Ever since Pokemon Go launched, trainers have been waiting patiently for trading to be added to the game. The feature was teased in the original trailer last September, but two and a half months later, it still hasn’t made its way into the game.

Although Niantic hasn’t given a specific timetable for trading, some perceptive fans have found signs of the feature in the code of the latest update.

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Without getting into the nitty gritty of what Pokemon Go Hub found in the code dump of the Pokemon Go 0.37.1 APK, here’s a summary of what it all means:

You are able to search for “Trading Players”

for “Trading Players” You are able to create, cancel and complete Trade Offers

Trade Offers You can currently trade only Pokemon

No info on the visibility and range of Trade Search – it’s too early to say if you’ll be able to trade worldwide or not

The trading seems resilient to “connection loss” and will retry once the connection is available again It’s inconclusive what type of connection trading will use… … although it does communicate with the server side to load Trade offers and responses



Keep in mind that none of this is definitive until Niantic actually announces it, but considering how much we learned about the Buddy Pokemon before that feature launched, I have a feeling that much of this is basically finalized.

That said, it looks like we will be able to trade Pokemon when the feature rolls out, but not items. Also, the ability to search for trading players makes it sound like you won’t need to be friends with a player to trade. Instead, you can just search the area and see if anyone in the vicinity (or possibly around the world?) is willing to trade one of their Pokemon for one of yours.

The more we hear about trading, the more likely that an official launch date is approaching. Keep your eyes peeled for more in the coming days.