Why can’t you get XL candy from trades in Pokemon Go?

Back to the drawing board.

Image via Niantic

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In Pokémon Go, trainers can now go beyond the traditional trainer level 40 cap and make it all the way to level 50. The level increase also gives trainers the ability to make their favorite Pokémon even more powerful. To do this, though, they need to earn XL candy. That candy is not easy to acquire. There are a few ways you can earn it, such as turning regular Pokémon candy into it, completing research tasks, or walking your Pokémon. Another method was to trade the same Pokémon with another trainer, but it looks like Niantic plans to rethink this approach.

Shortly before Pokémon Go officially releases the level cap increase, the Niantic Support team posted on its Twitter page how the team was excited for players to try out the new features coming to the game. However, they’ve been discussing how they plan to tweak how players earn Candy Xl, and these adjustments will happen in future updates. But for the time being, players won’t earn XL candy from trades until these adjustments are made.

It appears the Niantic developer team potentially saw how quickly trainers could likely farm XL candy if they were able to have another player consistently ready to trade with them. The support team could be finding ways to adjust it so you can’t earn XL candy through trades as easily, but it might make obtaining the resource easier in other ways, such as making it cost less regular candy.

Right now, if you’re trying to grind up XL candy to power up your Pokémon, try capturing the same Pokémon in the wild or walking around with your buddy. For now, trades are not a viable way to grind XL candy, but we’ll see what happens in future adjustments by Niantic.