As the crypto sector enters a more mature phase, attention is shifting from grand narratives to sectors with clear use cases and identifiable catalysts. In this context, SportFi, and particularly Fan Tokens, have emerged as a consumer-oriented vertical that connects real events, global fan engagement, and on-chain markets. In this article, we will analyze how Fan Tokens have evolved, why they present unique market dynamics, and why recent developments in the sector and upcoming catalysts position them for a potentially significant 2026.
From crypto adoption to SportFi, key developments leading up to 2025
Cryptos have evolved from a niche experiment, driven by retail and highly volatile, to an increasingly institutionalized and regulated asset class, with growing global adoption. In its early years (2009–2019), usage was primarily speculative, driven by the emergence of Bitcoin as a peer-to-peer system and, subsequently, by the advent of altcoins like Ethereum. Adoption was limited, volatility extreme, and participation was concentrated mainly among early adopters, with relatively limited availability.
Since 2020, various developments have accelerated the mainstream adoption of crypto. The expansion of DeFi and NFTs has demonstrated new on-chain use cases, while the entry of companies into balance sheets and increasing retail participation have deepened the market. More recently, the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the USA, the rapid growth of stablecoins as a payment and settlement tool, and clearer regulatory frameworks such as the EU's MiCA have lowered barriers for institutional and traditional investors. Overall, these changes mark a transition towards broader integration of crypto into the global financial system, going beyond pure speculation.
In 2025, the total market capitalization of crypto surpassed $4 trillion for the first time, an increase of about 21 times compared to approximately $190 billion in 2020. Data from a16zcrypto shows a steadily increasing user activity, with mobile crypto wallet users reaching all-time highs, growing 20% year-on-year. It is estimated there are around 40 to 70 million active crypto users globally, which is about 10 million more than the previous year, against an estimate of 716 million people holding crypto, a figure that has grown 16% year-on-year.
Within the broader crypto ecosystem, various sectors have grown alongside increased adoption, including Layer 1 networks, stablecoins, DeFi, GameFi, and, more recently, SportFi, with Fan Tokens representing the most established and adopted use case.
Introduced for the first time in 2019 by some of the most important football clubs like Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain, over time the sector has shifted from a small experimental niche to a structured market adopted by nearly 100 sports organizations across football, esports, motorsports, and combat sports. Clubs use Fan Tokens as a digital layer for engagement and monetization, offering holders access to governance polls, rewards, and experiences, while also benefiting from recurring revenues and deeper global interaction with fans.
From an adoption perspective, Fan Tokens play the same role previously held by GameFi: acting as a gateway for users who otherwise would not approach the crypto world. Sports, particularly football, which boasts a global fanbase estimated at over 3 billion people, offer a familiar entry point deeply rooted in culture. As crypto adoption continues to be driven from the top down by institutions and from the bottom up by consumer-oriented applications, Fan Tokens stand out as one of the most promising verticals in consumer cryptocurrencies, combining recognizable brands, clear utility, and a vast potential audience.
Key features of fan tokens
Fan Tokens exhibit dynamics that distinguish them from most crypto assets. Their price movement is often influenced by major sporting events and fan engagement, which can cause them to decouple from Bitcoin and broader market cycles. During these periods, performance and expectations around a club matter more than the macro sentiment of the crypto sector.
This feature is supported by their underlying structure: each Fan Token is linked to a real sports franchise, with a long operational history and an established fanbase globally. Consequently, Fan Tokens provide event-driven exposure that can serve as a diversification tool compared to typical crypto narratives.
This event-driven behavior is also reflected in practice. For example, during Tottenham's run in the 2025 Europa League, the rise in expectations after the quarter-final victory led $SPURS to a strong spike and to decouple from the broader crypto market, achieving a +83% against $BTC's +13%. A similar dynamic was seen with Paris Saint-Germain in the 2025 Champions League, where access to the semi-finals pushed $PSG to +40% compared to $BTC's +17%, reflecting a sensitivity typical of football more than market beta.
Source: TradingView
A more recent example is Arsenal's streak of 10 consecutive wins in the Premier League and Champions League, from late September to mid-November. After the crypto sell-off in October, $AFC decoupled from major benchmarks, gaining over 30% from the market low of October 11. During the same period, $CHZ rose about 19%, while $TOTAL3 and $BTC fell by 2.4% and 7.6%, respectively, with Arsenal's on-field performance representing the main driver of $AFC's price.
Source: TradingView.
These examples highlight a core feature of Fan Tokens: their prices are driven by sporting momentum and expectations rather than general crypto market conditions. Although their valuation is still influenced by macroeconomic trends, real-world outcomes, momentum, and fan expectations can trigger periods of decoupling and independent price discovery.
As confidence grows around a club, Fan Tokens become a way to express views on future performance, functioning similarly to continuous and liquid predictive markets. Unlike traditional betting with bookmakers, positions can be adjusted in real-time, allowing traders to increase or decrease exposure as sentiment evolves.
This dynamic aligns with the rapid growth of on-chain prediction markets, where more and more users speculate on real-world events, including sports. After reaching the mainstream during the 2024 U.S. election campaign, platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi have continued to expand, with trading volumes growing nearly 5 times since the beginning of 2025 and approaching previous highs.
Source: a16zcrypto.
As this behavior expands beyond elections, it is likely to strengthen the demand and liquidity for Fan Tokens, which also adapt in real-time to changes in performance, expectations, and collective perception.
The role of Chiliz in the evolution of SportFi
Recent developments indicate that Fan Tokens are entering a new phase of expansion, with Chiliz strengthening the infrastructure, regulatory base, and integrations with the real world necessary to support increased adoption through 2026.
In December 2025, Chiliz Chain supported the launch of Decentral, the first RWA protocol focused on financing media rights in football. It was a concrete step towards on-chain sports finance, addressing a real liquidity issue for clubs and enabling the securitization of revenues from television rights and sponsorships through decentralized markets. This move fits perfectly into the broader trend of the sector towards the tokenization of real-world assets, a theme highlighted by a16z, BlackRock, and regulatory authorities, with the RWA market already reaching about $30 billion, quadrupling in the last two years.
Source: a16zcrypto.
At the same time, Chiliz has worked to build the regulatory and institutional foundations necessary for this evolution. In 2025, Socios Europe Services became the first sports-focused platform licensed under the EU's MiCA framework, ensuring regulated access to Fan Tokens across all 27 EU countries and providing a compliant gateway for future tokenized sports assets. Strategic partnerships like the alliance with Assetera further strengthen this direction, enabling fully regulated and suitable tokenized real-world sports assets for institutional investors, including revenue-linked instruments and other structured products.
Together, these developments signal that Chiliz is not just following industry trends like tokenization and RWAs, but is also actively shaping a regulated SportFi stack that connects fan engagement, real-world sports economics, and on-chain finance.
Fan Tokens towards 2026
Looking ahead to 2026, the FIFA World Cup represents a powerful catalyst for Fan Tokens alongside the latest developments. With the tournament set to kick off in June 2026, Google Trends already shows increasing global interest in an event that engaged around 5 billion people in 2022.
Source: Google Trends. Search "world cup 2026", last 12 months.
As attention increases, activity is likely to spill over into speculative platforms such as traditional bookmakers and on-chain prediction markets, and consequently, into Fan Tokens, which offer a liquid and real-time way to express expectations about team performance.
A few months ago, we explored how to gain exposure to the SportFi trend through a Fan Token Index, designed to offer diversified exposure without relying on a single club. The index allocated 50% to $CHZ as the primary proxy of the ecosystem, with the remaining 50% evenly split among club Fan Tokens with solid recent performance or significant upcoming catalysts, including $ARG, $PSG, $BAR, $NAP, $GAL, and $JUV.
From the end of July to today, the Fan Token Index has fallen by 32%, recording a performance only slightly worse than the −25.4% of Bitcoin despite significant differences in terms of maturity and liquidity. It is important to note that the index has shown lower volatility compared to most of its individual components, with an annualized volatility of 12.7% against 8.3% for Bitcoin, while individual Fan Tokens reported losses ranging from −22.7% to −52% and volatility between 9.4% and 35%. This highlights the diversification benefits offered by an indexed approach.
Source: TradingView (price data), author's analysis (portfolio construction). Data updated as of December 19, 2025.
With a total market capitalization of around $240 million, Fan Tokens still represent a very small segment compared to the overall crypto market, which is valued at around $3 trillion, and categories like GameFi, valued at about $6.1 billion. This gap highlights the potential for further growth, especially considering the relative resilience of the sector to recent market turbulence, including the liquidation event in October. Therefore, Fan Tokens can represent a complementary choice within a diversified crypto portfolio.
Looking ahead to 2026, a diversified Fan Token Index seems more attractive than exposure to a single asset. The market is more mature than in previous cycles, and the 2026 World Cup is likely to act as a significant speculative catalyst. Historical evidence related to the 2022 World Cup suggests that Fan Tokens tend to appreciate in the months leading up to the tournament due to anticipation, followed by weaker performance at the start of the matches, in line with the "buy the rumor, sell the news" dynamic. This implies a possible asymmetry in the pre-event phase and also underscores the importance of actively managing exposure as the event approaches.
Conclusion
Fan Tokens find themselves at the intersection of sports, finance, and on-chain markets, offering structurally different exposure compared to most crypto assets. With a still-contained market size, improving infrastructure, clearer regulation, and major upcoming global sporting events, the conditions are ripe for growth in participation and liquidity. While results remain event-driven and timing is crucial, the combination of a more mature market structure and powerful real-world catalysts makes Fan Tokens an increasingly relevant segment to monitor as SportFi develops towards 2026.
References
A Fan Token Index for the World Cup 2026 and beyond. BeInCrypto (July 2025) | Link
Anticipatory Gains and Event-Driven Losses in Blockchain-Based Fan Tokens: Evidence from the FIFA World Cup. SSRN (March 2024) | Link
Big Ideas 2026. A16Z (December 2025) | Link
Chiliz and Assetera join forces to accelerate tokenized real-world assets in sports and entertainment. Chiliz Blog (November 2025) | Link
Decentral launches on Chiliz Chain the first RWA pool for media rights in football, marking a new chapter for SportFi. Chiliz Blog (December 2025) | Link
Evaluating the Fan Token Index after the first month. BeInCrypto (September 2025) | Link
FanTokens | Link
From Wall Street to the World Cup: How football has become the largest gateway to crypto. CoinDesk (December 2025) | Link
How Fan Tokens fuel fan communities worldwide. Fan Tokens (October 2025) | Link
Path of beliefs: $AFC and the birth of predictive dynamics in Fan Tokens. BeInCrypto (November 2025) | Link
SportFi: Technical and fundamental analysis of the Chiliz ecosystem and Fan Tokens. BeInCrypto (May 2025) | Link
State of crypto 2025: The year crypto became mainstream. a16zcrypto (October 2025) | Link
The Chiliz Chain in 2025: From Fan Tokens to a sovereign stadium. Chiliz Blog (December 2025) | Link
The Chiliz group celebrates a dual MiCA milestone: European license for Socios Europe Services and CHZ white paper compliant with MiCA. Chiliz Blog (December 2025) | Link
The evolution of cryptocurrency markets: Empirical study from 2017 to 2025. Northwestern Edu (July 2025) | Link
Why Fan Tokens are more than just a crypto asset. Fan Tokens (July 2025) | Link
