After years of waiting, trading is finally about to arrive in Pokemon GO. The system has been fully detailed, but as with all things PoGO, it’s a bit more confusing than it might first appear. Getting characters from your account to your friend’s might seem simple, but it’s looking a lot more complex than just linking up and trading, like it is in the base games. The feature hasn’t rolled out just yet (we’ll update this post when it does), but we can already give a good idea of how to trade Pokemon in Pokemon GO just based on what we know so far.
First off, players need to friend each other by sharing each other’s trainer codes (find out more here). After that, you both need to be at or above level 10 and standing within a few feet of each other. Once you are, you can go ahead and trade by selecting the option from the game menu. Choose the Pokemon you want to send and you’ll be alerted to the Stardust cost. This can be very high for rare and powerful characters, so be ready. If you want to lower this cost then you need to increase your friendship level by trading and interacting with the other player often.
If this is a Legendary or a Pokemon that the other player does not currently have, then the trade will become a Special Trade, which can only be performed once per day. Otherwise you can trade as often as you want, as long as you have the Stardust. Players will earn candy, based on various factors, for the Pokemon that they trade, making it worth it to trade over just sending the character to the Professor.
Once the feature is live we can give more specifics on how to trade Pokemon in Pokemon GO, so check back later for a comprehensive update.
