The FIFA world cup is just 13 days away and an estimated 5 billion people are expected to watch the tournament.
My top crypto plays heading into the world cup.
The FIFA world cup is the biggest sporting event in the world and the 2018 tournament in Russia attracted 3.5 billion viewers. The final (France v Croatia) saw a global audience of 1.12 billion viewers. This dwarfs even the super bowl viewership.
That is a lot of eyeballs.
The 2022 tournament starts on 21 November in Qatar and there have been some massive crypto announcements and headlines leading up to the event. Let’s dive in to my top crypto projects that could benefit from this extra attention.
Algorand $ALGO
In May 2022, FIFA announced @Algorand as the official blockchain platform of the world cup (Men & womens). Algorand would also provide the official blockchain supported wallet solution and assist in developing FIFAs digital assets strategy.
Since that announcement, the TVL on Algorand has almost doubled and currently sits at $216m. Over the last month alone the chain has seen a +90% increase on TVL. Coming in at 16th place according to Defillama.
Price action hasn’t been so great in 2022, like most altcoins, $ALGO has underperformed BTC this year due to risk off appetite.
Crypto.com $CRO
FIFA also announced @cryptocom as the exclusive cryptocurrency trading platform sponsor of Qatar 2022. This will bring huge advertising exposure inside and outside tournament stadiums from the expectied billions of viewers.
They also partnered with @Visa to release an NFT drop called “Visa Masters of Movement”. These 5 NFTs were released on the 1st Nov and represent 5 of the most iconic world cup goals.
The NFTs were created using tracking technology that records every action on the pitch and then feeds an artwork algorithm, which produces flowing visualizations of the move as it unfolds. The goal is then exported as a dynamic digital work of art, ready to be minted as an NFT.
The @cronos_chain has also been gaining TVL over the last months and currently sits in 9th place with $832m TVL according to @DefiLlama $CRO is the native token for and as you can see has also been under significant pressure this year during the bear market.
Chiliz $CHZ
@Chiliz has seen huge adoption recently as one of the leading digital platforms for fan tokens- including big teams and organisations such as FC Barcelona, Juventus, PSG and the UFC.
$CHZ is the native token for the chain and main platform currency for the socios fan engagement platform. Socios.com allows you to trade fan tokens, vote in team decisions and gather rewards.
$CHZ has been one of the better performing tokens over the last few months and has bounced 230% off its June lows. I suspect a lot of the hype has been around the upcoming world cup and the increasing adoption of club fan tokens.
National team fan tokens
The top world cup teams who also have fan tokens include
Brazil are currently tournament favourites, closely followed by France and Argentina.
As the tournament progresses, expect some major volatility with these tokens due to speculation and team form. Although highly volatile, if one of these teams win big matches, or even the whole world cup, expect the fan token to pump significantly.
As a huge soccer fan, I am super excited for the world cup and will be cheering on my home team Australia. Go the Socceroos!! I will also be watching closely the crypto projects outlined in this thread and any addtional hype or major narratives that develop.