Pokémon TCG Pocket devs promise to eliminate the much loathed Trade Tokens

Pokémon TCG Pocket’s developers say they will scrap the unpopular Trade Token currency in a sweeping update to how cards can be traded in the popular mobile game. A full update on the state of trades in Pocket was posted to the game’s forums early Friday morning, though the changes won’t be coming to the game until “the end of autumn 2025.”

This follows more than a month of silence after developers Creatures Inc. and DeNA promised to rework trading. The feature was introduced Jan. 29, and developers promised changes soon after, as they were met with massive player frustration.

Trade Tokens, the focal point of player’s unhappy feedback, were a required currency to make an in-game trade. To earn Trade Tokens, a player would have to destroy a duplicate card in your collection, making it quite costly to trade more valuable cards. According to this developer update, shinedust will now be the main currency required for trading.

“When you open a booster pack, shinedust will be automatically earned if you obtain a card that is already registered in your Card Dex. Currently, shinedust is also required to obtain flair, so we are looking into increasing the amount offered since it will also be needed for trading.”

The update does not mention how much shinedust will be required to make each three-star, four-star, or one-diamond trade. But it’s a currency given away freely during the game’s many rotating events. As the forum post notes: “[T]his change should allow you to trade more cards than you could before this update.”

The forum post also reveals two features in development. One is the ability for players to share a list of cards they are interested in trading for, which seemed like an oversight to launch without in the first place. The second is a promise to further explore trading availability for two-star rarity cards and promotional cards, which are currently unable to be traded.

As the update isn’t due out until fall, it’s likely we’ll get more specifics on the cost of trades with the shinedust currency in the future, but players will have a long time to wait before the updates go into effect.