Web3 powerhouse Animoca Brands has partnered with Chiliz Chain, a Layer 1 blockchain focused on sports and entertainment, in a bet on SportFi. Having acquired an undisclosed amount of CHZ tokens, Animoca will become a validator for the Chiliz Chain.

“We have already seen the rise of DeFi and GameFi, and we believe that SportFi represents the next major growth area that will redefine fan engagement and create new financial dynamics in the sports industry,” said Yat Siu, co-founder of Animoca Brands, a venture firm with stakes in over 400 Web3 projects.

Chiliz is most known for hosting ‘fan tokens’ linked to popular football clubs like Barcelona, Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain. According to Coingecko, these fan tokens have a combined market capitalization of nearly $300M and generated over $200M in trading volume in the past 24 hours.

Dozens of officially licensed fan tokens can be traded on Chiliz’s Socios platform and various centralized exchanges. According to the website, tokenholders can win prizes from the teams issuing the token and, in some cases, impact minor decisions through voting. Last year, fan tokens saw increased activity during the World Cup.

The blockchain’s native CHZ token is up nearly 50% in the past month.

In March, Chiliz announced a $50M incubator program in partnership with Jump Crypto for developers building SportFi projects on its network.

Sports betting has been a growing sector of crypto this year with the rise of platforms like Rollbit. Some industry observers, like Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik, think the trend will continue.

“I think betting and SportFi will play a role in the next cycle,” he said last week.

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