Steve Aoki is a lot of things: EDM icon, cake-throwing crowd conductor, fashion collaborator, record label boss. But in the last few years, he’s also become a full-blown trading card obsessive. We’re not talking a few rare Pokémon and a shiny Charizard here and there—we’re talking a stash of more than 35,000 cards, from GOAT-tier legends like Michael Jordan and Tom Brady to niche grails like UFC rookies and first-gen holographics. And now, that vast collection is getting a new home.
Aoki is teaming up with Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) to move his entire trove into the PSA Vault, a high-security storage and marketplace system offered in partnership with eBay. Think of it like Fort Knox for slabs—a streamlined way for collectors to authenticate, grade, store, and even sell their cards without ever having to shuffle them between binders, boxes, and meetups.
“I’ve always had a knack for collecting,” Aoki says. “Early on, I was inspired by my dad, who was a huge collector of pinball machines and other rare items. I’ve been all-in on cards for as long as I can remember—collecting everything from Pokémon to UFC to the GOATs like Mantle, Jordan and Brady.”
Aoki’s move is part personal and part strategic. The pandemic lit the fuse on a modern-day trading card renaissance, and Aoki was right there with it. After years of touring and studio work, he finally had a minute to catch his breath—and dig into the dusty bins of his childhood passions. What started as a nostalgic return to Pokémon soon spiraled into a full-blown second act as a collector and dealer.
“I didn’t really think about cards as having that much financial value,” he told Rolling Stone in 2021. “I thought they were just cardboard, you know? So when my friend was like, ‘Yeah, I just bought this card for $15,000 on Twitter,’ I was like, ‘What?’”
That friend was investor and entrepreneur Dan Fleyshman, who, along with longtime collaborator DJ Skee, helped convince Aoki that this was more than a nostalgia trip. It was a market—and a culture—worth diving into. Soon, Aoki was scooping up vintage icons like Jackie Robinson and MJ, slabbing everything with PSA, and documenting the journey through Aoki’s Cardhouse, his card-focused Instagram, YouTube series, and eBay store.
And of course, this is Steve Aoki, so he didn’t stop at just collecting—he co-designed a vibrant, modern baseball card set with Topps in 2020 and partnered with TCGplayer in 2021 to offer a curated selection of high-value Pokémon cards from his personal collection. That collaboration saw Aoki bring $3 million worth of Pokémon inventory to the marketplace, aiming to make high-end collectibles more accessible to fans and collectors alike.
“It’s like fantasy sports, combined with stocks, combined with nostalgia, combined with gambling,” Aoki said at the time.
That mix of vibes is exactly what’s made trading cards explode with a new generation of collectors, especially those who grew up in the late '90s and early 2000s with binders full of Pokémon and a bedroom shrine to Allen Iverson. The PSA Vault taps into that momentum by offering authentication and storage under one roof, but with the added bonus of being able to seamlessly list cards for sale through eBay. No shipping labels, no sketchy DMs, no heart attacks watching your grail get lost in the mail.
For Aoki, the Vault is both a safe and a launchpad. While some of his most prized pieces will remain locked down, others may be heading to market in the next few years. That means for the right price, you could own a piece of Aoki’s personal collection—something slabbed, graded, and handled by one of the most prominent celebrity collectors in the game.
“The ability to authenticate, grade, store and safeguard my pieces is a game-changer,” he says. “The ability to evolve my collection while selling some of these items direct from PSA Vault via eBay and getting them into the hands of more collectors is going to grow the hobby.”
It started as a hobby. Now, it’s a serious part of his world. And with the PSA Vault, Aoki’s making sure the cards—and the culture—stick around.