The worlds of crypto and sports share strikingly similar characteristics: fervent passion, deep camaraderie, and tightly knit communities built united by a singular devotion to the “team.”
Over the past few years, these two realms have increasingly intersected, blending in unexpected ways. The result? A burgeoning underground community where crypto technology is becoming a tool for fueling — and even amplifying — sports fanaticism.
The idea of merging sports and crypto products began early in 2014 with projects like Jetcoin trying to tokenize athletes. However, the concept was way ahead of its time and ultimately failed due to a limited athlete partnership and a lack of compelling use cases for fans.
The 2017 Bitcoin bull market, driven mainly by retail investors, introduced blockchain apps to the mainstream audience. Since then, crypto sport-related products have emerged in different formats, such as NFT collectibles, sports tokenization and fan tokens. Sports digital collectibles platforms like the NFL-licensed Hashletes emerged that year but didn’t really take off until NBA Top Shot became wildly popular in late 2020 and early 2021.
Fans (and a journalist back row, second from left) assemble ahead of a match on hallowed ground. (Ramirez-Escudero)
The fan tokens, created by Chiliz (CHZ) in 2018 and managed by Socios.com, represent a particular team. Many teams from diverse sports have tokens, however, they are particularly well-adopted among significant football teams (what Americans call “soccer teams”), such as Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City, Galatasaray, Argentina’s national team and Barcelona.
Users must purchase a specific number of fan tokens to participate in a gamification program linked to real-life sports events. It rewards their engagement with points, which can unlock a range of perks when combined with sufficient fan tokens from attending official matches in…
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