The economic revolution driven by the blockchain system does not stop, and today we can see it adapted in almost any ecosystem, our project today focuses on an interesting mix between blockchain and sports. We would like to tell you about the AMA session with our friends from Chiliz. The AMA took place on September 16 and our guests was Joe Grech (Community Lead).
The total reward pool was $500 and it was splitted into three parts.
In this AMA Recap we will try to summarize some of the most interesting points for you.
PART 1, INTRODUCTION AND COMMUNITY QUESTIONS
Mary | Satoshi Club: Hello, Satoshi Club! We are happy to announce that today we have guest from @chiliz_io 😀 @unfunmid, welcome to Satoshi Club.
Serg | Satoshi Club: Hello Joe! Welcome to Satoshi Club.
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Hello, Nice to meet you all too.
Mary | Satoshi Club: Intoduce yourself a bit and tell how did you start with Chiliz.
Joe Grech – $CHZ: I’m Joe! I’m the Community Lead at Chiliz. I have been working here for over 2 years now.My tasks vary a lot. BUT, mainly growing our communities globally, managing operations and listings of our own Exchange aswell as working with other exchanges for listings etc etc.
Also I oversee any $CHZ related marketing, especially in the English speaking region. My professional background is in tech and esports. Discovered blockchain in the beginning of 2017 whilst working in Finland. I’d say now my core interests are tech and finance.
D. | Satoshi Club: Do you have any hobbies?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: I spent countless hours like you all here in Telegram groups researching for like 12 hours a day back in 2017. The first cryptocurrency I bought was Ethereum.
Right now, my hobbies are probably just Djing and Scuba Diving (both quite new). Before that I was doing lots of PC Gaming. Not anymore. 🙂
Mary | Satoshi Club: So, what about Chiliz? Introduce it for us.
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Chiliz is the leading cryptocurrency for sports and entertainment. Chiliz is the fuel for our consumer facing application Socios.com, a tokenized voting platform. Initially, we in 2018 we hosted a private placement and raised just over $60 million iwth some investors like Binance, OK Blockchain Capital (OKEX investment arm), Ceyuan Ventures & more.
Over the past two years we have created a portfolio of partners who work with us to provide their fans with voting rights, allowing fans to have their say in certain club decisions. Our mission is very simple, to help give fans more of a voice whilst helping the clubs monetize their fans better.
Mary | Satoshi Club: Good numbers 😉 btw, congrats with Binance listing anniversary.
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Our current partners are FC Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus, OG (top Dota 2 esports team), AS Roma, Galatasaray, Atlético de Madrid, Club Atlético Independiente, UFC, Apollon Limassol FC and Team Heretics (big Spanish esports club).
Mary | Satoshi Club: Ok, so, imagine, i have socios app, what can i do with Chiliz there?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: The Chiliz token is the gateway to Fan Tokens.You can either participate in a clubs FTO (Fan Token Offering), or you can trade using the in-app market place. Once you have a Fan Token, you can then vote in the club decisions 😎
Fan Token Offerings are when the tokens of a partner are sold for the first time. We have a new Fan Token Offering on September 22nd. $TRA – Trabzonspor
You can read about it here: https://medium.com/chiliz/trabzonspor-tra-fan-token-2-hour-flash-sale-begins-tuesday-22nd-september-15-00-cest-1-c58477a40bf4?source=collection_home—4——2———————-
(Tweet about the $TRA token from the club itself).
D. | Satoshi Club: So how significant my actions can be? as a token holder, can i fire a coach or buy some new players for the team? Lol
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Well, big clubs aren’t likely to give away that much control, since we work directly with the clubs in a commercial partnership.
It’s up to the clubs what they ask the fans, but at the end of the day, we hope to have some smaller clubs who are more ‘experimental’. Also, esports teams are much younger, fast moving and innovative compared to football clubs. So, esports teams can do some fun stuff on our platform with what they ask their fans also. There is still rather limited utility of Fan Tokens, we are an ever expanding team of now over 70 people. We are developing new features for the Socios app right now.
Mary | Satoshi Club: And i see that you are going to present a lot of new fan tokens on 22th of September) and Satoshi Club is hungry for the secrets))) can you give them? Or some hints?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Well actually there will just be the launch of one Fan Token on 22nd 🙂 BUT, we have plenty more teams lined up and are talking to over 50+ different teams. So you can use your imagination to expect what our ecosystem looks like in one year’s time.
Q1 from bitcointalk user JonahAp
Socios Powered by Chiliz Offers a lot of rewards and Exclusive Experiences such as VIP invite to a meet and greet with sport heroes, exclusive dugout access on match days, Receive signed official jerseys etc. Who sponsors all this is it Socios or The Clubs and are there real examples you can share with us of people who have benefitted from This exclusive offers?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: In the commercial deals with the clubs, we are offered a certain amount of VIP Experiences of different kinds. We basically help the clubs identify their most loyal fans, whether it be on Social Media, on the Socios app wherever. We have sent over 1000+ fans on VIP experiences at their favourite stadiums etc.
We have a skybox at some of our partners like Juventus for example (Unfortunately we couldn’t make the most of these due to COVID). So, we had to innovate a little, we did things like having Fan Token holders on stadium LEDs. Having cardboard cutout of Fan Token holders at stadiums etc.
Mary | Satoshi Club: So, can you tell us the number of funs you have, which interact with Chiliz through Socios?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Hmm, I think now we have over 200,000 users. Not sure 100% on the number but around then. We are also listed on some Dapp websites, one second. Here you can see some stats about the usage of Socios.com dapp.com/app/socios-com
Serg | Satoshi Club: I just checked the app. Why Barcelona didn’t have a poll since June? They lose the contact with the community. Or it’s up to them?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: There is one coming. It’s still very early days with most of our partnerships. We sign only MULTI year deals with clubs so that we are sure they believe and understand our vision.
Mary | Satoshi Club: Ok, so you mainly work on Ethereum?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: We sign only MULTI year deals with clubs so that we are sure they believe and understand our vision. Yeah, well CHZ is on the Ethereum Mainnet and Fan Tokens are on an Ethereum based PoA network called Chiliz Chain. explorer.chiliz.com
D. | Satoshi Club: Can you tell us a bit about this consensus?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Well, it’s pretty centralized right now, we won’t lie or sugar coat that 🙂 it has to be when dealing with clubs. However, each club is becoming a node in our network. You can see some of the clubs nodes here: https://explorer.chiliz.com/accounts
Mary | Satoshi Club: Another currencies? Will you add more?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: We work with a few different payment providers and accept more than just EUR / GBP. Also accept Turkish Lira, etc. Depends on your location and the payment provider really.
Q2 from bitcointalk user juanes
You have Binance as in investor. I am sure it helped you a lot to gain visibility and growth. But explain what is the role of Binance in Chiliz. does it have equity? Does it have a say in the decision making? For ex: Can CZ influence your policy
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Not equity 🙂 Binance helped us alot in the beginning to gain recognition. I can’t really talk much about our relationship but CZ is watching what we do carefully on Twitter. We are fullllllyyyyy independent. But, obviously we consult with our advisors and investors about certain products and ideas. But, they have no say in our execution, it’s more for feedback purposes.
Mary | Satoshi Club: Which good ideas did they brought? Can you tell us?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: I mean, we have ideas and we go to them for feedback. I can’t talk too much about our relationships with investors etc. I am not in the position to do so 😉
Q3 from Telegram user @nerddutch
Please explain how does your partnerships with Football teams happen. If I buy Barca tokens for example, who gets the money? a part goes to the team and a part to Chiliz? Also, if I buy it, do I have a real vote like in real Barca socios? can I elect the president of the team? or is it just for symbolic stuff?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: We have a very talented business development team with years of experience with working with clubs. After we signed the first teams, we started to get more and more interest from other teams, so that became a lot easier.
In terms of the tokens and where the $ goes, it depends on the club. For some clubs we paid a guarantee, so we would get all of the $ from Fan Tokens up to a certain amount before revenue share. I can’t go into the numbers to protect our commercial interests though. Also, it’s not the same as the real barca ‘socios’, we have basically just taken that idea and expanded on it to provide a solution for clubs to engage better with their fans and monetize their fanbase more efficiently. 🙂
Q4 from Telegram user @dominiksss
My club is not listed. What is the process of adding new football clubs to the platform? Based on petitions you have? When you contact the clubs, how do you convince them to accept the offer and use the blockchain technology for their fans?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: As mentioned actually in my previous answer, it’s all about our business development. Also, our marketing activities and sales numbers combined with biz dev which makes us attractive to clubs. Clubs are wanting to become more innovative and accept more innovative technologies these days, and they are looking at ways to monetize their fanbases better.
For example: https://medium.com/chiliz/fc-barcelona-bar-fan-token-sells-out-in-less-than-two-hours-generating-1-3m-c655b9d52ac5
Mary | Satoshi Club: By the way, how big is Chiliz team?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: These are our most recent Fan Token Offerings. All of them are selling out, as fans and crypto enthusiasts start to enjoy this new digital asset class.
We are now 70+ people. Mainly based in Malta, but some in France, Korea, Sweden, London, Argentina. There is also lots of talent in Malta as it attracts talent for the iGaming companies here.
Mary | Satoshi Club: To be honest – were there any negative reviews from fans?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Yes, in my opinion, you cannot make an application that everyone will love. Especially with our app, less than 1-year-old. We have MANY features to work on alongside new UI/UX etc. We are always looking to improve our product and feedback is great.
Serg | Satoshi Club: It seems pretty easy to me.
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Our development team is the largest team now and we are constantly growing it. More features – > More Fans. More fans – > more $CHZ burnt. We say ‘More fans, less $CHZ’.
D. | Satoshi Club: Oh so you have burning mechanism?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: https://chiliz.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360011528219-Chiliz-announces-Token-Economics-2-0
So for every Fan Token Offering we burn 10% of the collected $CHZ 🙂 and 20% of all trading fees on the Chiliz Exchange also. The total supply won’t change 🙂 But circulating will become deflationary eventually when all tokens are in circulation as we burn more.
Serg | Satoshi Club: What do I get from hunting in the app? I see smth but I have to cross a river to get it. 😁
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Haha, we do different promotions on Token Hunt, sometimes we offer free Fan Tokens, or lucky boxes. Mainly it’s for collecting our native token $SSU, which has no value and is not tradable. But it’s for voting in some polls that we host ourselves about our application or something we do in cooperation with a partner like UFC (we host some UFC competitions to win a UFC passport) using $SSU as a ‘prediction game’.
Mary | Satoshi Club: So, you have second token, not only CHZ?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Yes, but $SSU will never be tradable, it is earned only by hunting on the app. Which is a geolocation / augmented reality ‘game’ like Pokemon go. We do some airdrops to SSU hunters for example. To bring some ‘value’ to the token without it being traded.
Mary | Satoshi Club: Great, amazing idea, i see your fans will never be bored.
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Yeah, well hopefully that will be the case when the app is how we want with lots of features, games, social interactions etc with other fans. We are in the such early days of this completely. So, please join us on the journey, not asking you to follow us religiously, but to watch our project from time to time on TWitter or Telegram and see what we come up with. 🤟
www.twitter.com/chiliz www.twitter.com/socios And I am gonna shill myself too:
Q5 from Telegram Username @dorukhanelfs
Are there any plans of tokenizing players, besides clubs? For example, it’s possible that in the nearest future, fans of Neymar, Messi, C.Ronaldo will use Chilliz to show love for the particular players they support?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Hehe we have definitely discussed this internally, but the life of a player is much shorter than the life of a club (meaning career). So, the players will retire, for example. What happens then to the token? With a club, they have existed for 100s of years in many cases. So, they are not likely to disappear anytime soon.
Mary | Satoshi Club: May be our favorite topic? Does $CHZ wanna bring tokenization on Chiliz into DeFi?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Everyone loves DeFi right now 😀 (even me) I have been farming, Sushi mainly (in the beginning). I can’t talk TOO much about this, because it’s ‘top secret’. But I can show you this ‘DeFi’ thing we are working on for the sports finance world. I can’t comment further, this is your only hint.
Q6 from Telegram Username @Eraybukucu
Why are you located in and operating out of Malta? what is the main reason?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Well, obviously mentioned earlier but in case someone missed. Our CEO has lived in Malta for something like 15 years I think. There is lots of talent here because of the iGaming companies and online betting etc, so it makes it a good place to find capable employees. We have a very talented team and yes there is sea, sun and sand.
PART 2, TELEGRAM COMMUNITY LIVE QUESTIONS
The chat was open for 80 seconds; a lot of questions were posted by Satoshi Club community. Our guest chose some of them.
Q1 from Telegram User @victbt
How will the current and upcoming economic crisis impact Chiliz strategy and activities?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: I’d say the biggest achievement would be the onboarding of Barcelona and successful launch of their Fan Token Offering 🙂 But that’s me personally, different team members virtue different things. 🤟
Q2 from Telegram User @Aguacate30
I am a huge soccer fan and I love Blockchain and your project really catches my attention because it brings both things together in a single ecosystem. We know that Bayen Munich were the champions league winner this season, do you plan to partner with them as they are a very influential team?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: We are in talks with 50+ teams around the world, no comment. 😉
Q3 from Telegram User @aditya827
If I buy BAR token (barcelona), what benefits will I get? Can football team tokens be listed on markets like Binance and others?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Yes, we are in talks with some exchanges (can’t name) to have Fan Tokens listed against a CHZ pair 🙂 So think for example BAR/CHZ on some big exchanges before the end of the year. (can’t be more specific than that hehe).
Q4 from Telegram User @dungpro123
Why is Chiliz focusing only on football? What about other sports like basketball?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: We are not only focusing on Football. We partnered with Galatasaray’s basketball team also. We are looking at ALL sports. ALL entertainment. This is the beginning of something big https://www.socios.com/galatasaray-launch-basketball-esports-on-socios-com/
Q5 from Telegram User @Jonahapagu
Who determines the number of fan Tokens that will be in circulation is it the sport Club or Socios Team, how is the number arrived at is it based on the size of the clubs fan base
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Nice legit question 🙂 Thanks Jonah (you did homework). So, the supply is a mutual decision between us and the club. It’s usually based on the rough size of their global fanbase and current social media figures.
Q6 from Telegram User @CElllIFE
Do fan tokens give ownership of a part of a football club?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: No, Fan Tokens are a utility token. At the end of the day, the club still decides how much ‘control’ they give the fans, but it’s in their best interest to increase their revenue and connect better with their fans etc.
Q7 from Telegram User @Tony253210
I really Chiliz because have Partnerships with AMAZING Teams as Barcelona, Juventus and PSG, but have you considered the add to your files a F1 Racing team?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Hehe, like I said already, we are in talks with 50+ teams, across different sports etc etc. Can’t comment on specifics.
Q8 from Telegram User @tranminhtu123
Chiliz is the kind of project than I love, the combination of sports & entertainment with Blokchain, so my first question is very simple and direct: why should we invest in the $CHZ as a long-term investment?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Actually, Chiliz is NOT an investment. It’s a utility token, if you like blockchain, sports and fan tokens consider to buy Fan Tokens and use them on Socios.com, otherwise don’t.
Q9 from Telegram User @jpsarmah
How is Socios.com associated with Chiliz? Also, in the Ratings and Reviews of Socios.com in App Store, there is a review by Di Sheng Lee, 05/17/2020-” Selling air for money-This company is selling useless cryptocurrency through the app”. What is your counter argument against this?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Chiliz is the company and Socios is our product. My counter argument is pretty simple. No matter what we do, not everyone is going to enjoy it. The fact he mentions cryptocurrency makes me think he is not really a Fan as most fans use our app without any knowledge of cryptocurrency. We are building an ecosystem, if you cannot see our vision and ideas then it’s better to leave a bad rating.
Q10 from Telegram User @Tony253210
Chiliz opened an Exchanges to trade Fans Coin of Sports teams, but from where this coins gain market value? From the result of the team related? If Barcelona wins a match vs Atletico de Madrid the FCB coin Will have more value?
Joe Grech – $CHZ: Fan Token value changes based on pure speculation. For example, PSG during the Champions League increased alot as they won the quarter final, then semifinal. Unfortunately, didn’t manage to win the final but the Fan Token managed to keep a large portion of the value gained on that run. I can’t really talk too much about price though 🙂 the fans / enthusiasts who speculate are free to do so.
PART 3, QUIZ AND INFO
As usual, for the third part, Satoshi Club Team asked the chat 4 questions about Chiliz. A link to a Quiz form were sent into the chat. Participants had 10 minutes to answer. 300$ were distributed among winners.
1) What does FTO stand for?
B) Fan Token Offering
2) Which team did Socios x Chiliz partner with first?
C) Paris Saint-Germain
3) Who is Socios x Chiliz working with to provide NFTs?
D) Chainlink & Enjin
4) Which of the following is NOT an investor in Socios x Chiliz?
A) a16z
For more information and future AMAs, join our Social Media channels:
English Telegram group: https://t.me/Satoshi_club
Russian Telegram group: https://t.me/satoshi_club_ru
Spanish Telegram group: https://t.me/satoshi_club_spanish
Telegram Channel: https://t.me/satoshi_club_channel
Website: https://esatoshi.club/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/esatoshiclub
Our Partners:
Chiliz/Socios.com ($CHZ) – English Official: https://t.me/chiliz_io