What is Chiliz (CHZ)?

Published in

The Poloniex blog

4 min readOct 15, 2022

TL;DR

Chiliz is a project developing the technological capabilities for sports and entertainment entities to take advantage of Web3 and blockchain technology.

What is Chiliz?

Chiliz is a project that provides Web3 technology for sports and entertainment entities. The project has seen immense success with its recent aid in the development of several fan tokens for major sports teams. So far, the project has been able to partner with the likes of the UFC, the NFL and football club/ esports teams around the world. Another one of its big claims to fame is its development of the Socios.com, the sports fan engagement platform.

Chiliz was founded in Malta in 2018, with the vision of providing sports and esports fans a way to truly own a part of the teams they support. This of course through tokenized shares. The creed of Chiliz is a bit like that of GameFi projects in that the team seeks to provide a new dimensionality to something that people already love. With Chiliz, exclusive perks, access to respective teams and being able to vote on various team decisions takes the place of in-game skins and power ups.

How does Chiliz work?

To understand how Chiliz works, let’s look at its different products and its token, CHZ.

CHZ, the project’s native token, is an ERC-20 token that users of Socios.com can exchange for their favorite fan tokens. In the future, it will be staked to secure the Chiliz network.

With Chiliz’s technology, teams can control the parameters of their respective fan tokens. This includes supply, look, price, and so on and so forth. As fan tokens often function as governance tokens, they come with utility beyond just stores-of-value. These perks are also defined by the team, and often include exclusive experiences, access to team related NFTs, or use with a team or a sports entity’s loyalty program. What is interesting is that some teams may also institute a burn mechanism, which may be triggered in relation to a team’s performance. For instance, after a win, tokens might be burnt to instigate a price increase.

Chiliz Chain

Chiliz Chain is part of the project’s technology offering, allowing teams to tokenize and build out their blockchain-based fan experiences. It is the layer on which Socios.com is built and where third-party developers will build out their applications to enhance the value proposition of fan tokens, come Chiliz Chain 2.0. Fan tokens are minted on Chiliz Chain.

Chiliz Chain 2.0, which is forthcoming and currently in test net phase will improve upon the current chain, making use of a proof of staked authority consensus mechanism and EVM compatibility among other features. Currently, the chain is deployed on the project’s Scoville testnet.

*Proof of staked authority (PoSA) uses pre-authorized validators that have proven their reputation by staking tokens.

And, of course, when the blockchain moves to a proof of staked authority blockchain, it will use CHZ as its staking token, adding more utility to $CHZ.

Chiliz exchange

On the Chiliz platform, its exchange is where users can trade fan tokens against CHZ. It serves as an easily accessible entry to send tokens. Of course, users can buy CHZ on this exchange as well.

Socios.com

The flagship product of Chiliz, Socios.com is a fan engagement platform built on the Chiliz blockchain where users can exchange CHZ for fan tokens.

Beyond allowing users to buy fan tokens, for which the platform has gained immense popularity, socios also increases fan engagement by offering rewards for activity and engagement. Users can even win prizes like team meet-and-greets and signed merchandise.

What can you do with $CHZ?

CHZ, the native token of Chiliz, is used to power the Socios fan experience platform. Later on, as mentioned before, CHZ will also be used to stake and secure the Chiliz blockchain.It is also the vehicle through which users can access fan tokens.