According to CoinGecko data, as Argentina faced Saudi Arabia in the FIFA World Cup on Tuesday, the value of the Argentine Football Association’s crypto fan token ARG fell precipitously, dropping from about $7.20 at the start of the game to a low of $4.96.
ARG’s price has marginally risen to about $5.36 since the match ended. The token has decreased by 18% during the last 24 hours. However, it’s important to keep in mind that ARG has still increased 17% over the past month and just four days ago hit an all-time high of $9.19.
However, Argentina’s defeat was so severe that many supporters decided to sell their tokens, which were produced by the crypto firm Chiliz in official collaboration with the Argentine Football Association and launched on Chiliz’s exchange Socios.
ARG Ethereum-compatible ERC-20 token
ARG is a particular kind of Ethereum-compatible ERC-20 token. Fans must first purchase Chiliz’s CHZ token, which is down 33% over the last two weeks before they can swap it for any other token on Socios. ARG and similar fan tokens do not grant holders any kind of shareholder status or stake in the ownership of the team.
Then why is ARG used? The Chiliz firm claims that owners of fan tokens have access to a “safe, exclusive inner circle of fans” and the ability to vote on “fan-led decisions.”
According to the Chiliz website, the more tokens a fan holds and the more they vote, the greater the clout rating of that fan, propelling them upward via several reward categories until they have access to the highest VIP advantages that are on offer.
It’s also likely that some fans are utilizing tokens like ARG as a covert means to wager on a team’s win or defeat in the hopes that the price of the token would rise following a triumph.
Impacts of Saudi victory on the NFT market
Saudi Arabia’s win has affected the NFT market as the opponents adjust to its defeat. Sales of an Ethereum NFT collection dubbed The Saudis, which was introduced in July and is unrelated to the football team, slightly increased on Tuesday. The avatars that resemble profile pictures seem to be an unrelated “derivative” of the CryptoPunks NFTs.
Following Saudi Arabia’s victory, 52 NFTs from the collection were sold on OpenSea for an average price of 0.2 ETH, or roughly $280. The floor price of the collection has already dropped from its daily peak of roughly 0.31 ETH back down to 0.24 ETH on OpenSea, suggesting that this little pump was fleeting. Within hours of Saudi Arabia’s win, sales volume had already slowed significantly.
The extremely low number of sales prior to the peak early on Tuesday puts into perspective the 1,200% spike in trading volume in 24 hours. Only 21.75 ETH, or around $24,000, have been exchanged for the collection in the previous day across all marketplaces. Additionally, according to Gem statistics, OpenSea is the NFT marketplace with the most number of Saudi NFTs offered for sale (180) at the time of writing.
Whether official or not, NFT collections and cryptocurrencies with real-world names can experience volume or price increases when those names make news. An example of this is how Johnny Depp’s NFTs increased during his widely publicized trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard.
But this increase in volume and price frequently amounts to nothing more than a fleeting moment. Depp’s NFTs, for instance, did not experience consistent trading volume, and both their floor price and volume quickly reverted to pre-spike levels.
