Search on eBay for some of the most-popular sports cards out there, and you'll see most of them are already authenticated and graded by the likes of PSA (the most-popular), Beckett, and ISA. In fact, it's almost a requirement among buyers and sellers of rare and valuable cards. It seems weird for eBay to offer to do this, but according to eBay's website, this is a free service. No harm, no foul, I guess?

What eBay should be doing is offering an authentication service for autographs. Anyone with a passing interest in sports memorabilia knows about the FBI's Operation Bullpen that targeted a ring of notorious forgers. Many of these forged autographs wound up on eBay in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I know this, because one of my relatives bought a Lou Gehrig autograph that turned out to be a fake -- despite the certificate of authenticity included. All eBay did was ban listings from some of the authenticators implicated in Operation Bullpen, most notably Donald Frangipani, the same guy who "authenticated" that Gehrig.

TL;DR -- A good market already exists for authenticating sports cards. eBay should focus on combating fake autographs instead.

Cryptocurrency reminds me of the 1990s baseball card market. It’s highly speculative and its value is based on what people think it’s worth.

For example, in the 1990s, collectors and investors alike jumped on the baseball card bandwagon because they saw dollar signs everywhere. Vintage cards, like the infamous 1909 T206 Honus Wagner, became the holy grail for collectors. New cards of rising stars and prospects likewise commanded high values in price guides like Beckett’s and Tuff Stuff.

Then, the bottom fell out. Card companies like Topps, Donruss, Upper Deck, Fleer, and Score flooded the market with cards. Higher-priced card packs — which promised to contain a valuable card or autograph — priced out the casual collectors and hobbyists from the 1980s and earlier. What remained were people stuck with a bunch of worthless Todd Van Poppel rookie cards.

Cryptocurrency is popular, but the market is becoming flooded with all sorts of different digital currencies with different values. Sure, Bitcoin is limited by the amount of available coins (i.e. you won’t see the market flooded with lots of Bitcoin), but when you lump it in with the rest of the crypto market, it comes across as yet another fad. It appears more people are realizing this.

(Unrelated: Hey, my first post in nearly 20 years!)