Chiliz Launches NFT-Based Sports Memorabilia Authentication Service – 24/7 Wall St.

Ahiliz, the company behind the Socios platform and its native CHZ token, continues to gain ground as a curated sports memorabilia platform. To verify the authenticity of items from sporting events, such as tickets or game-worn shirts, the firm recently launched a new service called GameUsed.

NFTs for Sports Memorabilia?

During the ups and downs in the NFT market over the past two years, sports-focused NFT sales have been consistently high. NBA Top Shot, which symbolizes NBA highlights, has generated over $1 billion in sales volume over 22 million transactions.

Sorare, which revolves around fantasy football tournaments, amassed over $500 million in sales, according to Cryptoslam aggregator. The latest Market Decipher report estimates that the sports memorabilia market will reach $227.2 billion by 2032, from its current modest size of $26.1 billion. Tokenization in the form of NFTs has yet to tap into this growth, with NFT sports collectibles projected to increase to $92 billion by 2032.

An important tokenization infrastructure on that path is Chiliz (CHZ). The company created the Socios marketplace powered by the CHZ token, as Ethereum’s ERC-20 standard. With CHZ tokens, sports fans can buy branded NFTs issued by sports clubs and even vote on minor decisions. As the largest token ecosystem for sports fans, the value of the Socios marketplace is now enhanced with GameUsed.com.

How does GameUsed work?

How to grow a sports collectibles business without having an expensive investment in blockchain technology first? GameUsed is a turnkey business-to-business (B2B) solution for the verification and management of sports memorabilia. GameUsed builds on Socio’s NFT marketplace and creates NFTs that are essentially secured by sports memorabilia and merchandise.

For example, if a sports club issues trading cards, tickets or match-worn shirts, GameUsed verifies the goods by embedding near-field communication (NFC) chips, which are already ubiquitous in contactless payment cards.

The Chiliz blockchain will then store the items’ records and mint the corresponding NFT, which can be traded on Socios with CHZ tokens. In this way, a digital asset is secured by an authenticated physical asset, potentially making it more valuable. Due to NFC chips, sporting goods can also be easily and immediately verified for authenticity with a smartphone.

Chiliz (CHZ) is likely to corner the Sports Token Market

There are two notable players in the NFT specialized arena. Currently, they are neck-and-neck in terms of market capitalization: Dapper Labs’ Flow (FLOW) blockchain at $868.4 million, and Chiliz (CHZ) at $818 million, soon to launch its own layer-1 blockchain network Chiliz Chain 2.0 ( CC2 ).

While Flow secured the NFT service for the NBA, UFC, NFL, Ubisoft and others, Chiliz is more focused on sports teams. Led by Alexandre Dreyfus, Chiliz and Socios CEO, they helped over 170 teams and federations launch fan tokens. One of Chiliz’s biggest deals to date was in August, with a €100m stake in FC Barcelona’s Barça Digital Entertainment, which was a quarter of the company.

With the recent addition of end-to-end authentication via GameUsed, Chiliz aims to increase tokenized assets as a bridge between fans and sports teams.

“We believe that blockchain technology can bring new ways for sports teams and companies to deliver ownership and engagement to fans, and by bringing blockchain authentication and distribution to sports memorabilia through GameUsed.com, we are taking another important step forward in our offering.”

Alexandre Dreyfus, CEO of Chiliz and Socios.com

In the coming months, Chiliz will undergo a significant milestone with 2.0 as a semi-decentralized layer-1 blockchain for enterprise-class sports and media integration. Due to its reliance on large partnerships, the CHZ token is not in lockstep with Bitcoin, as most altcoins are.

On Thursday, CHZ went up +10%, only to erase those gains on Friday. CHZ is likely to become even more important in Chiliz Chain 2.0, as it gains more utility for the Chiliz ecosystem. This is similar to ETH for Ethereum, but for curated (whitelisted) third-party developers. Chiliz 2.0 will also adopt PoSA (proof-of-stake authority) where whitelisted token holders themselves become node operators.

This article originally appeared on The Tokenist