eBay is one of the oldest digital marketplaces on the internet and is now the site of a Shiny Pokemon black market where mysterious Pokemon hunters are making a lot of profit selling colored variants of popular virtual creatures. Similar to the rest of eBay, some sellers are offering fake items for lower prices while others are selling legitimate Shiny Pokemon at an expensive rate.
For those unfamiliar, Shinies are ultra-rare color variants of Pokemon which can be acquired by encountering the same Pokemon again and again. The probability of finding a Shiny Pokemon in Sword and Shield are 1 in 4096.
This probability can be increased by hunting Shiny Pokemon in particular ways such as engaging in Dynamax Adventures, Masuda hunting, and defeating over 500 of a particular species. Because of low probability and the random number generator, encountering a Shiny can take days, weeks, or even months. The sheer scarcity of these Shiny Pokemon makes them extremely wanted even if they don’t acquire any new moves, improved stats, or one of a kind abilities.
Some Pokemon trainers would rather avoid the hours of repetitious hunting in exchange for several dollars on the internet. Aside from secondhand gaming consoles, players can now buy Shiny Pokemon on eBay.
There are thousands of Shiny Pokemon listings for various Pokemon games such as Pokemon HOME, Pokemon Go, and Pokemon Sword and Shield. A quick search of sold listings for Shiny Pokemon will let players see hundreds of these Shinies being sold on a daily basis with prices ranging from a dollar to hundreds of dollars. However, not all listings are completely authentic.
A lot of Shiny Pokemon that are listed were not authentically acquired, but are actually hacked then put in the game complete with their Hidden Abilities and almost perfect stats. These listings are easy to spot as most of them are for Pokemon Sword and Shield and are offered with perfect IV Shiny Pokemon for only $2.
For players who don’t care about the legitimacy of a Shiny Pokemon, there aren’t a lot of consequences in buying one except for feeling guilty for fabricating such an achievement. Players can always count on the listings for Shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Go since it’s currently not probable to fake a Pokemon in the game. Potential buyers will observe that Pokemon Go Shinies have a higher price compared to Pokemon Sword and Shield, and Pokemon Home Shinies because of this information.
The Shiny Pokemon black market is growing in a significant amount daily on eBay according to existing listings by simply selling rare monsters to desperate players. Purchasing a Shiny Pokemon on the internet is the same as a hunter displaying a head of a deer on their trophy wall that they didn’t kill themselves, and purchasing a hacked Shiny Pokemon is as if the deer head is an absolute fake.
Nonetheless, fake and authentic Shiny Pokemon are still worth a lot of dollars online and are making eBay retailers a huge income.
