A Chat with Vartul Agrawal, Head of Engineering at Arena Club

 Please tell us about Arena Club and your main objective at the company.

 

Arena Club brings a modern, tech-focused approach to the collectible card industry. Our platform combines the best aspects of traditional collecting with advanced, blockchain-backed authentication and grading systems.

My main objective as Head of Engineering is to ensure a seamless user experience for collectors, leveraging data and emerging technologies to create a secure, innovative environment for buying, selling, and trading cards.

 

What do you think makes this company unique?

 

Arena Club’s uniqueness lies in our commitment to transparency, security, and community. Unlike conventional card grading and trading, our blockchain-powered system provides an unalterable digital record for each card.

This technology assures collectors that the information about their cards’ grading, authenticity, and value is fully accurate and accessible. Beyond that, our digital showroom feature allows users to interact, share, and trade in ways that make collecting more social and collaborative—reflecting our commitment to making the experience more engaging. Our aim is to make the hobby accessible to all from the comfort of their homes. We are bringing the physical card shop experience to the online world.

 

 

What is your advice to aspiring entrepreneurs and tech executives?

 

Don’t be afraid to disrupt an industry, even if it has deep-rooted traditions. The most successful tech initiatives often come from rethinking old practices, but it’s essential to build with the user in mind. In the card collecting community, this balance remains top-of-mind, especially considering what drives individual passion for the hobby.

In my experience, it has been striking that cord between technical innovation and human interaction which brings about the most profound changes and overall enthusiasm for our team’s continued work.

 

 

What most excited you about and continues to excite you about Arena Club?

 

What continues to excite me is seeing our users engage with the platform in new ways and how their feedback, both online and in-person at card shows, guides us to constantly improve. Knowing we’re contributing to the future of collecting is highly rewarding. From the beginning, this challenge between the future of blockchain technology and that of a historically analog industry has motivated my commitment to Arena Club.

 

How has the company evolved since you have engaged with your role as Head of Engineering?

 

Since I started, we’ve made strides in refining our authentication and grading processes to be both rigorous and transparent. Arena Club has also scaled its technology infrastructure to support a rapidly growing user base without compromising performance. Right now, our team is adding exciting new features like a digital wallet to the app.

This will further develop our ongoing introduction of online Slab Packs to the marketplace, evolving the hobby to be more inclusive and accessible to all. We have significantly grown our team and business. We have also added support for auctions to our originally fixed price marketplace to increase engagement and liquidity on the platform.

 

What can we hope to see from Arena Club in the future? What are the most exciting changes upcoming within your role?

 

In the near future, Arena Club will be rolling out features that allow even more community engagement and customization for collectors. Along with the new app features detailed above, we continue to enhance our data analytics capabilities to provide deeper insights for users about their collections and market trends. We aim to personalize each user’s experience based on their likes and dislikes.

As Head of Engineering, I’m excited to continue driving these innovations and focusing on making the platform increasingly user-friendly, adaptable, and secure. Our goal is to make Arena Club the most trusted, interactive, and enjoyable place for trading card collectors globally.