Sorare is a blockchain fantasy football game on Ethereum that uses non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to tokenize players as crypto collectibles in the form of digital trading cards. Following a recent valuation of $4.3 billion, the global fantasy football platform is seeing enormous popularity. This coincides with a surge in blockchain-based sports games and fan engagement platforms. The Sorare NFT platform offers sports fans a new way of speculating on the performance of their favorite footballers. Moreover, using the novel SOR token, fans can buy and trade their favorite players on the Sorare NFT platform.
In this article, we’re going to dive deep into the Sorare blockchain fantasy football game. We’ll explore the world of crypto collectibles, Soare NFT digital trading cards, and the game’s different gameplay options. Plus, we’ll discuss some of the core features that make the Sorare crypto game stand out from other fantasy football games.
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What is Sorare?
Sorare is a blockchain fantasy football game operating on the Ethereum blockchain. The game uses digital trading cards in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to represent players drafted into fantasy football leagues and tokenized on the Ethereum blockchain. Players of the game can speculate on the performance of football players and compete against others to win prizes such as rare NFT collectibles or other crypto rewards.
Fantasy sports is a thriving global business. Crypto collectibles and fan engagement projects have seen a huge spike in adoption in recent months. This includes Dotmoovs, Ecomi, and Chilliz. Plus, estimates suggest that the industry could grow to $48.6 billion by 2027. The Sorare NFT game is backed by investments from international superstars like Antoine Griezmann and André Schürrle, with Barcelona and Spain legend Gerard Piqué as Strategic Advisor.
Furthermore, the project has raised substantial funding. This includes an initial $4 million in seed funding and a further $50 million series A and $680 million series B rounds. Plus, the global fantasy football game boasts over 200 licensed clubs from 37 leagues around the world.
Users must be at least 18 years old, and only one account per person can be created. Also, users must hold a minimum of five Sorae crypto collectibles. This includes a keeper, defender, midfielder, and a striker to participate.
Non-Fungible Tokens
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are among the most popular trends to arise from the introduction of blockchain technology, with a near-infinite number of use cases. NFTs represent unique individual pieces of information on the blockchain, bringing the opportunity to tokenize just about anything on the on-chain!
Fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies are interchangeable, divisible into smaller units, with each currency unit representing equal value. For example, one US dollar bill in my pocket is equivalent to another US dollar bill in yours. However, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are either unique or have a set number available. Moreover, NFTs cannot be sold in smaller units. Each NFT is a whole asset and can be a part of a crypto collectibles batch or set.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) create the opportunity to tokenize anything on the blockchain, from physical assets to real-life experiences. As such, NFTs have been making headlines in mainstream media outlets, including Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and Rolling Stone magazine. NFTs are becoming increasingly prevalent in the music, art, and fashion industries. Moreover, some projects are looking at tokenizing energy units on the blockchain. Using NFTs, blockchain can facilitate a decentralized peer-to-peer energy market for prosumers and consumers to exchange energy units directly.
Furthermore, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are also becoming increasingly popular in the sporting and esports industry. Holders can trade NFTs on decentralized marketplaces such as OpenSea, Nifty Gateway, and Rarible. To learn more about NFTs on a fundamental level, be sure to save our “Explaining NFTs, ERC-721 & ERC-1155” article for later!
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Blockchain Technology and Sports
Cutting-edge blockchain technology may not be the first association one makes with the sports industry. However, blockchain is already in use with several global sporting corporations and leading athletes. Further, it's not just crypto investment they’re involved with. More and more sports players are choosing to receive their salary in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Moreover, athletes’ personal, professional, and biometric data can be cryptographically secure, with immutable records available with shared permissioned access.
Also, the use of blockchain in the sports industry can benefit the fans and supporters too. Using non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the challenge of fraudulent game tickets and team merchandise will soon become a thing of the past. NFTs are public and transparent, allowing anyone to view an NFT’s current and previous owners, the value of the NFT during times of purchase, and any characteristics or attributes specific to the asset.
As blockchain creates a public distributed ledger, it is an ideal technology to introduce to fantasy football and esports. The Sorare NFT platform caters to a global market of football fanatics, bridging the tech-savvy crypto OGs with the everyday sports fan. With an intuitive user-end design, the Sorare platform uses blockchain under the hood for ultimate security, transparency, and reliability of transactions on the platform.
How Does Sorare Blockchain Fantasy Football Work?
Traditional fantasy sports games generally allow players to draft in their favorite players, select a lineup each week, and earn points based on the actions of their chosen team. Also, many fantasy football games enable closed groups to play against each other. However, Sorare uses non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to represent football players by tokenizing them on the blockchain in the form of digital trading cards. These crypto collectibles provide digitally-verifiable ownership and can be traded at any time.
Furthermore, the Sorare NFT game offers various gameplay modes and competition types. Also, the game enables players from around the world to compete against each other for rare Sorare NFT trading cards and crypto prizes. Plus, the Soare Tournament rules enable managers to plan according to real-world football calendars. As one Game Week ends, another opens, without any gaps or time between play.
The platform recently migrated to a layer-2 solution using StarkWare, a type of rollup technology. The full migration took two months to complete. Following the migration, platform users benefit from zero in-game gas fees. However, gas fees will still apply to Sorare NFT platform withdrawals.
SOR Token
The Sorare SOR token is not a typical cryptocurrency. However, it is critical to the utility and interaction with the platform. Fungible cryptocurrencies operating on the Ethereum blockchain use the ERC-20 token standard. This allows assets to be interchangeable and seamlessly integrated with Ethereum compatible decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, including wallets, exchanges, and marketplaces. However, as Sorare offers unique or limited edition digital assets, these use the Ethereum ERC-721 standard. This is the universal blockchain DeFi standard for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Ethereum.
This means that users can freely trade SOR token NFTs across the Sorare NFT platform and compatible Ethereum applications. Each SOR token represents a unique team or player, creating a unique asset that can be tracked on public block explorers such as EtherScan. At the time of writing, there are 329,383 SOR tokens in circulation. Tokens are compatible with the leading Web3 wallet, MetaMask. Further, holders can stake each SOR token on the platform to earn a passive income with crypto and display their crypto collectibles.
The SOR token allows sports fans and crypto collectibles enthusiasts to safely collect, trade, and showcase their favorite digital football memorabilia. Each SOR token is available to purchase through the Sorare NFT platform and Opensea.
Collect & Trade Sorare NFTs
With over 200 clubs supporting Sorare non-fungible tokens (NFTs), users have a wide choice of crypto collectibles to choose from. With clubs including FC Barcelona, Liverpool FC, and AC Milan, Sorare users can view the clubs available and the leagues the platform covers, both current and historical.
Each season the platform generates 1,111 Sorare NFTs, split into four categories. These are ‘Limited’ (1000 per season), ‘Rare’ (100 per season), ‘Super Rare’ (10 per season), and ‘Unique’ (1 per season). Additionally, the Sorare crypto game introduces new limited edition NFTs throughout the year, alongside season cards. These include the National Team cards and Champion Edition cards.
Management, Strategies & Scouting
The Sorare NFT platform marketplace enables players to trade cards with each other directly. Also, players can create strategies and select lineups according to the performances of their players.
Dynamic Rewards System
Each week, participants can earn prizes by showing off their skills. The dynamic reward system takes into account the number of games a club plays within a given Game Week. The prize pool for each Game Week is determined in part by the number of affiliated clubs with fixtures within a given timeframe. This system means that busier, more competitive Game Weeks provide more rewards than quieter weeks.
Also, players of the game can put their skills to the test by competing against other managers. The “game within the game” works much like the story mode of other popular football games. This gameplay method enables managers to work their way up the divisions starting out as a small club.
The volume of rewards correlates directly with the number of teams active on the platform. As new teams sign up to compete, the amount of rewards available goes up automatically, enabling the game to scale sustainably.
Global Blockchain Fantasy Football: Trading or Gambling?
Following a notice from the UK Gambling Commission, the Sorare crypto game has come under scrutiny as the game is not regulated by the Gambling Commission. As somewhat of a regulatory grey area, the project raises questions around definitions of gambling. Specifically, whether speculating on the performance of sports teams and players in this way should be deemed gambling. Enquiries are currently underway to establish whether or not the platform will need a license to operate.
As with any trading and investment, there is a risk of financial loss when buying non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of any kind. Although NFTs have reached several headlines in recent months, the widespread adoption of NFTs poses a potential risk to a broad demographic of new users.
There are several schools of thought around this subject. One could argue that using 10x leverage on a trending altcoin is gambling. Equally, one could argue that dollar-cost averaging (DCA) into a balanced portfolio of varied assets is still a gamble of sorts. The Sorare NFT game enables speculators to purchase tokenized trading cards that are valued on the performance of a football player. This may expose a new uneducated audience to the risk of financial loss. However, the fact that this subject is being discussed suggests that perhaps greater regulatory clarity is needed and is indeed being sought after such immense popularity in esports and blockchain-based gaming.
Despite regulatory uncertainty, the platform is seeing great popularity among football fans and fantasy league players. With all things considered, remember it is always important to do your own research (DYOR) before making any investment.
Exploring Sorare NFT Platform Summary
Football is the most widely-watched sport globally. By forming partnerships with some of the biggest names in football, Sorare is positioned to be at the forefront of blockchain fantasy football. Furthermore, the platform is introducing blockchain and cryptocurrency to a broad and diverse demographic. The Sorare NFT game provides a global fantasy football experience like no other. Moreover, players can have “skin in the game” in a way that is fair and transparent.
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