Fans Of Tokens Attract Attention Amid Euro 2024 Fever And Copa America

Illustration of football Tokens (photo; x @matchday ·)

JAKARTA - The closer a major football tournament like Euro 2024 and Copa America, a small but interesting part of the crypto world is stealing attention: fan tokens. These tokens are not ordinary digital assets, but are issued by national teams or individual clubs, which provide ways for proponents to interact with their teams through tradable assets.

Activities in fan tokens linked to participating national teams have increased ahead of the Euro 2024 football championship which began on Friday, June 14 and Copa Americia in North and South America which began a week later.

Chiliz's cryptocurrency market value - the original coin of the Socios blockchain which hosts most of the large fan tokens - has increased to more than US$1.07 billion from around US$687 million earlier this year. This is close to the last level seen around the 2022 World Cup, according to data from CoinGecko.

The volume of tokens fan trading has also increased in recent months, recording more than $170 million on May 24, compared to between US$25 million and 57 million for most of January, according to data from Kaiko. The current total market value of fan tokens is around $413 million, according to CoinGecko data.

Fans tokens offer a variety of benefits such as lottery, ticket initial access, merchandise discounts, or opportunities to vote in small decisions such as match songs. Supporters praise these tokens as a rare example of crypto utility in the real world, while criticism highlights tensions between the alleged team's engagement goals and speculative properties of tradable assets.

Although fan tokens offer attractive engagement opportunities, they are also facing criticism. British lawmakers warn that increasing use of tokens in sports could put supporters at risk of financial losses and potentially damage the club's reputation.

The English and Wales football supports association has also criticized the fan tokens partnership as an attempt to monetize trivial matters and include financial barriers to the true involvement of supporters.

The growth of fan tokens associated with clubs, not national teams, remains slow. However, the number of fan tokens has increased in recent years, given the ease of launching tokens on blockchains like Solana.

Chiliz has launched four new tokens fans in the past 12 months for clubs such as Tottenham Hotspur and Benfica. French football giant Paris Saint-Germain, which has fan tokens, announced earlier this year that it will be a network validator for the Chilez Chain blockchain, manage and secure parts of the chain.

The England side Watford FC recently offered 10% of the club's shares to investors and fans via digital equity tokens, offering additional benefits such as dinner with team members and private training field tours depending on investment levels.

With the increasing activity and volume of fan tokens trading, this summer of the sport could be a key test for the fan tokens sector that is still new. The future of fan tokens may depend on how the balance between engagement-focused users and speculators develops in the future.