The date is set. On July 11th, football fans around the world can forget everything that’s going on with the outside world for at least 90 minutes and finally witness who will be the winner of one of the most watched sports in the world. England and Italy will compete for the honor of winning the coveted trophy of the 2020 UEFA European Football Championship or Euro 2020, which only takes place every two years.
Here’s a little thought experiment for all of the casual soccer fans out there: Think of every active soccer player that you can think of. If the athletes in question are all relatively established and play for the top leagues in the world, then the likelihood is high that they will represent their country at this year’s European Championship 2020.
To really put the magnitude of this event in perspective, a recent study showed that a staggering 23.8 million viewers watched England’s historic Euro 2020 win against Denmark, with the last five minutes of the nerve-wracking semi-finals attracting a top-class audience of over 25 In fact, the event’s audience numbers were only recently dwarfed by the UK Prime Minister’s coronavirus announcement in May, which was watched by nearly 27 million people on six different local news channels.
This finale promises to be a blast
A month of tense and exciting football has passed and now it is time for the two remaining top dogs Italy and England to battle it out at the historic Wembley Stadium.
In the past, many of the European heavyweights have prevailed at this tournament. It is worth noting, however, that this time the Italian team The Azzurri have not yet lost a game in 33 international games and are only one step away from entering the records in football history.
Their opponent England, also known as the Three Lions, also showed strong gameplay at this year’s Euro 2020. They only allowed one goal throughout their campaign, which is quite an impressive feat given the competition they have faced. Countries like Germany, the Czech Republic and the Ukraine – to get to the finals. All in all, the ranks of both teams look stacked and on paper this encounter should and probably will be a thriller.
As can be expected, there is a lot of betting in this game, with the odds makers giving England a slight advantage, which is probably a surprise given Italy’s undefeated streak. However, the importance of home advantage in football should not be underestimated, no matter how many Italians have seen the finals in person.
Finally, with the advent of blockchain casinos and the increasing adoption of crypto around the world, a growing number of digital currency investors appear to have started using their crypto assets for gambling purposes. Hence, it stands to reason that many of these people are betting on this game as well, either through crypto gambling platforms or even through prediction markets.
How to Get Engaged: The Crypto Way
In the past few years, a growing list of mainstream soccer clubs have launched their very own digital currencies / fan tokens. And while the jury is still divided over the actual usefulness of these offers, the fact remains that the football world has been very keen on the technological and monetary offerings of crypto.
When it comes to betting, there are dozens of established gambling websites that accept a wide range of cryptocurrencies – including Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Tether (USDT), Ethereum (ETH) .). ) and more. There are many options and it is just a matter of which platform a person ends up going for.
It also goes without saying that several betting sites are currently offering their users numerous side bets – another facet of online gambling that crypto enthusiasts can indulge in. For example, the odds of Italy emerging from the tournament as the top scorer are currently 10/11. For England, on the other hand, the number is significantly lower at 10/1.
Unfortunately, from a streaming perspective, there are currently no number of mainstream streaming services that accept payments in cryptocurrency. That being said, betting portals have really improved their game over the past few years, with most platforms now offering top notch live streams that players can access whenever they want as they have enough tokens (which is usually not a lot). in their wallets.
Crypto is quickly gaining prominence in the football universe
One way or another, crypto appears to have made its way onto the football field, as was recently revealed when a fan literally walked onto the field with a T-shirt labeled “WTF Coin” during Belgium’s clash with Finland. In fact, the event managed to gain so much popularity that within hours of the invasion almost all of the major sports news had covered the story, leading people to discover that WTF – Walnut Finance – is actually a high yield farming project.
In addition, the Euro 2020 governing body, i.e. the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), recently signed a five-year global partnership agreement on blockchain technology with AntChain, a subsidiary of the Ant Group owned by Alipay, one of the world’s largest digital companies , completed payment platforms.
Under the agreement, UEFA and AntChain will work closely together to leverage blockchain technology to not only promote the game, but also digitize the global football landscape. In this regard, it stands to reason that the two parties may choose to explore the NFT sector given the unique commercialization / ownership opportunities of this exploding asset class.
In the near future, however, the winner of this year’s Euro 2020 Golden Shoe (ie the player who scores the most goals) will be awarded the “Alipay Trophy”. In addition, the recordings of the top scorer are invariably stored in a blockchain system.
When it comes to NFTs, it’s worth noting that the decentralized fantasy sports platform Rage Fan dropped limited-edition NFT mints last week to commemorate the Euro 2020 tournament. The final competition is slated to start on July 11th when England and Italy clash at Wembley.
Past and current players have been quick to adopt crypto
It’s no secret that athletes across the board continue to adopt crypto at a rapid pace. In terms of football alone, no one has done more to promote digital currencies than Andrés Iniesta, Carles Puyol and Gerard Piqué, three players who have all represented Spain and Barcelona in their careers.
In fact, the triumvirate came in pretty handy in its crypto outlook, with Iniesta and Puyol co-founding Olyseum, a blockchain-based social platform designed to reward engagement and bring fans and stars closer together. Meanwhile, Piqué has opened up about his investments in the crypto-enabled fantasy soccer game Sorare. Even the French superstar Antoine Griezmann is said to have invested in the platform.
The once highly regarded Dutch wing / flashy Ryan Babel is also a proponent of Bitcoin, highlighted by the fact that over the past year or so he has repeatedly shared his optimism about the crypto market via a series of tweets encouraging Folks, especially his teammates, to buy BTC.
How much do the player’s potential transfers cost in BTC?
This is definitely a question that needs to be answered.
Here are the transfer values for the (probable) starting eleven of both teams that will take part in the finals, to see how much Bitcoin you can buy with the money.
According to the data available, the valuation for England’s starting XI is € 570 million ($ 718.5 million) with squad captain and star striker Harry Kane giving them a valuation of € 120 million. On the Italian side, the total is 411 million euros (488.7 million US dollars), with the 22-year-old goalkeeper of outgoing AC Milan Gianluigi Donnarumma accounting for 60 million euros.
This brings the overall valuation of the two teams to a staggering € 981 million (nearly $ 1.2 billion). At the time of going to press, this is around 35,800 BTC, which can be purchased with the sum mentioned.
