Spain’s fan token plunges after World Cup defeat to Morocco
SNFT loses $20m in market value in less than three months
The fan token of the Spanish national football team plunged 50% in hours, after the country’s shock defeat by Morocco in the World Cup in Qatar.
Spain dominated possession but only had one shot on target during the match, which extended into extra time. After failing to score a single penalty in the subsequent shootout, the odds-on favourite was eliminated by the North African side. Morocco has never progressed into the the quarter-final stages in its World Cup history.
The SNFT collapsed from $0.09281 to $0.03856 in two hours, according to CoinGecko, wiping more than $1m off its market capitalisation.
After the defeat, the Spanish manager, Luis Enrique, told fans: “It could not be, we tried but it has not been enough. We’re sorry we didn’t give you joy… that’s football and life… onwards.”
The SNFT was launched just over a year ago,and its market capitalisation rose to an all-time high of $20.8m in the run-up to the tournament in Qatar. This figure stood at just $1m on Wednesday.
Although the size ofandspeed of SNFT’s decline can be partly attributed to Spain’s surprise exit, it is also consistent with the direction of travel of the vast majority of football fan tokens in recent weeks.
National fan tokens slide as pre-World Cup enthusiasm wanes
The fan tokens of Portugal and Argentina have fallen by 26% and 25% in the past week, respectively, despite both teams having qualified for the next round of the competition, .
In the past three weeks the market capitalisations of Portugal and Argentina’s tokens have fallen by $16m and $25m respectively.
Proponents of sport team tokens have argued that they enhance the fan experience, offering supporters exclusive rewards and opportunities and giving them the chance to vote on the nature of upcoming fan events.
Critics have questioned whether tokens actually grant holders meaningful rights and votes and argued that they unnecessarily commodify the fan experience.
As only one team is destined to lift the World Cup trophy, the vast majority of fans will be left dejected, with fan token valuations potentially set to decline even further.
