AMA Recap: CRYPTO MINERS X CHILIZ

Chiliz is the leading digital currency for sports and entertainment by the eponymous Malta-based FinTech provider. It operates the blockchain-based sports entertainment platform Socios, which enables users to participate in the governance of their favorite sports brands. Multiple fan tokens by Socios.com are an example of that. For sports clubs and associations, fan tokens offer a way of connecting with their fans and unlocking new revenue streams. For instance, fans can participate and influence club-related decisions through surveys and polls, such as messages the captain should wear on his armband. The company aims to bridge the gap between being an active and a passive fan. Chiliz has developed partnerships with some of the biggest sporting institutions in the world: FC Barcelona, Manchester City, Juventus Turin, and Paris Saint-Germain. It also boasts partnerships with the UFC and gaming organizations. By purchasing CHZ, fans get access to various fan tokens and literally have a stake in their club. Chiliz pioneered direct participation for average sport fans in the decision-making process of clubs and organizations. The company is constantly creating new ways for fans to engage, with the establishment of the Chiliz Blockchain Campus, a privately-owned crypto incubator focused on accelerating blockchain technology adoption across Asia and Europe as an example. The company estimates to be at about 10% of its potential, despite the fact that it will likely have 80–100 teams as a part of its network by the end of 2021. Socios.com is the biggest non-exchange blockchain-powered app in the world, providing millions of sports fans with the chance to connect with their favourite sporting organizations through Fan Tokens, fungible digital assets minted on the Chiliz blockchain. Officially designated as utility tokens, Fan Tokens can be used by fans to access voting rights in polls, VIP rewards, exclusive promotions, AR-enabled features, chat forums, games, competitions and allow them to compete in global leaderboards.

We hosted an AMA session with Chiliz on 23rd September.

Mr. Ramsy was the host from Crypto Miners and Mr. Joe Grech was the guest. He shared with us the features and advantages of Chiliz.
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Segment 1️⃣: Introduction

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
Hello everyone 👋 Welcome to Our Another Special AMA session With Chiliz 🌶

To help us learn more about Chiliz, We are lucky to be joined By Mr. Joe

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
👋

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
Hello there 👋

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Hi all!

Great to be here.

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
Welcome here

Thanks for joining with us today ❤️

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Thanks for inviting me / us :)

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
First of all Can you introduce yourself to the community?

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Sure can! 👋

Hi everyone. I’m Joe, the Head of Crypto at Chiliz. I have been working here now for 4 years and 6 months (it’s like 20 years in the real world). I discovered crypto in 2017 and have worked fulltime in the industry since the end of 2017 as I quickly discovered that digital assets have a big part to play in the future of the digital world and digital economy.

I drink alot of Red Bull.

😜

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
Alot Energy ⚡️🌚

So now let’s start the first part of the session — Project Introduction, if you are ready!!

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
I’m always ready :)

Are you? :)

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
That’s cool 🔥

So do i 😃

Let’s Start 🚀🚀

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Leggo

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
1. Give a concise and brief introduction about Chiliz.
Tell us the features of Chiliz that makes it superior and special as compared to its competitors?

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
So.. Where to begin here…

Chiliz launched as a digital currency for the sports and entertainment industry, set-out to increase the relationship between fans and their favourite sports and entertainment brands.

Since then, we have evolved from a small team of 30–50 in 2018 to now over 250+ people all over the world and slightly shifted our focus. We learnt a lot on the journey of becoming the leading digital currency for sports and entertainment and therefore evolved to become the leading blockchain and fintech provider the for sports and entertainment industry.

What does that mean?

We provide blockchain / financial technology solution to sports and entertainment brands to help them better engage their digital audience. Something like 99% of the fans who support teams do not live in the City or even in the country of the teams they support.

Clubs have been trying to solve the ‘digital’ problem for some time, and it seems from our experience that Fan Tokens have provided a solution for some.

Fan Tokens are a new digital asset class that was pioneered by us (Chiliz) following the launch of our first consumer facing application, Socios.com.

Fan Tokens allow sports fans to own a branded digital asset that grants them access to an exclusive loyalty and rewards program.

Fan Token holders also allow fans to vote in certain club decisions, which was rather our first focus, to make the fandom more democratic and give fans more of a say in what goes on in their club.

Once we reached peak velocity, we realised that there was much more to the Fan Token than simply voting in some club decisions, hence why we’ve shifted gear to focus more on the rewards and loyalty side of things.

I don’t remember the exact number, but thanks to our partnerships, we have thousands of tickets a year to give away to sports fans on Socios.com.

The great thing is, they are ‘free’. Once you own your Fan Token, it’s yours to keep, you don’t ‘spend’ them.

So, all you need to do is hold the Fan Token, engage with the club on the app (Socios) and receive the loyalty points (SSU) to take advantage of such great prizes and money can’t buy experiences 😍

We are levelling up even more and focusing now on two major products of us, Chiliz Exchange and Chiliz Chain 2.0 and I believe I will be going into more detail on these topics as the talk goes on.

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
Thanks Joe for this fantastic start about Chiliz ⚡️

Now let’s see our second question from this segment

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
💪

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
2. What is Socios which is developed by Chiliz. What users can do in Socios App?
Also tell us about the Fan tokens. What are their usecases?

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Socios.com launched as an application to enable fans to have more of a say in their club, some kind of ‘soft governance’ (maybe a more crypto friendly explanation). For example, Juventus fans had the chance in 2019 to change the name of the goal song played at the stadium, small changes and polls that may seem trivial to most, but definitely helped shine the light on the Fan Tokens as a digital asset class.

Currently there are a few features in Socios:
- Voting
- Fan Rewards / Loyalty
- Social
- Half-time games
- Trivia / Content related games
- Token Hunt (Geolocation / Augmented Reality token hunting game)
- Predictor (Earn loyalty points / XP for predicting the outcome of matches)

All of these features require you to hold Fan Tokens inside the app, not once do you have to ‘sell’ the Fan Token to take advantage of any features or offerings.

This means, as time goes on, your Fan Token may look the same, feel the same, but additional utility increases the fundamental value in the eyes of the fan (if you are a fan).

Fan Tokens are also heavily social, not everyone wants to take advantage of the offering in Socios.com. Some people (like with NFTs) just enjoy holding branded digital assets that include their favourite brands etc.

So, some call Fan Tokens social / community tokens, which is completely fair.

But it should not detract away from the true point of them as utility tokens :)

I’ll quickly drop a link, if you want to see how many Fan Tokens exist today, have a look here 👇

www.fanmarketcap.com

I would suggest to click Platforms first, then Chiliz :)

As, other industry participants have also issued Fan Tokens, but doesn’t mean they follow the same standard of utility offered by Socios/Chiliz Fan Tokens.

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
3. Tell us about the Chiliz Exchange. What are its features/functions over others exchanges.

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Sooo this is a fun one!

You’re probably all very familiar with traditional crypto exchanges..

They have features like fiat to crypto, futures, other derivatives and a heavy focus on financial products.

The Chiliz Exchange is a different beast, the core focus of the Chiliz Exchange is to be the world’s leading digital exchange for Fan Tokens specifically.

This means that instead of focusing on increasing financial product offerings, we focus on how we can potentially gamify the experience for sports and entertainment fans.

In terms of features, so far, it’s pretty basic, IE, we have only spot trading, we have the ‘standard’ functionality of a typical crypto exchange.

However, I am leading on product features for the development of the exchange and we have some pretty cool ideas that we have never spoken about to the public before.

We are also working on aligning all of Chiliz brands.

This will see the launch of some new branding for the exchange, which is a non-event, but still pretty exciting for us to breath some life into the product.

Also, we will be ramping our marketing efforts from the exchange.

We just completed a key hire to focus on the marketing side of the Chiliz Exchange 💪

We say this alot at Chiliz, ‘watch this space’, not like other crypto projects with hype after hype that only survives in a bull run, but watch this space as you can guarantee we’re going to spice things up.

Wasn’t planning on dropping so many bombs here but for some chilizens listening, sure they are excited to hear this ^ 👀

We have had a few more hires on the exchange operations side too (support / ops) that have GREATLY improved the quality of the exchange in recent weeks.

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
Another Bomb 😁

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Not sure if many people have noticed yet, but it’s something that will become more clear.

Obviously, we have faced some technical issues as we are not PRIMARILY a crypto exchange.

But, we have had time to iron out most of our issues and started moving in a great direction.

💪

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
Moving on…

4. Now tell us about the native coin $CHZ, what are its usecases and utilities in Chiliz and Socios ecosystem?

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Well, this one might be a little underwhelming for now…

BUT

Chiliz — CHZ is the lifeblood / rocket fuel for Socios.com and the Fan Token ecosystem. For example, on the Chiliz Exchange, all Fan Tokens are paired against the native token CHZ. In order to participate in the initial sale of Fan Tokens, users must first purchase CHZ and then purchase the Fan Token.

That may sound lame to some, but it’s lead us to the position that we’re in today and thanks to the success of Chiliz, we can continue to expand and build upon the utility.

How are we gonna do that?

Well, as I slightly teased in the beginning, we are focusing on the launch of our new blockchain (CC2 — Chiliz Chain 2.0).

This will see CHZ become a native chain token for the first time, which is a HUGE development / evolution for a digital asset.

We have never really supported any staking initiatives, because most of it serves no purpose IE, just lock tokens, receive tokens, it’s inflation.

With CC2, we will be able to offer our community staking that actually has a purpose (Securing the network) as we will be operating a PoS-A consensus mechanism.

(Proof of Staked Authority).

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
That’s Right 💯

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
We are not claiming / bragging here about becoming the biggest blockchain, with the cheapest fees, the best technology. We are here to become the leading blockchain for the sports and entertainment industry.

Therefore, the launch of the chain is very important, and as always in this industry, cannot be ‘decentralized.

I like what CZ was saying in his initial Twitter spaces about BSC.

Decentralization is a gradient, and more decentralized systems over time should be what everyone is aiming for.

It’s just important to launch the chain in a way where those who have the power are aligned on the correct vision and incentives to drive a healthy ecosystem.

We agree with this

So, utility of CHZ right now ? = Not much

Utility of CHZ in the future ? = Technically limitless

(well, if you class gaining access to the fan token ecosystem as not much)

It still took us almost 5 years of hard work to get to this position today 🙏

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
Appreciate for the honest answer Joe 🙏

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Noticed I am making some typos here and there, apologies 👀

Trying to zoom

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
Haha No Worries

Let’s hear our last question from this segment

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Great

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
5. What important updates and developments we’ll get in coming months and years in Chiliz and Socios ecosystem?

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
I feel I dropped everything already 😱

But obviously not, there is lots happening behind the scenes right now and some things that are less known / highlighted. For example, we just launched the USA version of Socios.com, with the end game goal to have Fan Tokens for the biggest sports teams in the US (that we are already partnered with btw 😜)

Not gonna drop names, as don’t want to be quoted saying JOE SAID X TEAM WILL LAUNCH A FAN TOKEN

But obviously, not a promise, but something we are working hard towards and believe that there is a great opportunity for Socios and Fan Tokens in the US.

Then, we have the launch of CC2 ahead which is scheduled for this quarter! 😳

We work very fast and agile, so, we don’t really have a ‘set roadmap’

We go with the flow, and we flow fast.

(pun not intended to the flow blockchain)

😂

wen roadmap

jk

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
Thanks Joe for this well detailed introduction about Chiliz 🌶

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
No problem 💪

Thanks for great questions

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
That’s the wrap up of our the first part of the AMA session ✅

Let’s now proceed to our Twitter Questions section

i know you’re ready for that 😇

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Woooo 🤟

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
So here is our first question from Twitter…

Segment 2️⃣: Twitter Questions

1)Chiliz will open up the ecosystem for 3rd party dapps — BIG step imho🌶
Are you personally surprised about the demand/non demand to build on cc?

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
demand / non demand 😂

hahaha

Anyway, to be honest, yes.

We’re still pretty behind in some senses, we haven’t done a great job on the information/documentation side of CC2 (it’s being worked on 🙈), so there has been limited resources for people to discover…

That being said, we are having many exciting conversations with various potential developers / existing blockchain companies / new companies interested in utilizing CC2 and our network to create sports and entertainment related apps that utilize digital assets (or potentially Fan Tokens).

This topic is hard to discuss as it’s commercially important 👀

Ideally we keep our hand close to our chest for now, and when the time comes, 💥

Something I discovered is just how many NFT companies exist now…

NFT studios, NFT marketing agencies, creative agencies etc.

Very crazy, I never would have imagined after I bought my crypto kitty back in 2018 or so.

(that I lost the private key to btw) 😏

So yes… Short answer surprised.

But also understand we must do more more more more! 🤟

Events, hackathons, etc etc etc

Not gonna say more about that for today… or no secrets to be excited about.

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
2.How did you manage to convince so many sports & Esports teams to partner with you?
Also If I buy a Fan Token, for instance, a PSG token (Paris Saint-Germain), what benefits will I get?

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
not again ;-;

hehe

Well, it was not easy in the beginning….

We started with just a website, a whitepaper and a vision of enhancing fan engagement. Can you imagine what teams must initially thought?

What planet are you from? 😂 What’s this blockchain alien technology

But.. Luckily thanks to great senior leadership in our partnership team and vision from our CEO, we initially managed to sign Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus in the summer of 2018.

This kickstarted the buzz about Socios and Fan Tokens, so many people were intrigued, confused, excited.

After we signed, let’s say the first 10 or so partners, it becomes easier and easier.

Better and better processes, better and better approach and overtime as we launched the Socios.com app, we started to host the Fan Token Offerings, already showing the ability to generate revenue.

After you have a proven concept, that generates revenue, landing more partners becomes an easy job as, to be real, sports and entertainment brands NEED $.

Their operations are very expensive.

and they are limited in what they can sell.

(They have limited tshirt space, limited merchandise offerings, limited ticket numbers, etc etc)

COVID created an acceleration to seek for revenue to secure the longevity of the teams/clubs throughout the pandemic.

We were somewhat in the right place at the right time :)

I guess that’s always the bottom line, right?

As for benefits for specific Fan Tokens like PSG, I think I already did a good job earlier explaining Fan Tokens and their utility :)

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
3: As FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 will be held in November, one of the most prestigious tournaments in the world. Being a sports platform does @Chiliz have any major roadmap developments and news before this event?

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Well, not EXACTLY / not something I can talk MUCH about (as we are not sponsor of World Cup etc), but Fan Tokens and CHZ seems to have risen in popularity ahead of the World Cup.

There aren’t many narratives this year left in crypto.

We just saw the ETH merge which was arguably one of the most anticipated events for the last 1–2 years 🙈

But yeah, people are enjoying Fan Tokens and they are frequently being listed on new markets to be more available in different regions etc.

For example

We have Portugal National Team

Argentina National Team

Home of the two goats 🐐 Ronaldo X Messi

Both have seen a surge in popularity in recent weeks.

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
4)Out of curiousity I’ll like to ask, Revenue is an essential and unavoidable aspect for all projects to survive and also to maintain the project. what are the way to generate revenue for the token?

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
AHH THE R WORD

(revenue)

Well above I touched on the issue of COVID and the need to revenue for the sports teams that we have in our roster portfolio.

Revenue is generated through the sale of the Fan Tokens (Ie in the Fan Token Offering — when a Fan Token is sold for the first time).

If the question is more from a user perspective, I will rather use ‘earn’ than ‘revenue’ but yeah, as explained earlier about the utility of CHZ and how we are going to be expanding the utility to include staking, users will be able to have a % of fees earned by the network for delegating / validating.

As for us as a business, let’s just say in 2021, we generated somewhat like $200,000,000 in revenue.

Not 100% sure the number is accurate, but it’s something around that :)

We have a large treasury to facilitate our growth needs and will continue to grow as necessary to fulfill our vision.

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
Let’s hear our last question from Twitter

5)What are you focusing on right now? Building and developing products or engaging customers and users? Could you please share it with us?

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
I don’t think I should answer this one :)

If themoon read the AMA, he would know enough

What do you think? ( :

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
Yes, i think so

So let’s Conclude The Twitter Session and Moving on to our last segment — Live Q&A

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
🙏

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
lets see it

Segment 3️⃣: Live QnA
(In this segment group was opened for 60 seconds and Miners sent hundreds of questions. Guest choose some best to answer)

1) Santoshi | I don’t PM first, I don’t ask for Crypto:
Dear Joe, for the validators of the future Chiliz Chain 2.0, are any rules already set for their selection? Will only partners of Socios/Chiliz be accepted?

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Good question :D

We haven’t really discussed much externally / released information about plans for validators just yet. We want to make sure we get it right and fair, however, initially it will likely be close partners / etc to ensure that we have a safe launch 🙏

2) Paul Macao:
I read that Chiliz offers tons of rewards and exclusive experiences, such as VIP invitations to meet and greet sports heroes, exclusive lounge access on matchdays, official jerseys to receive autographs, and more. Can you share with us who benefited from this exclusive offer?

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Hundreds of people, maybe thousands.

Follow https://twitter.com/socios and have a look, they frequently share videos and imagery from fan experiences. One big event that I can remember recently was sending BAR (FC Barcelona) Fan Token holders to play at the Camp Nou stadium , just to give you an idea of how exclusive these rewards are :)

3) Amina Peter:
Chiliz has invest $100m in acquiring 25% stake in FCBarcelona audiovisual studios (#NFTs and more). Can you tell me what positive effect has this massive deal brought to your company? Secondly, what is the reason for creating your second token $SSU since it can not be tradable?

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Good question!

Acquiring the stake in Barca Studios is going to allow us to utilize more intellectual property of Barcelona in creative ways, think for example, NFTs, metaverse.

We are still ironing out our plans for metaverse, so I don’t want to give any spoilers just yet 👀

As for SSU, because Fan Tokens are not ‘spent’, we had to introduce a currency that rewards app participation, most popular apps these days have some form of gamification to keep users engaged, SSU and XP was a natural choice for us as a solution. Fans can spend SSU on match tickets, unique experiences, so the value is self defined.

4) Tiemel | Gollum:
In fan token, how do you arrived at each clubs fan tokens total and circulating supply? And what system will you use to carry out token burn since fans always increase?

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Total supply is decided mutually between us on the partner, however, we have some internal models for assessing how much supply to create for a token, one such metric is judging theoritically somewhat how many ‘fans’ they team has (not easy as it’s more than just numbers on social media) but we basically start there.

As for the circulating supply, that decides on how much is sold in the Fan Token Offering and if there are other exchanges listing the Fan Token as more liquidity is required to be distributed.

5) FORBIDDEN:
I’m excited to see this project since I love football so much, and seeing all the club tokens makes me want to keep them for a very long time.
What are the staking rewards for Chiliz token?

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Glad to hear :)

As mentioned earlier in the AMA, there is not currently an official staking program for Chiliz, so I would suggest that you wait and see 🙊 💪

*This segment ends here*

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
Thankyou So Much Joe For your valuable answers and information about Chiliz 🌶

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Thanks all for listening!

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
It’s a Pleasure Hosting An Ama With You ❤️

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Let me shill myself one moment.

https://twitter.com/JoeBGrech

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
Go ahead 😁

Joe 🌶 — $CHZ:
Go follow me

https://twitter.com/chiliz

GO follow Chiliz ❤️

and everyone

Stay spicy, have a great weekend.

Ramsy | Crypto Miners:
You Too 🥂

Time To Conclude this AMA

Community, If you would like to learn more about Chiliz, here are some useful links for you

Website: http://chiliz.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chiliz
Telegram: https://t.me/chiliz_io
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chilizdotcom/
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/chilizdotcom
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mediarex-sports-&-entertainment/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyRKX_JvGZw58GHvrlc-mjA
Medium: Chiliz