Cryptocurrency and football: how do two hype topics relate?

Cryptocurrency startups have been hiring celebrities for marketing for a long time. But over the past year, some projects have begun to focus on football players. This can be understood. Football is the most popular sport. According to a study by world-class, it is football No. 1 in terms of the number of fans, some estimates say that more than half of humanity considers itself a football fan to one degree or another.

In addition, interest in it is supported by the 2018 World Cup. The most famous players have many followers and a huge influence on the fans.

The practice of connecting two popular areas - cryptocurrencies and football - is only growing. In this article, we will consider the most striking cases. Moreover, this speaks of the acceptance of digital money in various areas of life. If you want to learn crypto by yourself - visit the bitcoin ifex 360 ai.

Project promotion

Coach and former football player Harry Redknapp (previously convicted of transfer fraud) mentioned Electroneum, a fork of Monero, on his Twitter.

Over the next week, Electroneum's share of contributors more than doubled, from 60,000 to 130,000 people.

The Electroneum founder thanked Harry on his Twitter and insisted that Redknapp was not paid a dime for his efforts, he just loved the project.

Participation in ICOs is becoming commonplace among professional football players, and it's not hard to see why. The worldwide popularity of soccer makes them a prime target for marketers looking to boost sales.

Eden Hazard, Chelsea's star midfielder, has 5.35 million followers on Twitter. And recently, he was attracted to the AllSports project, a blockchain platform that aims to become a football ecosystem and gaming center.

The project is also promoted by Sergio Aguero.

Even the former World Player of the Year, Luis Figo, recently got into the ICO promotional game. Figo did not kick a ball for ten years after he retired from Inter at the end of the 2008 season. But that didn't dampen his marketing appeal with Striking Entertainment. The Football-Stars platform allows users to tokenize their favorite players and then accumulate profits based on the results of the games.

This was April 2018, but just a couple of days ago, Figo stated that he did not own any of the STRYKZ tokens that he was promoting so vigorously.

Also, FC Arsenal signed a contract with CashBet back in January. This is an online casino with its cryptocurrency. The club will promote the startup at-home matches. Whether the success was from this advertisement or other marketing tricks, the project completed its ICO with $38 million in fees.

Lionel Messi took part in the advertising campaign, which was carried out by SIRIN Labs. They are developing the FINNEY crypto smartphone.

Own cryptocurrencies of football players

With over 17 million Twitter followers, James Rodriguez is one of the most famous people in his native Colombia.

He plans to use his fan base to push his project and the JR10 token.

There is not much information about how this token can be used. And given his full-time employment as a footballer, it's unlikely Rodriguez will be the lead developer.

The firm behind the JR10 token, SelfSell, is using this opportunity to promote itself. The WP of the project says that it is a platform for creating a custom token for different purposes.

Before that, in March 2018, Michael Owen launched OWN tokens. The startup GCOX, based in Singapore, helped him with this. The purpose of the coins is the purchase of football paraphernalia and charitable purposes.

Transfer for bitcoins

In January, Turkish football club Harunusta Spor Kulübü became the first club to transfer a football player using bitcoin.

An amateur Turkish club that competes in the first division of the Sakarya B group paid for 22-year-old Omar Faruk Kiroglu using cryptocurrency.

Club chairman Haldun Sehit told CNN-Turkey that the club has taken the first step towards "making a name for itself in the country and the world."

Kiroglu received 0.0524 in BTC (about $385 in total) and 2,500 Turkish Liras (about $470) in the deal. The transfer fee itself was in the lira. The player added: "As my chairman said, we are doing something new." The transaction took place using a mobile wallet. All crypto movements could be tracked by BTI.LIVE.

Of course, this is a minor transaction that does not have much impact on the cryptocurrency world. But the media at one time trumpeted about it.

Deceptions

Arguably the most famous footballer in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo was also involved in the marketing campaign, albeit unbeknownst to him.

CR7Coin is very similar to Ronaldo's famous CR7 brand. So a lot of people linked it directly. And the platform presented itself as a platform for football fans and the purchase of fan merch and other goods.

But a few months later, the following disclaimer appeared in CR7Coin promotional materials:

"CR7Coin is not owned, operated, endorsed by or related to Cristiano Ronaldo, the trademark of CR7 or any other entity owned and/or operated by Cristiano Ronaldo or any of his authorized agents."

Shortly after, CR7Coin announced that they were rebranding as SporChain. Of course, all this drama was played out for a quick profit.

This is the case with most ICOs where the crypto-football tie is overused and the creators are just waiting for an influx of visitors. But most projects do not have an MVP, but also a minimally competitive business model.