Will SportFi explode during the World Cup year? CHZ CEO announces major strategy, historical patterns suggest opportunity

Chiliz CEO Alexandre Dreyfus announced on January 15th that as the 2026 World Cup approaches, Chiliz will launch a major SportFi strategy. This news comes at the right time—the 2026 North American World Cup will be unprecedented in scale, jointly hosted by the US, Canada, and Mexico, with about 5 months remaining before kickoff. The current performance of CHZ already signals something: a 79.29% increase over the past 30 days, with a current price of $0.054523.

Historical Patterns Repeating

Looking at the data from the 2022 Qatar World Cup helps explain why the market is excited. Back then, CHZ bottomed out at $0.09-0.10 in summer, then began to rise significantly 3-5 months before the event, eventually reaching a peak of about $0.27-0.28 in mid-November before the tournament started, a gain of 180%-380%. This is not coincidence but a cyclical interaction between sports fan economy and on-chain assets.

What was the context at that time? The hype around fan tokens was rising, and club derivative products going on-chain became a new trend. This time, infrastructure is even more advanced.

This Time, the Scale Is Larger

There are several key differences for the 2026 World Cup:

As the world’s largest capital market, the US has a much higher acceptance of sports finance than the Middle East. Plus, Chiliz 2.0 is now mature, supporting RWA (Real-World Asset) pegged assets, NFT tickets, fan tokens, and derivatives across multiple layers. This means that this World Cup will not only be a sports event but also a large-scale experiment in on-chain sports economy.

Core Logic of the SportFi Strategy

The CEO’s announced SportFi strategy essentially addresses one question: how to bring the sports consumption behavior of hundreds of millions of fans onto the chain. Specific initiatives include:

• Ticket NFTization and trading
• Digital assetization of club derivative products
• Token incentives for fan participation
• Derivative trading related to the event

All these applications require a unified liquidity hub, and CHZ is playing that role. From the bottom layer, Chiliz Chain has gradually evolved into a global on-chain trading hub for sports assets.

The Market Is Already Preparing

Recent data strongly supports this. Over the past week, CHZ rose by 23.65%. Although there was a correction in the last 24 hours (down 3.62%), quick reports from multiple exchanges show CHZ continuously ranking high on daily gain lists. This indicates that market participants are already positioning themselves based on historical patterns and event cycles.

The current market cap is $557.11 million, ranking 86th. Compared to the scale during the 2022 World Cup, the potential for growth this time is theoretically larger—thanks to improved infrastructure, increased market awareness, and higher capital participation.

Key Future Time Windows

Based on historical patterns, from now until the World Cup kickoff on June 11, CHZ may go through several phases:

• Now to March: Strategy confirmation and ecosystem building, market expectations gradually heating up
• March to May: Increasing event hype, application deployment, rising sentiment
• May to June: Sprint phase, usually the last surge before the peak

This rhythm is similar to 2022, but the base is higher and more participants are involved.

Summary

The Chiliz CEO’s announcement of the SportFi strategy is not just hype but rooted in the broader trend of sports finance going on-chain. The 2022 World Cup provided a historical reference—180%-380% gains are not unrealistic. This time, with a larger scale, more advanced infrastructure, and higher market awareness, the potential for upside may be even greater.

Currently, two questions are most worth monitoring: first, what exactly is the CEO’s major announcement; second, how will Chiliz 2.0’s actual application be implemented during the World Cup. These factors will directly influence the market sentiment’s sustainability. With five months remaining until the World Cup, the battle for this window has just begun.