What is Chiliz (CHZ)? All about the main cryptocurrency for sports fans

Main

• Chiliz (CHZ) is the native cryptocurrency of the Socios.com platform for issuing and trading fan tokens. Included in the top 50 crypto assets by market capitalization.
• Chiliz, the company behind Socios.com, has partnered with dozens of well-known clubs across a variety of sports to release digital assets on the platform for their fans.
• In 2021, the total revenue of Socios partner clubs exceeded $200 million.
• The official face and ambassador of the Socios platform is the world famous football player Lionel Messi.

Who created Chiliz and Socios.com

Chiliz was founded by entrepreneur and crypto enthusiast Alexandre Dreyfus in 2018 as a subsidiary of the Maltese sports and entertainment company Mediarex Group.

In 2018, Chiliz raised $66 million through closed investment rounds. The key investors were Binance Labs, CeYuan Ventures, Jump Capital and Kosmos Capital.

At the end of December 2019, the Chiliz development team launched Socios.com, a platform for sports fans built using Chiliz Chain’s proprietary blockchain. Chiliz (CHZ) cryptocurrency is used as the underlying asset of the platform.

At the beginning of 2020, the centralized cryptocurrency exchange Chiliz.net began to operate, which is positioned as “the world’s first exchange for sports and entertainment.”

The Chiliz team currently has over 220 members. The company’s offices are located in Spain, Switzerland and Malta, as well as representative offices in Turkey, the USA, France, Great Britain, South Korea and Brazil.

How the Chiliz Chain Blockchain Works

To solve the problem of high fees in Ethereum, Chiliz launched its sidechain called Chiliz Chain in October 2019 to operate Socios.com.

The average block generation time on Chiliz Chain is 5 seconds and transactions are free. Its main purpose is the emission and circulation of fan tokens, of which more than seventy have already been issued.

To achieve maximum performance, the Chiliz blockchain uses the Proof-of-Authority (PoA) consensus protocol. This is a variant of the Proof-of-Stake algorithm with the difference that a limited list of trusted network nodes (masternodes) takes part in generating blocks and approving transactions, and rewards for approving blocks are not issued. For the sake of productivity, decentralization had to be sacrificed: Chiliz Chain is served only seven masternodesowned by the company and its major partners.

As of September 2022, there are over 1.6 million user accounts on the Chiliz network, roughly equal to the number of downloads of the Socios.com mobile app.

Since March 2022, a new version of the blockchain has been operating in the test network mode Chiliz Chain 2.0. It is a self-contained, first-tier network with cheap and fast transactions. As Chiliz says, thanks to full compatibility with the EVM, the second version of the blockchain will allow developers from the Ethereum ecosystem to issue NFTs and fan tokens in Chiliz Chain, as well as launch DeFi services, blockchain games and loyalty programs.

Why you need CHZ cryptocurrency

The native CHZ token was released in the fall of 2018 on the Ethereum network and has the ERC-20 standard. The maximum supply of CHZ is 8.88 billion tokens, of which about 6 billion are in circulation as of autumn 2022. The number of CHZ in free circulation is growing annually by about 94 million CHZ, or 1.6%. CHZ holders, according to Etherscan, are about 150,000 addresses.

The initial emission of tokens was distributed as follows:

• 15% – strategic acquisitions;
• 15% – marketing programs;
• 20% – reserve for the user base;
• 7.5% – to investors of the seed round;
• 34.5% – to investors of a closed token sale;
• 5% to the Chiliz and Socios team;
• 3% – project advisors.

Part of the CHZ received from the sale of fan tokens, NFTs and collected trading commissions on the Chiliz.net crypto exchange is burned. In total, more than 65 million tokens have already been burned in this way.

Chiliz is used for all settlements and transactions on the Socios.com platform: you can buy and sell fan tokens only for CHZ. In the future, the token is planned to be reissued in Chiliz Chain 2.0, after which it will also be used for network management, staking and payment of transaction fees.

From January to April 2021, the price of CHZ increased from $0.02 to $0.77, i.e. more than 38 times. Despite the downturn in the cryptocurrency market in 2022, the price of CHZ recovered from June to September. The Chiliz cryptocurrency is the third largest NFT project token by capitalization after ApeCoin (APE) and Flow with a figure of $1.4 billion.

How fan tokens brought popularity to the Socios platform

Socios.com became the first blockchain project to start issuing digital assets specifically for sports fans. The so-called fan tokens (Fan Tokens) are fungible assets of the ERC-20 standard and are issued on the Chiliz Chain network.

Each fan token is “branded” by a certain sports team or organization and gives the owner the opportunity to participate in its life and activities, for example, receive exclusive souvenirs, tickets to matches and private events, and the like.

The first organization to issue its fan token on the Socios platform was the famous Italian football club Juventus. Following him, dozens of famous football teams in Europe released their digital assets for fans: Atlético Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Roma, Barcelona, ​​Arsenal and others, as well as the national teams of Argentina and Portugal. Full list of “football” tokens published on the Socio website.

With fan tokens, you can also:

• participate in voting on Socios.com, organized by project partners;
• do rates on the outcomes of games;
• earn “loyalty tokens” for activity on the platform, which can be spend for additional opportunities during matches.

In addition to the Socios.com platform and the Chiliz.net exchange, fan tokens are traded on several centralized crypto exchanges.

In December 2020, Socios.com launched a strategic partnership with the Binance crypto exchange. It distributed fan tokens via BNB, BUSD and CHZ staking on the Launchpool platform and launched trading of Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus club tokens. Later, a number of fan tokens were distributed in the same way and their subsequent listing on Binance.

At the end of August 2022, the listing of several fan tokens was carried out by the Bybit exchange.

What sports are represented on the Socios.com platform

As of the end of September 2022, Socios partners are more than 150 organizations, teams and associations from 25 countries. In addition to football, fan tokens have been issued for many sports:

• Mixed martial arts: Professional Fighters League (PFL), Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC);
• Car racing: Roush Fenway Racing, Aston Martin Cognizant F1, Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN;
• Basketball (USA): Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, etc.
• Tennis: Davis Cup;
• American football (USA): Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants, Chicago Bears, etc.;
• Rugby: The Sharks, Stade Francais Paris, Leicester Tigers, etc.
• Hockey (USA): New York Rangers, Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins, etc.;
• Soccer (USA and Canada): Austin FC, LA Galaxy, Atlanta United FC, Toronto FC, etc.
• Esports: OG, Endpoint CeX, Vitality, etc.

Conclusions and prospects for the development of Chiliz and Socios.com

As of end September 2022 Socios.com has already more than 150 partners in 27 countries of the world. In addition to dozens of the most popular football clubs, it was possible to attract sports organizations from many other areas. So, back in 2021, UFC mixed martial arts league fan tokens were issued. At the same time, sales of fan tokens for the Formula 1 teams Aston Martin and Alfa Romeo began.

The major American sports leagues NHL and NBA, which have signed a partnership agreement, have not yet launched their fan tokens on Socios.com, but this may happen after the launch of the Chiliz Chain 2.0 mainnet.

In May 2022, soccer star Lionel Messi signed a three-year, $20 million contract with Socios.com and became the brand’s ambassador through campaigns and promotions.

Chiliz is developing the direction of the metaverses. In August 2022, the blockchain company investorOshaft $100 million into the digital world of FC Barcelona through the purchase of a 24.5% stake in Barça Studios, a digital content developer.

The concept of fan tokens has found a lively response in the global sports industry. According to the Socios administration, only in 2021 the amount of revenue of sports clubs on the platform exceeded $200 million. More and more well-known representatives of sports are joining the project. Chiliz has managed to realize a new way for sports fans to interact with their idols and create a new market.

Main

• Chiliz (CHZ) is the native cryptocurrency of the Socios.com platform for issuing and trading fan tokens. Included in the top 50 crypto assets by market capitalization.
• Chiliz, the company behind Socios.com, has partnered with dozens of well-known clubs across a variety of sports to release digital assets on the platform for their fans.
• In 2021, the total revenue of Socios partner clubs exceeded $200 million.
• The official face and ambassador of the Socios platform is the world famous football player Lionel Messi.

Who created Chiliz and Socios.com

Chiliz was founded by entrepreneur and crypto enthusiast Alexandre Dreyfus in 2018 as a subsidiary of the Maltese sports and entertainment company Mediarex Group.

In 2018, Chiliz raised $66 million through closed investment rounds. The key investors were Binance Labs, CeYuan Ventures, Jump Capital and Kosmos Capital.

At the end of December 2019, the Chiliz development team launched Socios.com, a platform for sports fans built using Chiliz Chain’s proprietary blockchain. Chiliz (CHZ) cryptocurrency is used as the underlying asset of the platform.

At the beginning of 2020, the centralized cryptocurrency exchange Chiliz.net began to operate, which is positioned as “the world’s first exchange for sports and entertainment.”

The Chiliz team currently has over 220 members. The company’s offices are located in Spain, Switzerland and Malta, as well as representative offices in Turkey, the USA, France, Great Britain, South Korea and Brazil.

How the Chiliz Chain Blockchain Works

To solve the problem of high fees in Ethereum, Chiliz launched its sidechain called Chiliz Chain in October 2019 to operate Socios.com.

The average block generation time on Chiliz Chain is 5 seconds and transactions are free. Its main purpose is the emission and circulation of fan tokens, of which more than seventy have already been issued.

To achieve maximum performance, the Chiliz blockchain uses the Proof-of-Authority (PoA) consensus protocol. This is a variant of the Proof-of-Stake algorithm with the difference that a limited list of trusted network nodes (masternodes) takes part in generating blocks and approving transactions, and rewards for approving blocks are not issued. For the sake of productivity, decentralization had to be sacrificed: Chiliz Chain is served only seven masternodesowned by the company and its major partners.

As of September 2022, there are over 1.6 million user accounts on the Chiliz network, roughly equal to the number of downloads of the Socios.com mobile app.

Since March 2022, a new version of the blockchain has been operating in the test network mode Chiliz Chain 2.0. It is a self-contained, first-tier network with cheap and fast transactions. As Chiliz says, thanks to full compatibility with the EVM, the second version of the blockchain will allow developers from the Ethereum ecosystem to issue NFTs and fan tokens in Chiliz Chain, as well as launch DeFi services, blockchain games and loyalty programs.

Why you need CHZ cryptocurrency

The native CHZ token was released in the fall of 2018 on the Ethereum network and has the ERC-20 standard. The maximum supply of CHZ is 8.88 billion tokens, of which about 6 billion are in circulation as of autumn 2022. The number of CHZ in free circulation is growing annually by about 94 million CHZ, or 1.6%. CHZ holders, according to Etherscan, are about 150,000 addresses.

The initial emission of tokens was distributed as follows:

• 15% – strategic acquisitions;
• 15% – marketing programs;
• 20% – reserve for the user base;
• 7.5% – to investors of the seed round;
• 34.5% – to investors of a closed token sale;
• 5% to the Chiliz and Socios team;
• 3% – project advisors.

Part of the CHZ received from the sale of fan tokens, NFTs and collected trading commissions on the Chiliz.net crypto exchange is burned. In total, more than 65 million tokens have already been burned in this way.

Chiliz is used for all settlements and transactions on the Socios.com platform: you can buy and sell fan tokens only for CHZ. In the future, the token is planned to be reissued in Chiliz Chain 2.0, after which it will also be used for network management, staking and payment of transaction fees.

From January to April 2021, the price of CHZ increased from $0.02 to $0.77, i.e. more than 38 times. Despite the downturn in the cryptocurrency market in 2022, the price of CHZ recovered from June to September. The Chiliz cryptocurrency is the third largest NFT project token by capitalization after ApeCoin (APE) and Flow with a figure of $1.4 billion.

How fan tokens brought popularity to the Socios platform

Socios.com became the first blockchain project to start issuing digital assets specifically for sports fans. The so-called fan tokens (Fan Tokens) are fungible assets of the ERC-20 standard and are issued on the Chiliz Chain network.

Each fan token is “branded” by a certain sports team or organization and gives the owner the opportunity to participate in its life and activities, for example, receive exclusive souvenirs, tickets to matches and private events, and the like.

The first organization to issue its fan token on the Socios platform was the famous Italian football club Juventus. Following him, dozens of famous football teams in Europe released their digital assets for fans: Atlético Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Roma, Barcelona, ​​Arsenal and others, as well as the national teams of Argentina and Portugal. Full list of “football” tokens published on the Socio website.

With fan tokens, you can also:

• participate in voting on Socios.com, organized by project partners;
• do rates on the outcomes of games;
• earn “loyalty tokens” for activity on the platform, which can be spend for additional opportunities during matches.

In addition to the Socios.com platform and the Chiliz.net exchange, fan tokens are traded on several centralized crypto exchanges.

In December 2020, Socios.com launched a strategic partnership with the Binance crypto exchange. It distributed fan tokens via BNB, BUSD and CHZ staking on the Launchpool platform and launched trading of Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus club tokens. Later, a number of fan tokens were distributed in the same way and their subsequent listing on Binance.

At the end of August 2022, the listing of several fan tokens was carried out by the Bybit exchange.

What sports are represented on the Socios.com platform

As of the end of September 2022, Socios partners are more than 150 organizations, teams and associations from 25 countries. In addition to football, fan tokens have been issued for many sports:

• Mixed martial arts: Professional Fighters League (PFL), Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC);
• Car racing: Roush Fenway Racing, Aston Martin Cognizant F1, Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN;
• Basketball (USA): Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, etc.
• Tennis: Davis Cup;
• American football (USA): Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants, Chicago Bears, etc.;
• Rugby: The Sharks, Stade Francais Paris, Leicester Tigers, etc.
• Hockey (USA): New York Rangers, Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins, etc.;
• Soccer (USA and Canada): Austin FC, LA Galaxy, Atlanta United FC, Toronto FC, etc.
• Esports: OG, Endpoint CeX, Vitality, etc.

Conclusions and prospects for the development of Chiliz and Socios.com

As of end September 2022 Socios.com has already more than 150 partners in 27 countries of the world. In addition to dozens of the most popular football clubs, it was possible to attract sports organizations from many other areas. So, back in 2021, UFC mixed martial arts league fan tokens were issued. At the same time, sales of fan tokens for the Formula 1 teams Aston Martin and Alfa Romeo began.

The major American sports leagues NHL and NBA, which have signed a partnership agreement, have not yet launched their fan tokens on Socios.com, but this may happen after the launch of the Chiliz Chain 2.0 mainnet.

In May 2022, soccer star Lionel Messi signed a three-year, $20 million contract with Socios.com and became the brand’s ambassador through campaigns and promotions.

Chiliz is developing the direction of the metaverses. In August 2022, the blockchain company investorOshaft $100 million into the digital world of FC Barcelona through the purchase of a 24.5% stake in Barça Studios, a digital content developer.

The concept of fan tokens has found a lively response in the global sports industry. According to the Socios administration, only in 2021 the amount of revenue of sports clubs on the platform exceeded $200 million. More and more well-known representatives of sports are joining the project. Chiliz has managed to realize a new way for sports fans to interact with their idols and create a new market.