West Ham Football Club To Launch Fan Token – Details
West Ham United, a football club that plays in the English Premier League is partnering with blockchain platform Socios.com to launch a fan token ecosystem.
The Socios tokenized voting platform and blockchain-based mobile app is operated by sports blockchain venture chiliZ, which has the backing of high profile crypto industry players that include crypto exchange Binance and OK Blockchain Capital.
West Ham United currently has over 2.3 million likes on the club’s official Facebook page.
According to the press release, Socios and West Ham United will launch a club-branded Official Fan Token via a so-dubbed Fan Token Offering (FTOs) at the start of the 2019/20 soccer season.
The token will be a digital asset that confers voting rights on West Ham United fans, and will be used to drive fan engagement by enabling users to participate in tokenized polls on the Socios mobile app. According to the press release, tokens also grant holders access to merchandise, rewards and games.
While the tokens are used on the Socios platform, in technical terms they operate on a separate permissioned side chain, where each participating chilliZ soccer club functions as a Node with proof-of-authority. The sidechain is powered by Chiliz’ native cryptocurrency $chz, an ether-compliant ERC20 utility token.
To purchase West Ham United branded-tokens and participate in the Fan Token Offering, club fans must first buy $chz via the app or a crypto exchange in order to subsequently trade them for their Fan Tokens.
A survey from crypto statistics provider CoinMarketCap.com, reportedly revealed that 46% of users said they were likely to buy Fan Tokens associated with high-profile soccer teams.