Chiliz is a blockchain-based platform that allows sports and esports organizations to engage and monetize their audiences through its native cryptocurrency token, CHZ. CHZ is an ERC-20 and BEP-2 utility cryptocurrency token that can be used by sports fans to acquire Fan Tokens and functions as the native utility token that powers Socios.com's ecosystem.^[1][2]

Overview

Chiliz, the world's first tokenized sports exchange, is described as the world’s leading blockchain FinTech provider for sports and entertainment. The Chiliz platform is powered by Chiliz (CHZ) token. ^[1]

Socios.com is Chiliz's consumer-facing product and the hub for fans to buy tokenized voting rights for their favorite teams. Socios.com counts many of the world’s football clubs and esports teams, including FC Barcelona, Juventus F.C., Paris Saint-Germain F.C., Atlético Madrid, A.S. Roma, Galatasaray S.K.& OG among its partners. Socios.com allows sports teams to issue digital assets, known as Fan Tokens, onto the Chiliz blockchain via Fan Token offerings. Every team operating on the Socios.com platform runs its own semi-autonomous organization, implementing rules to poll Fan Token holders about every team-related decision. These semi-autonomous organizations consist of smart contracts executed on Socios.com, guaranteeing integrity by ensuring that only Fan Token holders can participate and influence it proportionally to the number of Fan Tokens they own.^[22]

In December 2020, Chiliz partnered with Binance. With Binance Launchpool, users are able to acquire new token rewards in return for staking different tokens. The first Socios.com partners to benefit from Binance LaunchPool were Paris Saint-Germain F.C. (PSG) and Juventus F.C. (JUV) Fan Tokens. Users became able to stake BNB, BUSD, or CHZ tokens into separate pools.^[23]

On December 9, 2020, Chiliz and Socios.com held 6 Fan Token Offerings over 6 days. The FTOs were held for Sint-Truidense V.V. (STV), İstanbul Başakşehir F.K. (IBFK), Team Alliance (ALL), Natus Vincere (NAVI), BSC Young Boys (YBO), and Novara Calcio (NOV). ^[3][7][8]

On January 18, 2021, Chiliz partnered with A.C. Milan to launch the ACM Fan Token. The addition of AC Milan took the number of sporting organizations on the Chiliz blockchain to 20. ^[4][9]

As of 2023, Chiliz provides over 170 major sporting organizations with new opportunities to connect with and reward their global fanbases on the Socios.com fan engagement app. Chiliz opened its ecosystem to a far wider audience in 2023 with the launch of Chiliz Chain. Chiliz Chain plans to lead to greater adoption of blockchain tech across sports and entertainment with brands invited to build Fan Tokens, NFTs, and other digital assets with all fees paid in Chiliz native token $CHZ.^[10][19]

Features

Chiliz (CHZ) developed Socios.com, a sports fan engagement platform, which is built on the Chiliz blockchain infrastructure and utilizes it as its exclusive on-platform currency. This ecosystem has the following key features as embedded alongside the Chiliz' (CHZ) token utility:

Voting

Voting is a basic feature that all sports and esports teams operating on the Socios.com platform will debut with a specified, finite number of Fan Tokens tied to concrete voting rights. Fans who obtain voting rights by trading Chiliz tokens for Fan Tokens, gain decision-making right for that team. Each vote is executed as a group of smart contracts, wherein fans leverage their ownership of Fan Tokens to ‘send’ them to various answers in a given pole. Once a certain engagement threshold is met, all voting results become valid, with all votes and vote results stored in Socios.com’s side blockchain for transparency.^[24]

Fan Token Offerings

Fan Token Offerings is a democratic solution for fans to purchase first-offer Fan Tokens from newly introduced organizations on Socios.com. When a new organization goes live on Socios.com, their supply of Fan Tokens is offered for purchase by fans on a first-come, first-served basis at a fixed price point. Only after Fan Tokens are in the hands of fans, can they be listed or re-listed on Socios.com’s shared marketplace. This fixed-price ‘order line’ is in place to ensure that the first chance to purchase any given Fan Tokens is a transparent and fair experience for users.

Together with Socios.com, each new team on-boarded to the platform decides on an initial Chiliz-pegged value for their Fan Tokens. This is a fixed, base price (in $CHZ) at which all fans can publicly purchase specific Fan Tokens on its first release. Buying accessibility for these first-run Fan Tokens functions as a virtual line.

Fan Token Offerings run under volume consideration as well. This means that a single user has a capped amount of Fan Tokens which they can pre-order for any team. This may fluctuate on an organization-by-organization basis, but the end goal of capping remains the same - to ensure that no single user is able to buy up a monopoly of Fan Tokens. These users by user caps for ownership are maintained even after a new organization’s Fan Token Offering period expires and their Fan Tokens go live on the Socios.com marketplace.^[22]

Trading Fan Tokens

Fans who own one or more Fan Tokens on Socios.com gain access to the Socios.com marketplace. Here fans can auction off the voting rights (Fan Tokens) they hold. This gamified system allows users to leverage their positions to exchange Fan Tokens for Chiliz (CHZ) at dynamic rates. Simply put, the platform's users are permitted to list their Fan Tokens at any price they wish - for example, a user can auction 20 Chiliz (CHZ) for a specific Fan Token.

Although this does guarantee that those tokens would be sold. Logically, for any given team’s marketplace, only the cheapest Fan Token price is visible to buyers. Once that token is purchased, the next cheapest price becomes visible and acts that Fan Token’s current public value. Each Fan Token price in the Socios.com shared marketplace is updated in real-time, so where and when users decide to buy or sell Fan Tokens becomes a strategic consideration - similar to a normal market or exchange.

Tokenomics

CHZ Token

The Chiliz (CHZ) token is used by fans to acquire branded Fan Tokens from any team or organization that partnered with the Socios.com platform and enacts their voting rights as their fan influencers.  CHZ is both an ERC-20 utility token on the Ethereum blockchain and a BEP-2 token on Binance Smart Chain. ^[11]

CHZ is listed on more than 43 crypto exchanges including Binance, coinone, BitMax.io, KuCoin, WazirX, Binance DEX, Bitfinex, Bitpanda, Crypto.com, and Bitnovo. ^[11][20]

Token Distribution

Chiliz (CHZ) token is thus allocated:^[25]

Fan Token

A Fan Token is a digital asset that is a user's license to vote in club decisions on Socios.com. Chiliz partnered with the following sports/esports teams that launched their Fan Tokens. Each of these Fan Tokens is launched in a Fan Token Offering on Socios.com before being available on the Chiliz exchange. ^[11]

• Paris Saint-Germain F.C. (PSG)
• Juventus F.C. (JUV)
• West Ham United F.C. (WHU)
• OG (OG)
• A.S. Roma (ASR)
• Atlético Madrid (ATM)
• Galatasaray S.K. (GAL).

When a new organization goes live on Socios.com, their supply of Fan Tokens is offered for purchase by fans on a first-come, first-served basis at a fixed price point.^[22]

Chiliz Exchange

Chiliz (CHZ) Exchange is a functional unit of the Chiliz ecosystem, that supports cryptocurrency trading with a special emphasis on Fan tokens-football team tokens, and other renowned cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Tether (USDT). The exchange platform supports trading with about 8 other languages aside from English supporting its trading feature. Users can make use of the Trading View Cryptocurrency chart as made available within the exchange, thus giving room for users to technically analyze the market aside from their respective fundamental analysis before placing a trade. Conventional with other cryptocurrency exchanges, Chiliz Exchange, has a relatable user interface, with its parts sectionalized into order books- order history, trade history; the ability for users to set limit orders, and of course to execute trades using a market order. The Chiliz Exchange can thus be described as the specialized and first tokenized cryptocurrency exchange for sports and entertainment globally.^[26]

Chiliz Technology

Chiliz's technological ethos rests upon transparency and auditability at its core. The Socios.com ecosystem's commitments, powered by its Chiliz (CHZ) native token, aim to raise the interest of both future users of the Socios.com platform and the partner organization of Chiliz's technology as the currency and platform that acts together as a decision-making engine of the fans, giving them a way to meaningfully influence their favorite teams with complete integrity.

To ensure integrity, Chiliz runs its own permission instance of the Ethereum Blockchain. This permission-sidechain is the core of Socios.com. It hosts every team, league, game title, or other organization that connects with the platform, together with each organization’s crowd voting mechanisms run as a semi-autonomous organization on this blockchain. Running its own permissioned-sidechain was aimed at drastically reducing transaction costs by employing the ecosystem's use of a Proof-of-authority (PoA) consensus algorithm to confirm each new block of the permissioned chain - with each block storing polling/ decision results, in place of necessitating the use of the conventional Proof-of-work system (PoW). Other than being a scalability solution, Chiliz (CHZ) Tech system also imbibes transparency as Socios.com’s Proof-of-Authority (PoA) sidechain will be publicly auditable.^[6]

For Chiliz (CHZ), Blockchain was the most practical and eloquent way to unite the needs of maintaining voting integrity and transparency by turning voting rights into an ‘ownable’ commodity. By having organizations on the Chiliz' permissioned chain- connected to the Ethereum (ETH) Main Net via tokens exchangeable with our CHZ$ ERC20 token. The ecosystem explains that:

we are able to create a direct ‘fan-funding’ solution for sports/ esports teams in the future, in addition to being able to tokenize the management arms of these organisations.

Consensus Mechanism

Chiliz (CHZ) employs the Ethereum blockchain consensus, which primarily functions on the Proof-of-authority (POA) mechanism. Proof-of-Authority (POA) is a replacement for Proof-of-work, which can be used for permissioned chain setups. POA does not depend on nodes solving arbitrarily difficult mathematical problems but instead uses a set of ‘authorities’ - nodes that are explicitly allowed to create new blocks and secure the blockchain. The chain had to be signed off by the majority of authorities, in which case it becomes a part of the permanent record.^[6]

Permissioned sidechain

One important emphasis about Chiliz's technology as launched atop the Ethereum (ETH) Blockchain, brings virtually everything occurring on the Socios.com platform (in terms of voting and trading) to be stored in an auditable, permanent manner via public distributed ledger on Chiliz's permissioned blockchain. The Chiliz network employs this Permissioned Sidechain because the ecosystem believes in the spirit of Open-source development, having found inspiration from innovations created by open-source communities for almost two decades. Chiliz believes that Ethereum (ETH) offers a complete toolkit for developers to build Apps, Smart Contracts, and other Blockchain-based solutions. Ethereum and Solidity - its smart contract scripting language is supported by a very well-established and active community.^[6]

Ethereum blockchain

Chiliz's (CHZ) ecosystem, utilizing the Ethereum (ETH) Blockchain, ensures the securing and storage of Chiliz's ERC-20 transactions. The new accruement of Fan Tokens converted from Chiliz ($CHZ) tokens and Socios.com account balance exchanges as part of the platform's other service features- is to be stored in an auditable, permanent manner via public ledger on the main Ethereum blockchain.

Partnerships

Chiliz (CHZ) has entered into strategic partnerships with big-time Football teams such as Paris Saint-Germain F.C., Juventus F.C., OG, A.S. Roma, Atlético Madrid, Galatasaray S.K., Club Atlético Independiente, FC Barcelona, Team Heretics, UFC, Apollon Limassol, Trabzonspor, Young Boys, Sint-Truidense V.V., PFL, Novara Calcio, NAVI, İstanbul Başakşehir F.K., Team Alliance, Club Universidad de Chile, and A.C. Milan who have hundreds of millions of fans worldwide, with more clubs and teams to be made known over time.

UEFA

In February 2022, the Union of European Football Associations, typically known as UEFA, signed a Global Licensing and Regional Sponsorship agreement with Socios.com.  Socios.com has now become not only a Global Licensing Partner and the Official Licensed Product but also the Official Fan Token Partner of all UEFA competitions, which include majors like the Champions League, UEFA Europa League, UEFA Europa Conference League, and UEFA Super Cup. In addition, Socios.com is also working as a Regional Sponsor of the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Super Cup for the 2021–2024 cycle in the USA.^[16][17][18]

Ballon d'Or

Chilliz-powered Socios.com partnered with the prestigious annual football awards ceremony, Ballon d'Or, in November 2021. This award ceremony is the main individual award ceremony in soccer and has a history of 66 years. In September 2022, they were announced again as official partners for a second consecutive year.^[14][15]

Security Audits

Chiliz's ecosystem has obtained its Certificate of authenticity from CertiK in accordance with the conclusive report issued on November 22, 2018.

As of March 20, 2023, Chiliz completed its smart contract security audit for Chiliz Bridge.^[21]

Founders & Team

Founders

Alexandre Dreyfus is the founder and CEO of both Chiliz and Socios.com. His professional portfolio includes numerous CEO positions. Dreyfus had always had an interest in sports and games. He founded Webcity, a city tour-guide platform used across Europe, and has actively played a founding role in the creation of Winamax, the first-ever French online poker platform. Alexandre Dreyfus graduated from Lycée Jean Pierre Perrin in 1995.

Emma Diskin is the chief operating officer at Chiliz. She has been with the company since 2018 and has moved up the ranks, starting with a communications director position. Her professional career began as an account manager for Freud Communications in 1999. Since then, she has been an employee for brands like the Daily Mail and ITV, before joining Chiliz and Socios.com.

Max Rabinovitch is the Chief strategy officer for Chilliz and Socios.com. He graduated in fine arts and psychology from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2008. Rabinovitch’s professional experience began as a head Copywriter for Intersog in 2010. A year later, he became the creative director for ComboApp Inc and since 2014, Rabinovitch has been an integral part of the Chiliz team.^[27]

Team

The core member of Chiliz (CHZ) is a nine-man team, consisting of Alexandre Dreyfus, the Chief executive officer, and other eight astounding members. Chiliz (CHZ) team aside from its core members, runs on the strength of its over 75 cross-industry professionals, cutting across 25 different nationalities, and this team size is constantly growing. The Chiliz Core team includes:

As of June 2023, Chiliz is 350+ cross-industry professionals across 27 different nationalities. Together with its Malta headquarters, Chiliz runs a development office in Lyon, France, and has active operations in Turkey, Spain, South Korea, and Brazil, with team members also active in the UK and Sweden.^[19]

Fundraising

In 2018, Chiliz raised $66 million USD through a private placement which was used to build the world’s first fan engagement and rewards app, Socios.com.^[6][12]