Chiliz

The Chiliz Chain went live in May 2023 and replaced the Chiliz Legacy Chain, a permissioned sidechain that Chiliz had used to issue and transfer fan tokens. The new chain is a fork of BNB Smart Chain and runs the Ethereum Virtual Machine, so developers can use the contract code and tools they know from Ethereum. Fan tokens follow the CAP-20 standard, which is technically equivalent to ERC-20, and their move to the new chain was completed in September 2023.

Blocks come from a Proof of Staked Authority consensus, in which a small set of main validators takes turns producing blocks while candidate validators stand by. The chain started with an initial set of 11 validators, among them OKX, Animoca Brands, SBI Holdings and the football club Paris Saint-Germain. Running a validator requires a stake of at least 10,000,000 CHZ, and holders of smaller amounts delegate their tokens to a validator of their choice.

Socios.com launched in 2019 and is the app in which supporters buy and use the fan tokens of their clubs. Chiliz counts more than 70 sports teams on the platform, including Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City, FC Barcelona, Juventus and Arsenal. A buyer first holds CHZ in the Socios.com wallet and then swaps it for a fan token through a third-party application that trades fan tokens. Fan tokens also exist on Solana, and an omnichain bridge connects them with Base as well.

The white paper of the Paris Saint-Germain token shows how a fan token is built. Socios Services Limited issued $PSG in January 2020 together with the club, with a total supply of 19,890,000 tokens, of which 4,000,000 went into the public offering. Holders vote in polls on non-managerial club decisions, with voting power in proportion to their holdings, and they earn reward points for tickets, signed merchandise and matchday experiences. The token gives no claim to a financial return or dividend and no vote on the management or strategy of the club.

The Malta Financial Services Authority authorized Socios Europe Services Limited, the operator of Socios.com, as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCA, and the ESMA register dates the authorization to 10 September 2025. The license covers custody, exchange of crypto-assets for funds or other crypto-assets, placing and transfer services, with passports for 28 further states of the European Economic Area, Germany and Austria among them. Socios.com states that it does not provide the exchange services at present. According to Chiliz, club polls, loyalty programs and access to third-party applications fall outside the MiCA framework.

The Chiliz Group Limited notified a MiCA white paper for CHZ to the MFSA with a notification date of 1 August 2025, and version 1.1 has applied since 10 October 2025. As MiCA requires, the CHZ white paper states that no competent authority approved it and that the person seeking admission to trading is solely responsible for its content. In October 2026 the ESMA register listed white papers for 57 fan tokens, notified through the MFSA by Socios Services Limited, Socios Technologies AG and Fan Token Management AG. The $PSG white paper classifies the token as a crypto-asset other than an asset-referenced token or e-money token, and it does not count as a utility token under MiCA because its rewards do not come from the issuer alone.

The Chiliz Group Limited, called HX Entertainment Limited until 7 October 2025, is incorporated in Malta and issued CHZ in 2018 as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum. The group has offices in Gzira, Madrid, London and Lyon, and Alex Dreyfus is its founder and chief executive. In September 2025 the group announced that it had taken a 51 percent controlling stake in the esports organization OG.

Socios Europe Services Limited in Malta provides the regulated services of Socios.com, while Fan Token Management AG, registered in Switzerland, is the issuer of the fan tokens. Socios Technologies AG, a Swiss affiliate, took over the unsold reserve of older tokens such as $PSG in January 2021 and has managed their later sales and distribution since then.

In its 2030 SportFi manifesto, Chiliz describes the Chiliz Chain as a future settlement layer for sports finance, with fan tokens usable as collateral for lending and other DeFi functions. The plan names tokenized real-world assets from sports as its third pillar, starting with yield-bearing digital assets backed by revenue streams of professional sports. Chiliz describes structured minority stakes in clubs as the long-term step, and it lists institutional access to tokenized equity among the products still to come.

Chiliz crypto usually means CHZ, the native token of the Chiliz Chain, or the Chiliz project as a whole. CHZ pays the network fees on the chain, secures it through staking and gives validators votes on governance proposals for the network.

Fan tokens are digital assets on the Chiliz Chain that Socios.com issues in partnership with a sports club for its supporters. A holder votes in club polls and collects rewards, but the token carries no ownership in the club and no claim to its profits.

CHZ pays for gas when users deploy or call smart contracts on the Chiliz Chain, and buyers on Socios.com swap it for fan tokens. Holders stake CHZ as validators or delegate it to one, and validators submit and vote on governance proposals with voting power based on their stake.

Delegators who stake CHZ with a validator receive a share of the rewards that validator earns for producing blocks, minus its commission. The rewards come from transaction tips and from newly created CHZ, because the Dragon8 upgrade of 6 May 2024 introduced an annual base inflation of 8.80 percent in the first year, falling to a floor of 1.88 percent, and burns most gas fees. The Pepper8 governance proposal later changed this inflation schedule, and version 1.1 of the CHZ white paper reflects that change.

The current CHZ white paper is version 1.1, which The Chiliz Group Limited notified to the MFSA on 10 October 2025. Socios.com publishes a separate MiCA white paper for each fan token, which names the offeror, the token supply and the rights of the holders.