“Soccer Tokens Surge Pre-Summer Sports Season”,As anticipation for major football tournaments in Europe and the Americas grows, fan tokens are emerging as a prominent player in the crypto world. These tokens, representing fan engagement in clubs, are gaining attention amidst the football fever.
They offer fans unique opportunities to interact with their favorite teams and players, adding an exciting dimension to the sports experience.
Activity in tokens linked to participating national teams has increased ahead of the Euro 2024 European soccer championship, which kicks off on Friday, and the Copa América in North and South America that starts a week later.
The market value of the Chiliz cryptocurrency – the native coin of the Socios blockchain which hosts most major fan tokens, and thus a broad proxy for the niche sector – has climbed to more than $1.07 billion from about $687 million at the start of the year and is nearing levels last seen around the 2022 World Cup, according to data from CoinGecko.
Trading volumes of fan tokens have also picked up in recent months, registering more than $170 million on May 24, versus between $25 million and $57 million for most of January, according to data from Kaiko. The total market value of listed fan tokens stands around $413 million, CoinGecko data shows.
This summer of sport could be a key test for the still-nascent sector of fan tokens, which typically offer perks like raffle entries, early ticket access, merchandise discounts, or chances to vote on minor decisions such as match songs
Backers laud the tokens as a rare example of real-world crypto utility, while critics highlight the tensions between the stated purpose of team engagement and the speculative – and risky – nature of tradeable assets.
