I love sports. Coming from a mathematical background, it wasn’t long before I moved into the world of sports betting, carrying out arbitrage trades to take advantage of mispricings in the market – the niche little sector where sports and maths meet.
Today, we have web3. Working in finance and crypto, I’ve been flung into this sector. I’ve thought for a while that there could be a nice fit here to blend elements of fantasy sports, sports betting and investing within a web3 framework – an area which does not often feature in crypto news.
One company agrees with me. AllStars Digital (ASD) is a digital sports exchange which allows you to buy, short and trade tokenised sports stars. Ahead of the launch of their token this week, I hosted CPO Akash Gharu on the Invezz podcast.
Notably, ASD allows one to invest in players long-term. This is what makes the concept somewhat unique, as opposed to conventional betting. The latter has a binary outcome – either a win or a loss. Where ASD differs is that the payoff is more like the stock market – the asset will fluctuate in value based on how the player performs in real life.
Say, for example, I purchase a Harry Kane token. If he scores a hat trick this weekend in the Premier League, his value will rise. If he gets sent off and hit with a long-term suspension (hypothetical, but as a Harry Kane hater, I can dream), his value will fall.
This payoff profile allows users to speculate on the long-term future of players. Do you think Kane will be worth more this time next year? If so, purchasing a Kane token would allow to act on those beliefs.
I have been pretty honest with my analysis in the past when I have said that a lot of crypto projects specifically in the web3 space) offer minimal utility and don’t appear to solve anything. ASD does seem to have a gap in the market, however. The demographic here is easy to imagine – sports betters, fantasy football enthusiasts, data-driven analysts with a passion for sport etc.
Of course, launching a token into this market is no easy feat. Not only are the crypto markets hurting, but the economy at large is reeling (especially in the UK, where it feels like the sky is falling down, as I wrote about last week). I asked Akash whether it was intimidating to launch a token into this environment, yet he was confident – describing it as “liberating”.
It will definitely be an enjoyable one to track. As a big sports fan who loves fantasy sports, sports betting, and analytics, I definitely feel like I could have fun with this as we kick into World Cup season (still can’t believe we have a World Cup in December, but that is a topic for another day).
I do believe the sports betting/fantasy sphere is ripe to be disrupted by blockchain technology. It’s hard to know how it will all fall out, but it’s cool seeing companies like ASD give it a bash.
As always, feel free to reach out with comments.