World Cup 2022: How can Web3 bring football fans around the globe together?

The FIFA World Cup 2022 has just kicked off in Qatar, Poloniex, a global crypto exchange, invited Chiliz, the blockchain infrastructure for the sports and entertainment industries, on November 22, 2022, for an AMA to talk about how Web3 would bring all football fans around the world together, and both guests also touched on the FTX meltdown, which has shocked the crypto industry.

The birth of fan tokens

The World Cup is unarguably magical to bring people together regardless of their age, race, gender, culture, and nationality.

As for the Qatar World Cup, it’s even more unique since it has created many “firsts”in history — the first World Cup was held in the Middle East; the first World Cup was held in winter; and the first World Cup to head into Web3, as FIFA (International Federation of Football Association), the international governing body of the World Cup, has launched its own NFT (non-fungible token) platform.

Therefore, Poloniex, as the proponent of innovative and revolutionary blockchain-related projects, grabbed the chance to collaborate with Chiliz to get a dozen of its fan tokens listed on our platforms, including $CITY, $AFC, $PSG, and $BAR.

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“…you can see there is a boom (for the issuance of fan tokens) in the football industry, that’s why Poloniex has listed a lot of fan tokens issued by Chiliz to show our commitment to the growth of the blockchain industry since 2014,” Eddie, the Head of Marketing of Poloniex, said during a 30-minute long conversation.

Since education and adoption are the keys to building the Web3 community, Poloniex has created a lot of content on fan tokens for educational purposes so that crypto enthusiasts and football fans will have a better understanding of the utility tokens and use them to interact with their favorite football clubs.

“…Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many sports leagues are exploring the profitability and possibility of Web3 as well as its related concepts, like fan tokens and NFTs, to seek another source of income and interact with fans worldwide,” Eddie continued.

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Another guest of the AMA, Siyi Chen, the Crypto Marketing Manager of Chiliz, agreed with Eddie’s explanation on the birth of fan tokens, and she explained further the benefits that fan token holders are entitled to. For example, the voting rights and the chance of getting rewards through match predictions, quizzes, and getting on the leaderboard. As for the rewards, Siyi revealed that token holders could redeem them for match or VIP tickets to enjoy once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

Future of Sports

As so many sports teams, clubs, and even leagues are jumping on the Web3 bandwagon, both guests believed that the future of sports would be merged with technology and GameFi would be very promising in the future.

“…Web3 is the next revolution of the World Wide Web for sure since more and more users care about ownership, which is the core idea of Web3. And, the sports teams or bodies now realize that anything related to Web3 can raise capital without forfeiting any equity, so I am so sure the clubs will explore more profitability and possibility in the Web3-related areas,” Eddie added.

Prior to the AMA, Eddie’s and Siyi’s favorite team, Argentina, was stunned by Saudi Arabia with a 1–2 loss in the first match of Group C. Both of them are shocked by the results, but Siyi laughingly said: “Apart from $ARG, the fan token for Argentina, you can also support Portugal since Chiliz also launched its fan token, $POR,”

Eddie echoed Siyi and added that Poloniex listed the aforementioned national fan tokens, $ARG and $POR, two hours before the AMA in hopes of bringing football fandom to its zenith.

Crypto in sports: What are POR, ARG fan tokens?

Build trust in tumultuous moment

Besides the Qatar World Cup, the FTX meltdown has also dominated many newspaper front pages, Eddie also gave his views on the misfortunate in the crypto industry.

“I feel sorry to hear about the fall of FTX since many investors, both big and small, are affected by this incident, but I can guarantee you that Poloniex has no exposure to FTX, so your digital assets are safe on our platform,” Eddie stressed.

With strict internal control on users’ assets, Eddie revealed that Poloniex would release Proof-of-Reserve (PoR), which is an independent audit conducted by a third party, in due course in hopes of restoring trust and building transparency in the industry.

To minimize the cascading negative effects of FTX, Poloniex follows suit to support Binance’s advocacy of launching the industry recovery fund to support any affected companies.

When some described the turbulent moment as “the end of the blockchain world”, Siyi disagreed with the rhetoric and reiterated that there are still many sound and safe projects in the industry, like those created by Chiliz.

While the market is still gauging the impact of the fall of FTX, Eddie assured the healthy situation of Poloniex.

“Our business has not been affected thanks to our sound operations and risk management strategy. Poloniex has strong capital and is able to navigate any risks with a 100% risk reserve,” Eddie added.