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FIFA has confirmed that President Donald Trump will hand the World Cup trophy to the winning captain at the 2026 final on July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. The move breaks from traditional protocol, where the FIFA president typically does the honors, and places a sitting US president at the center of the world’s most-watched sporting event.
FIFA’s blockchain play is its most ambitious yet
Kraken was named the Official Crypto Exchange Supporter of the tournament on June 9, 2026. That’s not a logo-on-a-banner deal. It’s a full partnership that puts one of the largest US-based exchanges in front of an audience that will number in the billions across broadcast and digital platforms.
Then there’s Avalanche. FIFA migrated its blockchain infrastructure away from Algorand and onto Avalanche to power FIFA Collect, the organization’s digital collectibles platform. FIFA Collect lets fans buy and trade officially licensed digital memorabilia, and running it on Avalanche’s faster, cheaper network is a clear signal that FIFA wants the platform to handle serious volume during the tournament.
Chainlink rounds out the trifecta. The oracle network is providing the infrastructure for FIFA’s first official prediction markets during the World Cup. Think of it as the plumbing that connects real-world match results to on-chain contracts, letting fans place verifiable predictions on outcomes without relying on a centralized intermediary to report scores.
Chiliz, the blockchain company behind fan tokens for major sports teams, is also positioned to benefit. CHZ is set to leverage partnerships with national teams competing in the tournament, giving its tokens direct exposure to the wave of fan engagement that World Cups reliably generate.
The Trump factor
Trump’s role in the trophy ceremony isn’t just ceremonial pageantry. The president has been vocally pro-digital assets, and his family has direct ties to token projects. Having him physically present at the climax of a tournament sponsored by Kraken and powered by Avalanche creates a visual association between the administration and crypto adoption that marketers couldn’t buy at any price.
What this means for investors
The 2026 tournament is the first to feature 48 teams, spread across the US, Canada, and Mexico. More games means more engagement windows, more prediction market activity, and more opportunities for digital collectible drops on FIFA Collect.
Tokens to watch include AVAX, which underpins the Avalanche network now hosting FIFA’s blockchain operations. Any spike in FIFA Collect activity, particularly around marquee matches or the final itself, would translate directly into network usage metrics that investors track closely.
LINK, the native token of Chainlink, could see similar attention as prediction market volume grows. If FIFA’s official prediction markets gain traction with mainstream fans who have never interacted with an oracle network before, it becomes a real-world adoption case study that Chainlink can point to for years.
CHZ faces a more nuanced setup. Fan tokens have historically been volatile around major tournaments, spiking on hype and deflating quickly after elimination rounds thin the field.
Kraken’s positioning as the official exchange partner could also drive new account signups, particularly among casual fans who encounter crypto branding for the first time during the tournament.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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