The legendary Argentine footballer Lionel Messi left Barcelona for FC Paris Saint-Germain (PSG). He signed a two-year contract with the French club.
Messi received PSG fan club tokens as a «welcome bonus», which, according to media reports, is estimated at € 25- € 30 million. information from Reuters .
PSG fans seem to have positively assessed Messi’s transition. The fan token rate has surged to new all-time highs, having risen by almost 200% over the past few days.
Fan tokens from PSG and other football clubs are traded on the Binance cryptocurrency exchange .
PSG token trading volume has also grown strongly. A few days before the publication of the official information on the transfer of Messi, the owners of the token performed trading operations totaling more than $ 1.2 billion.
“We were able to attract a new audience and generate significant revenues ,” said Mark Armstrong, PSG Director of Partnerships.
Alexander Dreyfus, CEO of Socios.com (the platform through which many clubs issue their fan token ) said PSG is benefiting from popularizing its fan token.
“This could be the start of a new trend as fan tokens play an increasing role in sports at the highest level ,” he said.
It is worth noting that the cryptocurrency market is nothing new for Messi. Earlier, the legendary footballer announced the release of his own collection of non-fungible tokens (NFT) . In collaboration with blockchain project Ethernity and Australian digital artist Bosslogic, Messi presented The Messiverse collection. The Token Bundle will be available for purchase from August 20th on Ethernity’s website and will include three different NFTs.
However, Messi is not the only football sport loyal to the cryptocurrency market . For example, Bayern Munich Football Club and Canadian football star Alfonso Davis previously announced the release of the NFT Collection on the Binance NFT Marketplace . At the same time, three digital tokens were drawn by the famous American illustrator Jack Perkins.