Saudi World Cup Win Shows Argentina Fan Token the Red Card

What does Argentina’s fan token performance mean for Spain, Brazil, and Portugal supporters?

article-image

Yuliyan Velchev/Shutterstock

share

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.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

recent research

Research Report Templates.png

Research

An overview of the Base Ecosystem, with a focus on market leaders.

article-image

Stanford professors David Mazières and Dan Boneh will lead the lab alongside a cohort of graduate student researchers

article-image

With more companies holding BTC, bitcoin yielding strategies could become “a new corporate finance norm,” CoinShares posed

article-image

The proposal comes after Polygon governance considered a controversial use of bridged liquidity for yield

article-image

Can the community balance its decentralized ethos with the need for inclusivity and constructive debate?

article-image

DAWN is positioning itself as a decentralized protocol for gigabit-level internet access

article-image

VanEck Ventures and VanEck’s Digital Assets Alpha Fund invested $2.5 million in DAWN through a strategic funding round, the teams exclusively told Blockworks