Argentine soccer superstar Lionel Messi, regarded as one of the game’s greatest players of all-time, has reportedly made crypto fan tokens a part of the payment deal in his financial package with French club Paris Saint-Germain.
Fan tokens continue to be popular in global sports, with major Turkish multi-sport club Fenerbahçe S.K. completing an initial presale of 500,000 tokens on Ethereum this week, netting the club $1.75 million in 30 seconds.
What should you make of this? This is part of a huge hype cycle, so don’t read too much into it. “Fan tokens” are not a thing; there are fewer than 100 million digital wallets in use in the world, and only a small fraction of them hold NFTs (“fan tokens”). Importantly, you don’t need crypto currency, DeFi, or a blockchain to issue a fan token — you can simply use a QR code and a database; they are essentially coupons.
That said, there are a significant amount of real-world use cases for NFTs and associated smart contracts that (I believe) represent a bright future for fan development and long-term value creation. While this particular “brown M&M” demand may not seem all that important, it may well be prescient.
Author’s note: This is not a sponsored post. I am the author of this article and it expresses my own opinions. I am not, nor is my company, receiving compensation for it.