What Is Chiliz (CHZ)?
Chiliz (CHZ) is a popular cryptocurrency for sports tokenization, fueling the world’s first web3 scalable sports engagement and rewards platform.
Key Takeaways
Chiliz is a web3 platform built for sports, bringing new experiences to fans.
Chiliz introduces official Fan Tokens for professional teams, which fans can purchase to access perks like voting in polls and staking for digital collectibles.
Chiliz Chain is Chiliz’s EVM-compatible blockchain.
This article was updated in March 2025 by Vera Lim.
Not every sports fan can spare $250,000 to invest in a rare digital collector card featuring Lionel Messi or a $120,000 NFT avatar of Lebron James' slam dunk. However, most fans can afford a fraction of their favorite sports teams or celebrities in the form of fan tokens. This is where Chiliz (CHZ) comes in.
Chiliz strives to offer sports and entertainment businesses blockchain-based tools, enabling them to engage and monetize their activities seamlessly. These tools include its sports fan engagement platform Socios and the Chiliz Chain.
Introducing Chiliz
Chiliz is a platform that brings sports to web3, with a community of 2 million and over 70 official fan tokens, which are official digital assets that enable fans worldwide to engage and experience sports while supporting their favorite team.
Chiliz is also home to the first sports-based crypto community where fans can trade customized fan tokens and participate in club-based surveys and pools. As such, the tokens give the fans voting rights – the more your token holdings, the more your voting rights. The tokens also allow fans to access discounts, promotions, and limited content, test their sports knowledge against each other, and win prizes like signed club merchandise.
At its center, Chiliz solves two problems: funding and engagement. Other than allowing fans to own fractional shares of their favorite teams and participate in their daily activities, the platform also offers sports and entertainment businesses access. This enables them to scale their development plans and thrive in the global sports industry.
Chiliz was established in 2018 by Alexandre Dreyfus, the founder of interactive tourism guide company Webcity and co-founder of the biggest online poker website in France, Winamax. Dreyfus thought about how he could use blockchain technology to offer fans a seamless way to engage with their sports teams and the teams with an effective way to monetize their global fanbases.
The concept has grown into a successful global venture – leading a revolutionary change in the sports and entertainment industry through fan tokens and the Socios fan engagement and rewards platform.
In March 2025, there was a surge in active addresses and transactions on Chiliz.
.@Chiliz just went vertical real quick.
— Nansen ? (@nansen_ai) March 25, 2025
Active addresses: 578 > 68,474
Transactions: 41,196 > 381,597
All in the last 24h pic.twitter.com/OdGp4OsTDB
What Are Fan Tokens?
Fan Tokens are CAP-20 tokens built on Chiliz Chain. Users can purchase Fan Tokens for their preferred teams through Socios.com with Chiliz’s CHZ, and earn Reward Points as they engage with Socios.
Fan tokens allow holders to vote on real team decisions, ranging from kit designs, race day livery, and more – depending on what the team decides to ask.
The price of Fan Tokens depends on the demand for the specific token, although it is available at a fixed price when it is first released.
What Is Socios?
Socios can be described as the first consumer-facing product of Chiliz. It’s a scalable, mainstream app that lets fans acquire tokenized voting rights in their favorite clubs. The app allows fans to engage with their teams and provides access to unique rewards.
Socios is powered by the Chiliz Chain and allows interested teams to issue fan tokens. These tokens are exclusive blockchain assets with the imprint of the issuing team they are associated with. As such, they give holders the ballot rights to participate in decision-making, opinion polls, and surveys regarding the management of teams.
Through Socios, fans can directly participate in the decision-making processes of their favorite teams. For example, Arsenal Football Club fans had the opportunity to vote on merchandise designs, in-game banners, naming playgrounds, or selecting a goal celebration song through the AFC fan token while receiving rewards and unique experiences. The platform ensures the club honors the fans’ voting outcomes through smart contracts.
In late 2024, Socios also launched a non-custodial web3 wallet that gives fans full control of their tokens and unlocking access to dApps on Chiliz Chain.
In summary, these are the key features of Socios:
Trading: After buying the CHZ token, users can use it to purchase your favorite team’s fan token. Moreover, you can exchange one fan token with another or convert it back to CHZ.
Polls: After acquiring a fan token, users can influence the decisions of the related team.
Rewards: As a fan token holder, users can acquire tickets for upcoming matches and other perks.
Token Hunt: This live action feature lets users chase and acquire Fan Tokens, Reward Points, and CHZ.
Locker Room: Users can stake Fan Tokens in return for digital collectibles that can include official team-branded editions.
Fan Token Staking: Users can lock their Fan Tokens in their wallet to earn Reward Points. They will also need to stake Fan Tokens in order to participate in polls or quizzes, and can unstake these after the poll or quiz has ended.
In October 2024, Socios received in-principle approval from the Malta Financial Services Authority for a license that allows it to provide digital asset services, establishing it as a trusted and compliant platform.
How Does Chiliz Work?
Chiliz’s success in championing the mainstream adoption of its fan engagement and monetization platform is because of its customer-oriented products and services, which are easy to use even by new cryptocurrency users. Besides, they haven’t experienced any security hacks yet; thus, they can be considered safe for use.
By utilizing the blockchain, Chiliz ensures that cryptocurrencies in its ecosystem – CHZ tokens and fan tokens – are easily traceable, confirmable, and immutable.
What Is Chiliz Chain?
Chiliz transitioned to its own Layer 1, Chiliz Chain – a sports-focused and EVM-compatible blockchain. As an EVM-compatible blockchain, users can use their existing MetaMask and other EVM wallets to interact with the Chiliz Chain.
Chiliz Chain uses Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA) as its consensus mechanism, which is designed to ensure fast block times and cost-efficient transactions. To become a validator, entities will need to stake at least 10 million CHZ, the native coin of the Chiliz Chain.
While Proof of Staked Authority chains may not be as decentralized as other blockchains like Proof-of-Work or Proof-of-Stake chains, these chains are highly scalable, secure, and capable of handling more transactions per second. This makes them ideal for powering collaborative social engagement platforms like Socios.
Chiliz Chain has onboarded a list of high profile validators, including French soccer team Paris Saint-Germain. The club promises that they will use the revenue generated from validating the chain to buy back their PSG fan tokens regularly and bolster the club’s digital economy on Chiliz.
To support innovation, Chiliz has integrated tools like ChainPort for cross-chain bridging, and Envio for real-time blockchain data access, enabling a growing developer ecosystem around Chiliz Chain.
What Is CHZ?
CHZ is the native token of the Chiliz Chain. It is used to pay gas fees for transactions on the Chiliz Chain, and is also used to secure the network by validators. Users can delegate their CHZ to the validator of their choice, and these delegated tokens contribute to the validator’s voting power.
In May 2024, Chiliz revised their tokenomics, with the goal to reduce the inflation rate from 8.8% to 1.88% over 14 years. The inflation supply will be allocated based on the below:
65% allocated to validators and delegators as a reward for participating in network governance and security.
25% allocated to Ecosystem and Operational Distribution, for uses like funding Chiliz Chain development and supporting ecosystem projects.
10% allocated to CHZ liquidity pools, community vault, and shared security restaking rewards.
Chiliz and Sports
Multiple iterations of Chiliz’s product concept were conceived as early as 2016. Actual work, including product and team development, started in early 2018. The company managed to fundraise $66 million through a private sale and used most of the funds to build Socios.
Juventus was the first team to issue fan tokens (JUV), conduct an FTO, and allow its fans to vote on the blockchain. Since then, the platform has onboarded over 130 partners. Paris-Saint Germain, Atletico de Madrid, Galatasaray, A.S Roma, and FC Barcelona were next, and many more teams have followed suit.
Inter Milan and Valencia C.F promoted their fan tokens from the front of their jerseys in the 2021/2022 season. Even national teams like Argentina and Portugal have joined the Chiliz bandwagon. English Premier League teams like Manchester City, Everton F.C, Arsenal, Leeds United, and Aston Villa have also issued their fan tokens on Socios.
Chiliz has not only been embraced by football teams. Formula One teams, major esports clubs, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and more have joined Chiliz. After its successful 2021 partnerships with various teams from the National Hockey League (NHL) and National Basketball Association (NBA), Chiliz seems well positioned for the growth of its fan engagement application.
Conclusion: The Future of Chiliz
Chiliz has forged strategic partnerships with major sports clubs and brands globally. They have staff in almost all corners of the world and offices in Malta, Spain, France, Turkey, Brazil, and South Korea. Besides, they are planning to add to their collection of global hubs with more offices in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
Besides, Chiliz is optimistic more teams and brands will join them soon, and CHZ and Fan Tokens will fuel this seismic change in how fans engage with their clubs.
This article is only for informational purposes and should not be taken as financial or investment advice. Always do your own research on any crypto projects and protocols.
