Chiliz (CHZ)

Chiliz (CHZ) is the native cryptocurrency of Chiliz Chain, a blockchain built for sports and entertainment, and the token behind the fan-engagement app Socios.com. CHZ pays the network's fees, is staked to secure it, and is used to buy fan tokens: digital tokens issued with football clubs and other teams that let supporters vote in club polls and win rewards.

CHZ started as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum and a token on Binance's chain, and moved to its own network when Chiliz Chain launched in 2023. It is separate from the fan tokens themselves, such as the Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain tokens, which are distinct assets created on the chain. Chiliz, the Malta-based company founded in 2018 by Alexandre Dreyfus, runs Socios.com and works with the teams that issue them.

Think of a supporters' club membership card that is also a ticket to small decisions. Holding a club's fan token lets you vote on things like the song played when the team scores or the design of a training shirt, and can earn you prizes such as signed shirts or meetings with players. The more tokens you hold, the more say you usually get in those polls.

CHZ is the currency you use to get those cards. On Socios.com, fans swap CHZ for the fan tokens of the clubs they follow. Behind the scenes, CHZ also pays for every transaction on the Chiliz network, a bit like the fare on a dedicated train line that carries only sports traffic. People who lock up CHZ to help run that line earn new tokens in return.

Chiliz was founded in 2018 and announced its first club deals that year. The Paris Saint-Germain partnership was unveiled in September 2019, and in December 2019 Juventus became the first club to sell a fan token through Socios.com. Dozens of football clubs, national teams and other sports properties followed, and fan token trading surged in 2021.

The company's own blockchain, Chiliz Chain, produced its genesis block on 8 February 2023, replacing the earlier networks for new activity. In 2024 the Dragon8 hard fork introduced a new set of token rules, known as Tokenomics 2.0, with ongoing issuance and fee burning. Socios.com fan tokens were not offered to US customers, and in 2025 it met the Securities and Exchange Commission to discuss returning; it later said it planned to re-enter the US market in 2026, around the football World Cup held in North America.

Chiliz Chain is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine and was built as a fork of the BNB Smart Chain, the network behind BNB. It uses proof of staked authority, a mix of delegated proof of stake and approved operators: a small, selected group of validators produces blocks, and CHZ holders can stake with them to share in the rewards. Fees are priced in CHZ, and under the EIP-1559 model most of each gas fee is burned.

Fan tokens are fungible tokens with a fixed supply chosen at launch. They give voting rights only in polls the club chooses to offer, not ownership of the club or a share of its profits. Teams receive revenue from the initial sale and from trading on the platform.

CHZ began with a supply of about 8.89 billion tokens. Since Tokenomics 2.0, new CHZ is issued every year at a rate that starts high and falls towards a floor. The project gives the schedule as:

• $y$ is the annual inflation rate, in percent.
• $x$ is the year of the schedule, counting the first year as 1.
• $e$ is the mathematical constant, about 2.718.

In year 1 the rate is $9.24 \times e^{-0.25} + 1.60 \approx 8.80\%$; in year 4 it is $9.24 \times e^{-1} + 1.60 \approx 5.0\%$; and by year 14 it settles at about 1.88 percent. Of new tokens, 65 percent go to validators and stakers, 10 percent to community and liquidity programmes, and 25 percent to ecosystem and operational spending. If fee burning ever exceeds issuance, the supply would shrink; see inflation for the general idea.

Fan tokens have drawn regulatory attention because they are sold to sports fans, many of whom are new to crypto. In 2021 the UK Advertising Standards Authority ruled that two adverts for Arsenal's fan token were irresponsible and misleading because they trivialised the risks of crypto investment, a decision it upheld on appeal in 2022. Critics argue that most fan tokens have lost much of their launch value, that voting rights are limited to minor decisions, and that demand rises and falls with big tournaments. In the European Union, crypto-asset services are covered by MiCA, and businesses handling CHZ elsewhere face the usual licensing and anti-money-laundering rules.

• Chiliz
• Chiliz Chain documentation
• Socios.com