Saudi World Cup Win Shows Argentina Fan Token the Red Card

The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar is causing the value of national soccer team fan tokens to fluctuate wildly, as events on the field have effects off it. 

Immediately following Argentina’s 1-2 loss to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the ARG fan token’s price fell from $7.21 at the start of the game to $4.96 at the end of it — a 31% decline. At the time of writing, the token has climbed slightly to $5.36, according to CoinGecko.

Argentina’s loss came as a shock to fans, given that the team counted on a 36-match unbeaten streak since 2019, and it was one match short of beating Italy’s 37-match unbeaten run.

Anticipation of the game propelled ARG to the number one spot by 24-hour volume on fan token tracking site FanMarketCap. 

Fan tokens represent a tiny fraction of the overall crypto market’s total value. ARG’s market capitalization is only $21.6 million, compared to ether at $138 billion or bitcoin’s $311 billion market cap. 

Only four teams participating in the World Cup this year — Argentina, Portugal, Spain and Brazil — offer fan tokens through partnerships with the Socios platform. Token holders can benefit from merchandise and ticket promotions, as well as voting about a team’s kit change.

Fan tokens generally have an average of around 20,000 holders each, and about 16,700 people currently hold the Argentina fan token.

The Chiliz token (CHZ), which powers the Socios fan token ecosystem, has also collapsed by about 30% since the World Cup started. Portugal and Brazil have yet to play.

As for the winner of the match, Saudi Arabia, it saw support from NFT investors. A collection titled “The Saudis”, featuring artwork derivative of CryptoPunks, saw trading volumes and sales soar over 2,300% in the last six hours, according to OpenSea. The collection is not tied to the Saudi Arabian government or to the country’s football team.

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