The Fan Token, the Crypto Coin that Won the Hearts of Fans

What could be better for fans than being able to support their favorite celebrities to fulfill their dreams? The souvenirs that fans collect from artists include albums, posters with the artist's signature, T-shirts bearing the athlete's signature, or other sports team shirts. Fans typically have a one-way relationship with the athletes or artists they support. But did you know that nowadays, both sports teams and musical bands are strengthening their bonds with their big supporters by turning a one-way relationship into a two-way one using cryptocurrency?

What are Fan Tokens?

Fan Tokens are a digital currency created to give fans of bands, sports teams, and other groups access to member benefits. Those who possess tokens typically have the right to membership privileges like access to exclusive content, rewards, experiences, and the ability to vote on club decisions. Fans may have the opportunity to predict the future of their preferred sports teams or pop stars using certain techniques (often unimportant or non-legally binding stuff), as well as the success of the Web 3.0 market.

These tokens can be found in all sports from NFL football to cricket. The musical band, Portugal, also conducted this token trial. The economics of fan tokens is strange and unstable. But for some well-known people or organizations, this token is a profitable source of income.

How do Fan Tokens work?

The basic concept behind the creation of this token is that businesses, such as sports teams, produce large quantities of shared tokens (as opposed to NFT, which cannot be shared), and sell or distribute them to fans or speculators. Since these tokens are typically retailed in “Secondary Marketplaces” like Bitcoin or Ethereum, they are subject to market mechanisms.

Fan token holders usually have limited supervision rights. For example, the fan token for Paris St. Germain gives its owners access to an exclusive VIP experience and the chance to choose the FIFA 22 football game's fan edition cover. Additionally, for the game in May 2021, fans can select the messages that will be displayed in the team's locker room: "Together we can, Together we will! Let's take another step towards glory and victory."

What is Socios?

Socios, a platform developed by the company Chiliz, dominates the fan token market because it is mostly based on football as this sports platform has agreements with the top teams, i.e.

FC Barcelona: The changing room mural and the captain's armband (which reads "NO CHILD OFFSIDE") were chosen by the fans. In August 2022, Chiliz purchased a 100 million US dollar stock in the FC Barcelona digital studio.

Inter Milan: The fans voted on the first new score celebration song in eight years, chose the team’s official bus, and weighed for the jersey design.

Manchester City: The fans chose the pictures hung in the player’s area at Wembley Stadium, and voted on the editorial about Manchester City’s memorable season.

Participation in these polls allows their fans to be eligible to enter the sweepstakes to win prizes like VIP access to the team and special promotions.

Not only is Socios a platform for fan tokens, but another crypto exchange, Binance, also introduced its fan token platform, known as Binance Fan Tokens, in October 2021. It was a token host from Alpine F1 Team, SS Lazio, FC Porto, and Santos FC.

The market capitalization for fan tokens is somewhat moderate compared to Bitcoin’s market cap of 380 billion US dollars and Ethereum’s market cap of 200 billion US dollars. Lazio has a market capitalization of 66 million US dollars, Alpine F1 of 50 million US dollars, and PSG of 29 million US dollars as of September 2022.

Fan token is not only limited to the world of sports. Many platforms, including Rally and Roll, have so far attempted to make social tokens become popular as fans of pop stars and influencers can also have an impact on their lives. They have not yet held a grand opening. The largest one could be Rally's Governance Token, which has a market capitalization of about 140 million US dollars.

That is probably because the benefits they offer, such as a deciding vote for musical bands or sports teams, are relatively minor. The governance token for Decentralized Finance projects (DeFi), on the other hand, enables the holders to oversee their own protocols.

Holding an adequate governance token enables you to command billions of dollars' worth of assets and use your control to be far more influential than a limited offer of a fan token. The command value Uniswap (UNI), on the contrary, was created on the Ethereum blockchain and makes use of smart contracts. It is the ERC20 standard platform for exchanging crypto coins like Ethereum (ETH), Basic Attention Token (BAT), and OmiseGO (OMG). As a result, there is no need for the medium to exchange coins. The market capitalization of Uniswap is 4.9 billion US dollars.

How can Fan Token be bought?

You must first buy a fan token if you would like to cast your vote for the motivational slogan that will be displayed in the changing room of your favorite team. The steps for purchasing fan tokens are the same as those for purchasing other digital currencies. The simplest way is to purchase on a crypto exchange or brokerage like Binance.

You can purchase PSG’ Fan Token on Binance by using three currencies: USDT, BUSD stablecoins, and Bitcoin. You must first set up an exchange account, and then use the ‘spot’ command for fan tokens by pairing the platform-supported tokens. Other exchanges support different pairings.

Additionally, Chiliz (CHZ), the traditional token of Socios’s parent company, can be used to purchase fan tokens in the Socios application. In this app, CHZ can also be purchased. The fan token you have purchased will be delivered to your Web 3.0 wallet, just like other digital currencies

If you purchase your fan tokens from Socios, a market leader in sports fan tokens, you can access its website or application to activate your token. These tokens, for example, can be used to redeem rewards on platforms, participate in polls and voting, or even be sold on cryptocurrency exchanges if their value rises.