What is Chiliz (CHZ): Everything You Need to Know about Cryptocurrency for Sports Fans

Chiliz (CHZ) is the Socios.com platform’s native cryptocurrency for issuing and trading fan tokens. In order to provide their supporters with digital content on the platform, Chiliz, the business that operates Socios.com, has teamed up with dozens of renowned teams in a variety of sports.

The partner clubs of Socios generated more than $200 million in revenue in 2021.

The renowned football star Lionel Messi serves as the official spokesperson and advocate for the Socios platform.

Who Invented Chiliz?

Entrepreneur and cryptocurrency enthusiast Alexander Dreyfus established Chiliz in 2018 as a division of the Maltese sports and entertainment firm Mediarex Group.

Through closed investment rounds, Chiliz raised $66 million in 2018. Binance Labs, CeYuan Ventures, Jump Capital, and Kosmos Capital were the principal backers.

The Socios.com sports fan platform was released by the Chiliz development team at the end of December 2019 and was created using the private blockchain of Chiliz Chain. The platform’s fundamental asset is the cryptocurrency Chiliz (CHZ).

The centralized cryptocurrency exchange Chiliz.net, which bills itself as “the world’s first exchange for sports and entertainment,” launched operations at the start of 2020.

Over 220 people are currently a part of the Chiliz team. There are representative offices in Turkey, the USA, France, Great Britain, South Korea, and Brazil in addition to the company’s offices in Spain, Switzerland, and Malta.

The Operation of the Chiliz Chain Blockchain

In order to run Socios.com, Chiliz built its sidechain dubbed Chiliz Chain on October 2019 to address the issue of excessive fees in Ethereum.

On Chiliz Chain, blocks are generated on average in 5 seconds, and transactions are costless. The issuance and distribution of fan tokens, of which more than 70 have already been produced, is its primary goal.

The Proof-of-Authority (PoA) consensus protocol is utilized by the Chiliz blockchain to deliver the best possible performance. This is a variation of the Proof-of-Stake process, but rewards for approving blocks are not given out, and only a small group of trusted network nodes (masternodes) participate in creating blocks and approving transactions. Decentralization had to be given up for performance: just seven masternodes, owned by the corporation and its largest partners, support Chiliz Chain.

The number of user accounts on the Chiliz network as of September 2022 is over 1.6 million, or almost the same as the number of downloads of the Socios.com mobile app.

A new version of the Chiliz Chain 2.0 blockchain has been running in test network mode since March 2022. It is a first-tier, self-contained network with affordable and quick transactions. According to Chiliz, the second version of the blockchain would enable developers from the Ethereum ecosystem to issue NFTs and fan tokens in Chiliz Chain as well as introduce DeFi services, blockchain games, and loyalty programs because it is fully compatible with the EVM.

What types of sports are available on the Socios.com platform?

More than 150 groups, clubs, and organisations from 25 nations are Socios partners as of the end of September 2022. In addition to football, a variety of sports have also been awarded supporter tokens:

• Basketball (USA): Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, etc.
• 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;
• Davis Cup in tennis;
• Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants, Chicago Bears, etc. in American football (USA);
• The Sharks, Stade Francais Paris, Leicester Tigers, etc. in rugby.
• Soccer (USA and Canada) teams include Austin FC, LA Galaxy, Atlanta United FC, Toronto FC, among others. Hockey (USA) teams include the New York Rangers, Detroit Red Wings, and Pittsburgh Penguins.
• Esports: Vitality, OG, Endpoint CeX, etc.

How the Socios Platform Gained Popularity Thanks to Fan Tokens

The first blockchain startup to create digital assets exclusively for sports enthusiasts was Socios.com. Fan Tokens, also known as so-called “fan tokens,” are fungible assets that adhere to the ERC-20 standard and are distributed over the Chiliz Chain network.

Each fan token is “branded” by a specific sports team or organization and allows the owner to take part in its life and activities, such as receiving privileged mementos, tickets to games and special events, etc.

The renowned Italian football team Juventus was the first institution to launch its fan token on the Socios platform. Numerous well-known European football clubs, including Atlético Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Roma, Barcelona, Arsenal, and others, as well as the national teams of Portugal and Argentina, released their digital assets for supporters in his wake. On the Socios website, you may get a complete list of the football tokens.

Fan tokens are exchanged on a number of centralized cryptocurrency exchanges in addition to the Socios.com website and the Chiliz.net marketplace. A strategic alliance between Socios.com and the Binance cryptocurrency exchange was introduced in December 2020. By staking BNB, BUSD, and CHZ on the Launchpool platform, it issued fan tokens and started trading club tokens for Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus. Later, several fan tokens were issued in the similar manner, and Binance then listed them.