2022.02.02 足球如何跳上加密货币的炒作之路

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Daily chart
How football jumped on the crypto hype
The value of fan tokens has little to do with performance on the pitch
Feb 2nd 2022


Football clubs around the world are desperate for cash. The pandemic has forced grounds to close, competitions to be cancelled and broadcasting fees to decline. That might explain the appeal of Socios, a crypto firm, which has signed partnership deals with around 60 football teams. The company produces “fan tokens” and sells them to supporters, sharing the proceeds with the clubs. Holding tokens is supposed to bring people closer to their teams by giving them a chance to vote on, for example, the music that is played in the stadium or the name of new training facilities. Paris Saint-Germain fans can buy one of 3m recently released tokens and have their say on such crucial matters for the equivalent of around $14 per token. Each gives its owner the right to take part in an unlimited number of polls; those with more tokens have greater influence.

Fan tokens cannot be bought with fiat currencies, such as dollars or pounds. Instead, supporters must convert their cash into Chiliz, a cryptocurrency also run by Socios. Although the advertised sale price of the tokens is not affected by the value of Chiliz, as with most cryptocurrencies, Chiliz’s value can fluctuate wildly: for example, over the past year a single coin has been worth as much as 77 cents and as little as 17. Some shifts in the value of fan tokens appear to be linked to teams’ fortunes. The value of Manchester City tokens rose by 40% over three days in the summer of 2021 when it seemed the club was going to sign Cristiano Ronaldo, a Portuguese star player, before immediately dropping when Mr Ronaldo instead joined Manchester United. But the vast majority of the time, performance on the pitch has little to do with token values. Manchester City are on track to win their fourth English Premier League title in five years. But since the start of the season in early August last year, the club’s tokens are down by more than 50%.


Socios claims there is no correlation between the performance of Chiliz and the movements of fan tokens—although over the past fortnight both Chiliz and fan tokens have performed poorly. Moreover, the vast majority of Chiliz trades have nothing to do with fan tokens. They are carried out by other customers with traditional currencies, notably the dollar, euro and Turkish lira, and with other cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Tether. On a typical day in January, trades involving all of Socios’s fan tokens represented just 9% of the total volume of Chiliz movements. Because fans have to use Chiliz to buy or sell tokens, the value of the cryptocurrency inevitably affects that of their tokens.

Alexandre Dreyfus, Socios’s CEO, says tokens exist to boost fans’ engagement with clubs, not to make them money. “Fan tokens are tradable in non-meaningful ways on Socios.com, but that's not what we are promoting and it is not what the clubs are promoting,” he says. But Britain’s Advertising Standards Agency ruled in December 2021 that an advert by Arsenal football club, in which players encouraged fans to buy tokens, breached its rules because it did not adequately explain that the tokens were crypto assets. The Football Supporters Association, a British fan body, has come out against any such form of “consultation with supporters that requires the payment of a fee to participate” (Socios.com says that season ticket holders are entitled to a free fan token).

Clubs will face mounting pressure to demonstrate responsibility to their fans, says Martin Calladine, author of “The Ugly Game” and an expert on the links between football and cryptocurrencies. Many fans, Mr Calladine adds, “have bought into these tokens without understanding that speculators, rather than football scores, will determine the future value of their holdings.” Demonstrating allegiance through tokens is more like placing a bet than buying a shirt. ■

Editor’s note (February 2nd 2022): This story has been revised since its first publication on on January 21st. The original chart and text erroneously said that Manchester City tokens had fallen in value since launch. This has been corrected.





每日图表
足球如何跳上加密货币的炒作之路
球迷代币的价值与球场上的表现关系不大
2022年2月2日



世界各地的足球俱乐部都对现金感到绝望。大流行病迫使场地关闭，比赛被取消，转播费下降。这可能解释了加密货币公司Socios的吸引力，该公司已经与大约60个足球队签订了合作协议。该公司生产 "球迷代币 "并将其出售给支持者，与俱乐部分享收益。持有代币是为了拉近人们与球队的距离，让他们有机会投票决定，例如，球场上播放的音乐或新训练设施的名称。巴黎圣日耳曼的球迷可以购买最近发行的300万枚代币中的一枚，并在这些关键问题上拥有发言权，每枚代币大约相当于14美元。每块代币的拥有者都有权利参加无限次的投票；拥有更多代币的人有更大的影响力。

粉丝代币不能用法定货币购买，如美元或英镑。相反，支持者必须将他们的现金转换成Chiliz，这是一种同样由Socios运营的加密货币。虽然代币的广告销售价格不受Chiliz价值的影响，但与大多数加密货币一样，Chiliz的价值可能会大幅波动：例如，在过去一年中，一个硬币的价值高达77美分，最低为17美分。球迷代币价值的一些变化似乎与球队的命运有关。2021年夏天，当曼城俱乐部似乎要签下葡萄牙明星球员克里斯蒂亚诺-罗纳尔多时，曼城代币的价值在三天内上升了40%，而当罗纳尔多先生转而加盟曼联时，其价值立即下降。但在绝大多数时候，球场上的表现与象征性的价值没有什么关系。曼城有望在五年内赢得他们的第四个英格兰超级联赛冠军。但自去年8月初赛季开始以来，该俱乐部的代币下降了50%以上。


Socios声称，Chiliz的表现和球迷代币的走势之间没有关联--尽管在过去的两个星期，Chiliz和球迷代币的表现都很差。此外，绝大多数的Chiliz交易与粉丝代币没有关系。它们是由其他客户用传统货币进行的，特别是美元、欧元和土耳其里拉，以及其他加密货币，如比特币和Tether。在1月份的一个典型日子里，涉及Socios所有粉丝代币的交易仅占Chiliz总交易量的9%。因为粉丝必须使用Chiliz来购买或出售代币，所以加密货币的价值不可避免地影响到他们的代币的价值。

Socios的首席执行官Alexandre Dreyfus说，代币的存在是为了促进球迷与俱乐部的接触，而不是为了让他们赚钱。"球迷代币可以在Socios.com上以非意义的方式进行交易，但这不是我们所提倡的，也不是俱乐部所提倡的，"他说。但英国广告标准局在2021年12月裁定，阿森纳足球俱乐部的一个广告，其中球员鼓励球迷购买代币，违反了其规则，因为它没有充分解释代币是加密资产。英国球迷组织 "足球支持者协会 "已经站出来反对任何这种形式的 "需要支付费用才能参与的对支持者的咨询"（Socios.com表示，季票持有人有权获得免费的球迷代币）。

丑陋的游戏》一书的作者、研究足球和加密货币之间联系的专家Martin Calladine说，俱乐部将面临越来越大的压力，以证明对他们的球迷负责。Calladine先生补充说，许多球迷 "购买了这些代币，却不了解投机者，而不是足球比分，将决定他们所持股票的未来价值。" 通过代币展示忠诚，更像是下赌注而不是买球衣。■

编者注（2022年2月2日）。这篇报道自1月21日首次发表以来已经过修改。原来的图表和文字错误地说到，曼城的代币自推出以来价值下降了。这一点已经得到了纠正。