What is Chiliz? (CHZ)

Chiliz (CHZ) Explained

Chiliz is a cryptocurrency that allows sports fans to have unique experiences with their favorite teams.

Inspired by the socios of Spanish soccer teams, where an annual subscription grants fans access to early ticket and club voting rights, Chiliz leverages blockchain technology to enable a new kind of direct engagement between fans and their favorite sports teams.

Fans are able to purchase the Fan Tokens of their favorite teams using the CHZ token, the native cryptocurrency of the Chiliz experience. Fan Tokens can be bought for CHZ through socios.com, the crowd management platform that powers the Chiliz experience.

Each team that partners with Chiliz can customize the real world experiences their Fan Tokens provide to holders. Fan Tokens can also grant holders influence over decisions presented by the team, such as new uniform designs, celebration songs, stadium names and, in some instances, decisions over the starting lineups.

Prior to Chiliz, fans could only engage with their favorite teams by watching games or purchasing merchandise. Chiliz and its associated Fan Tokens give sport fanatics an active presence within the operations of their favorite teams and a unique influence over its decision making process.

Meanwhile, Chiliz allows sports franchises to monetize their fan base in new ways while providing unique experiences to their most loyal supporters.

what is Chiliz (CHZ)

Who Created Chiliz?

Chiliz is based in Malta and was founded by its current CEO, Alexander Dreyfus. Dreyfus is a serial entrepreneur who has launched multiple businesses across the travel and entertainment industry.

Chiliz partners include Sam Li, former Vice President of the NBA, Nicolas Maurer, CEO of esports team Vitality, and Dr. DisRespect, one of the world’s largest video game streamers.

Chiliz raised just over $66 million via a private token sale in 2018, which included participation from FBG Capital, Binance, and OK Blockchain Capital.

How Does Chiliz Work?

The CHZ token operates both as an ERC20 token on the Ethereum blockchain and as a BEP2 token on the Binance Smart Chain. CHZ tokens can be bought from the platform’s own exchange, Chiliz.net, as well as from world class cryptocurrency exchanges like Kraken.

Once a fan purchases CHZ tokens, they can use them to purchase Fan Tokens of their favorite teams from Socios.com.

Dozens of teams and sports organizations around the world, including FC Barcelona, Golden State Warriors basketball team and Aston Martin Cognizant Formula1 team have held Fan Token Offerings (FTOs) for their loyal supporters. Each franchise can customize their Fan Token’s price, supply, distribution as well as the special rewards and abilities that Fan Token enables. For example, Fan Tokens can be used to access exclusive meet and greets, memorabilia and direct voting decisions on the direction of each team.

Importantly, Fan Tokens can also be burned, or removed from circulation, based on the team’s performance, meaning outcomes such as winning games or scoring points could make the Fan Tokens more scarce, and therefore more valuable.

Proof of Authority (PoA)

Fan Tokens are created and verified on the Socios sidechain via a Proof of Authority consensus algorithm.

Proof of Authority (PoA) operates differently than other consensus algorithms such as Proof of Work or Proof of Stake, instead relying on a smaller number of approved verifiers rather than a distributed network of anonymous nodes to uphold the truthfulness of the network.

While PoA is considered to be a less decentralized consensus method, it is often used by blockchain networks seeking to be more scalable and efficient. Energy Web Token (EWT) and VeChain (VET) are examples of other platforms that use the Proof of Authority consensus mechanism.

Oracles

Chiliz has announced a partnership with the decentralized oracle network Chainlink, a service that provides real-world data to smart contracts. Through this partnership, Chiliz aims to create unique non-fungible tokens (NFT) aimed at commemorating special events such as player milestones or championship wins in near real time.