Pokémon TCG Pocket is finally changing its trading system with a long-awaited update announced for July 29th.
The update will come exactly a week after the upcoming Pokémon Presents livestream where, assumedly, more Pocket news will be announced including the rumoured multi-pack expansion, which could release on the same day as the trading rehaul.
After numerous complaints from the community, Pokémon Pocket players will thankfully no longer need to burn cards in order to trade and will be able to publicly display what cards they are looking for.
There have been numerous issues with the game’s UI, including awkward menus to navigate and an infuriating lack of a dark mode.
But a nice quality of life update is coming which will add wishlists to the game. Players will be able to add up to 20 cards to their wishlist from the ‘My Cards’ screen and can select three of these cards to be displayed on their profiles.
This will make trading somewhat easier, as previously the game didn’t feature any way to communicate before trades. Instead, Reddit threads and third-party apps had been the answer. In fact, they may still be more useful if players wish to search for their desired card outside of their friend list.
Not having to destroy cards in order to be able to trade is also a welcome addition to Pokémon Pocket with trade tokens being phased out from use altogether.
Shinedust will instead be used for trading cards of three diamond, four diamond, and one-star rarity. There is still no word on publishers DeNa allowing rarer qualities of cards like rainbow rares, crown cards, or immersives to be traded.
Previously, shinedust had no use other than to put visual effects (flairs) on cards, but most players have ended up with a huge stockpile of the resource.
And soon, players will be given even more, as the amount of shinedust automatically given to players when they obtain a card already registered in their card dex will now be doubled.
Players will be able to earn even more shinedust too by trading in their old trade tokens in a new exchange shop.
The trade token exchange shop will offer players four different trade options.
One trade token can be exchanged for a pack hourglass, up to sixty times.
Or, trade tokens can be traded in for additional shinedust in various quantities as DeNa have thankfully offered some bulk buying options to speed up the process.
One trade token will offer 10 shinedust, 10 trade tokens will earn players 100 shinedust, and 100 trade tokens can be exchanged at once for 1,000 shinedust.
To prepare for this update, the trade feature will be disabled between Thursday, July 24, 2025 at 11:00 p.m. PDT to Tuesday, July 29, 2025 at 10:59 p.m. PDT. That will be bad news for those who are trading Gimmighouls daily in an attempt to unlock the secret icon for obtaining 99 copies of the card.
Players will also no longer be able to trade their own cards in for trade tokens after Tuesday, July 29, at 6:00 p.m. PDT, following completion of the in-game update. It may be worth burning some unwanted cards to get additional pack hourglasses.
