Premier League clubs discuss £30m-a-year Sorare NFT deal

CryptocurrencySportTech

The Premier League met with its 20 member clubs on Friday to discuss a £30 million-a-year deal which would see Sorare provide NFTs of static images of footballers. 

According to a report by Sky News, the deal could replace an agreement with ConsenSys which was not signed after it attempted to renegotiate at a lower price as the market slumped.

Sorare is a sports fantasy game platform based in Paris which counts France and Paris St-Germain star Kylian Mbappé as an investor and ambassador.

In February, the Premier League shortlisted four blockchains – Sorare, Candy Digital, Dapper Labs and ConsenSys – for a reported $589m NFT licensing deal. The following month ConsenSys was thought to have won the static images deal, with Dapper Labs landing the rights to create video NFTs.

Sorare partners with more than 280 sports organisations including Liverpool FC, AC Milan, La Liga and the Bundesliga.

Crypto ‘increasingly used to fund terrorism’

Terror groups are increasingly turning to cryptocurrency to fund their activities, according to a senior United Nations figure.

Svetlana Martynova, the countering financing of terrorism coordinator at the UN, said this was true of groups who have been excluded from the formal financial system.

The comments were made during a ‘special meeting’ run by the UN’s counter-terrorism committee in New Delhi and Mumbai focused on the use of ‘new and emerging technologies’ for terrorist purposes.

Martynova said cash and ‘hawala’ – a traditional system of transferring value, based on honour, without any money actually changing hands – remain the “predominant methods” of terror financing, but added: “We know terrorists adapt to the evolution of conditions around them and as technologies evolve they adapt as well.

“If they’re excluded from the formal financial system and they want to purchase or invest in something with anonymity, and they’re advanced for that, they’re likely to abuse cryptocurrencies.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said crypto technologies have an “unmatched potential to improve human conditions everywhere”.

However he added: “Terrorists and others posing hateful ideologies are abusing new and emerging technologies to spread disinformation, foment discord, recruit and radicalise, mobilise resources and execute attacks.” 

Cryptocurrency shorts

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has confirmed a $500m investment in Elon Musk’s $44 billion buyout of Twitter.

The deal has seen a huge rise in the value of Tesla entrepreneur Musk’s preferred crypto project DOGE. The meme coin has risen 100% over the last seven days amid hopes that Musk will integrate micro-payments into Twitter using the network. It is now the fifth most valuable coin outside stablecoins.

UK-headquartered diversity-driven blockchain educational and networking ecosystem, Women in Blockchain Talks (WiBT), has announced the launch of two new chapters in Dubai and Warsaw. The launch ties in with an increasing global footprint of the organisation, with chapters also set to launch in Manchester, Barcelona, Berlin, Karachi and Delhi by end of year. 

UAE music company AudioSwim is allowing fans and investors to buy royalty shares of music tracks early on via NFTs.

Crypto lobbying group Blockchain Association has asked for permission to support Ripple as a ‘friend of the court’ in the cross-border payment company’s case against the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The first crypto ATM debuted in 2013 in Canada – and there are now almost 39,000 of them around the world, according to Coin ATM Radar. Almost 88% of them are in the United States.

Crypto prices

The overall market cap of the 21,500 coins is at $1 trillion at the time of writing (7am UK), up from $984 billion on Friday morning.

For round-ups of recent cryptocurrency news developments, click here.

For valuations of the top 100 coins by market cap in US dollars, plus 24-hour price change, see below.