The physical collectibles market is over a century old for baseball cards. So far the SEC hasn't stepped in for places trading baseball cards, magic cards, pokemon cards, sneakers, etc.
So the burden of proof seems to be on the claim that they're the same, or that it's a meaningful analogy.
But hey, let's look at the this case - the accused did the following:
* created their own token (ok, so they aren't just a card swap meet or trading site like your analogy)
* pumped and dumped that token
* paid ridiculous interest rates (I sure haven't seen that from the places I get my Pokemon cards...) and advertised that the principal was safe (these are wildly mutually contradictory, and many people knew it at the time)
* lent money...
ok let's stop there, we're already clearly in a different universe of financial activity.
EDIT: misattributed a followup comment
So the burden of proof seems to be on the claim that they're the same, or that it's a meaningful analogy.
But hey, let's look at the this case - the accused did the following:
* created their own token (ok, so they aren't just a card swap meet or trading site like your analogy)
* pumped and dumped that token
* paid ridiculous interest rates (I sure haven't seen that from the places I get my Pokemon cards...) and advertised that the principal was safe (these are wildly mutually contradictory, and many people knew it at the time)
* lent money...
ok let's stop there, we're already clearly in a different universe of financial activity.
EDIT: misattributed a followup comment