
As you know, the Esports industry has been greatly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. With the decrease of the effects of the pandemic, it reached its old-growth rate again. In particular, a study conducted in 2018 determined the value of the Esports industry as $915.30 million. And according to predictions, they expect this value to reach 2,976.74 billion by 2026, an increase of 18.35%. We know this sounds crazy, but we think you will understand this better as you read our article.
Another sector that has grown in parallel with the rise of the Esports industry is undoubtedly Cryptos and Blockchain technology. As time passes, these two sectors continue to intertwine and are greatly influenced by each other. Because many Esport organizations and investors want to offer Cryptocurrencies as a reward while at the same time sponsoring companies that produce Blockchain technology. This naturally causes Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to rise to incredible prices.
In our article today, you will talk about the reflections, effects, and results of Blockchain in Esport. Now let’s not waste much time and take a look at the details of our topic.
Crypto and Esports Collaboration
In June of 2021, major Cryptocurrency exchange FTX announced that it had signed a $210 million name agreement with TSM, one of the world’s most popular Esports teams. Moreover, this name agreement is only for 10 years. As you can see, the amount of money is quite large. The most important reason for paying such large sums of money is that the tournaments organized in the Esport industry have millions of viewers.
For example, tournaments like Dota 2 International, CSGO PGL, Valorant Champions, or League of Legends World Champions are part of a multi-million dollar ecosystem. These include Esports viewing numbers, prize pools in tournaments, and of course, Esports betting. Also, if we touch on Esport betting a little bit. This sector alone is a giant economy of hundreds of millions of dollars.
In particular, Thunderpick, one of the best Esports betting sites using crypto, will be a good example of the growth of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain technologies and usage in the sector.
Esports and Crypto Industry Agreements
Looking at other details, FTX has signed an additional seven-year sponsorship agreement with the LEC. Following these, Astralis and NaVi Esport teams have also entered into a partnership with another Cryptocurrency exchange, Bybit. We can call 2021 a wonderful period in which such news comes one after another.
Because one of the same agreements was signed by Coinbase, which is considered one of the largest Cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. They announced their partnership by making an agreement with the BIG team, whose name we often hear in CSGO tournaments.
Finally, in these months that we have just entered 2022, the sector continues to interact with each other without slowing down.
Cloud9, whose name you often hear in Esport tournaments, has made a huge agreement with Blockchain.com. It is one of the first founders of the Crypto industry. As a result of this, they decided to increase financial literacy in the Esports sector. And they want to create dialogues about Crypto.
If you ask us, all these developments are the tip of the iceberg for the sector. Because Esports and blockchain technology are on the verge of much more innovative revolutions. These are NFT and Metaverse. Now let’s talk a little bit about Crypto Gaming along with NFTs.
Could NFTs Be the Future of Esports?
For NFT and the Metaverse World, 2021 has been extremely enjoyable. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are provably unique digital assets stored and verified on a Blockchain. 2021 was a great year for NFTs. One of the biggest examples of this was the NFT auction of three digital artworks by OG Esports. They had sales worth $1 million, according to Dexerto’s report.
10 art pieces. 3336 NFTs. 10 seconds.
Everything sold out.#DreamOG | @binance @TheBinanceNFT @AmbreCollective pic.twitter.com/44T8izjXSv
— OG (@OGesports) July 6, 2021
As you can see from here, NFTs appear as one of the new ways of making money. Especially for the young community, namely Esports viewers.
New Monetization Methods with NFTs
Aware of this interest, ARterra’s co-founder Jon Werthen JR thinks that the developments are just the beginning. ARterra is an NFT platform that makes technology developments in the Esports industry. As a service, it allows teams, leagues, and Esports creators to print their own NFT stuff. And we can say that it really attracts attention.
The fact is that even though Esports has a lot of interaction, the methods they use to make money are outdated. Werthen, who thinks that content producers in the Esports industry deserve more than the banners they add at the bottom of their posts, continued his words as follows.
Starting to talk with the brands that signed sponsorship agreements, ARterra held talks on whether or not to produce co-branded NFT collection products. The sponsorship deals that were only active during the broadcast and then disappeared were annoying. And it is extremely exciting that fans have NFT collections that they can carry in their digital wallets for life.
This way, fandoms will have an NFT item that they can both trade and have value.
Werthen can pave the way for this financial incentive to further invest in teams, players, or streamers’ success. It can also open the door to great development by putting NFTs at the very center of the Esports world.