Juventus Introduces Blockchain-Enabled Fan Tokens

Whereas the blockchain companies that are trying to disrupt the financial sector can't seem to get out of a tight clinch with all kinds of regulators, the industry of professional sports has opened its gates for blockchain and its associated products and put up a welcome sign.

Sports organizations from the United States have pioneered this space, as the NBA team Sacramento King incorporated the first-ever Bitcoin payment outlet back in 2014.

Juventus F.C. embraces blockchain

However, we all know that the scope of application of blockchain isn't limited to payments and purchases. It is also capable of providing better opportunities for engagement with the global fan base. The concept of blockchain-enabled fan tokens was elaborated by the London-based company called Socios.com, which is translated from Spanish as "partners." The project had already launched its proprietary blockchain dubbed Chiliz (CHZ), along with an eponymous cryptocurrency that has been listed on several major exchanges, including Binance, Bitmax, Hotbit, and HitBTC. The current market capitalization of CHZ is $30,5 million - the coin is ranked 115th.

Although Socios.com is a relatively young platform, it has already made itself known in both the sports and the crypto worlds. Over the course of this year alone, Socios partnered with such widely recognized football teams as Paris Saint-Germain (France), West Ham United (England), AS Roma (Italy), Atletico Madrid (Spain), and Galatasaray (Turkey). But the crown jewel of this list would be Juventus, a true behemoth and a dominant force in the European and Italian football. The team, which is nicknamed the Old Lady, has won the Italian championship (Scuddetto) for eight years in a row, which increased in a global army of supporters exponentially.

That is the reason why the news that Juventus and Sicios.com had concluded the year-long development of fan tokens had taken the football and crypto communities by storm.

The scope of application of JUV tokens 

The gist of blockchain-based tokens is that they allow the holders to take an active role in the club's life by participating in various votes and polls that will let the team executives know about supporters' desires and suggestions, thus exert a certain influence on the decision-making processes within the sports organization. The most active participants will be rewarded in fan tokens - in the case of Juventus, the tokens have been named JUV - but those who, for some reason, couldn't get engaged in voting still can acquire the tokens by means of special augmented reality application, which is functionally similar to Pokemon Go.

The emergence of Socios and Chiliz also gave way to introducing a new term to the crypto vocabulary - the Fan Token Offering (FTO), the first of which occurred under the auspices of Juventus. The total supply of JUV tokens amounts to 20 million - all of them were offered to supporters during the token sale event, at a price of 2 EUR apiece. The JUV, as well as other fan tokens that should be released in the near future, can be easily exchanged for the Chiliz tokens on the Socios.com platform and subsequently traded on one of the abovementioned cryptocurrency exchanges.

Author: Alex Paulson for Crypto-Rating.com