pack price, minus the 3% fee). You lose the card and eat the ~16% gap, but you're not wiped out. You can also withdraw any card anytime before it's taken.

What does Graded take?

3% of contributor earnings. When the pool earns $2.40 on a cash-out, Graded takes $0.07 and $2.33 goes to contributors. The rest goes to card owners.