Fan tokens / Socios / Blockchain

[Ricardo Da Lepp]

This morning on Twitter (and their own website) the club announced a new "partnership" with a company called Socios, regarding "Fan tokens".

From what I see it seems to be some kind of cryptocurrency, and it claims that all season ticket holders and members will be able to get one free, if they have a rewards app called Socios.
This seems to have been met with a mixed response on social media.

They claim it will increase "fan engagement" - whatever that is - and these "digital assets" that are being promoted are created on something called $CHZ Blockchain.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this, and can anyone explain to me what Blockchain is and how it works please?!

[NottinghamWhite]

Basically don’t understand any of the above it’s all this crypto currency ain’t it ? I’m surprised Radrizzani has become involved in anything like this. Apparently Juventus do this & one of the perks is you can vote on the goal music Most if not all fans my age won’t understand any of this so I’ll be parting with nowt.
I think DavyCC is our resident crypto expert, I await with baited breath

[Barlow Boy]

Information from the club website here....

https://www.leedsunited.com/news/club/2 ... socios-com

[CheeznOnionPasty]

To totally oversimplify it, the use of block-chain is just a way of having completely unique, trackable tokens. The fact they're using block-chain doesn't really mean much in this case, nor does it matter what block-chain it's based on or whether that blockchain also supports a currency with an exchangeable value in real world money. It's just a method of them saying "Bob has tokens 1, 2, 3 and 4. James has tokens 5, 6 and 7.".

What they're basically doing is putting a step between you, your wallet and real world money and a "reward". So the app offers different rewards or services, you pay a token (or portion of a token) every time you use one of those services. To get more tokens you pay real world money.

Judging by the website, they're also using gamification to encourage you to horde the tokens i.e. giving you badges and rewards for collecting them. I haven't used the app but I would imagine you probably get a badge for your first token, you get a badge for buying more tokens, you get a badge for winning a game etc. No doubt there will be special privilege's if you own 100, 1000, 10,000 tokens. You probably get a bigger share of the vote for the goal music if you have more tokens.

This is just like going to the fair, buying a book of tickets/tokens and exchanging one for each ride you go on. They're just using the most modern, trendy and allegedly secure way of creating and tracking the tokens.

[Ricardo Da Lepp]

To totally oversimplify it, the use of block-chain is just a way of having completely unique, trackable tokens. The fact they're using block-chain doesn't really mean much in this case, nor does it matter what block-chain it's based on or whether that blockchain also supports a currency with an exchangeable value in real world money. It's just a method of them saying "Bob has tokens 1, 2, 3 and 4. James has tokens 5, 6 and 7.".

What they're basically doing is putting a step between you, your wallet and real world money and a "reward". So the app offers different rewards or services, you pay a token (or portion of a token) every time you use one of those services. To get more tokens you pay real world money.

Judging by the website, they're also using gamification to encourage you to horde the tokens i.e. giving you badges and rewards for collecting them. I haven't used the app but I would imagine you probably get a badge for your first token, you get a badge for buying more tokens, you get a badge for winning a game etc. No doubt there will be special privilege's if you own 100, 1000, 10,000 tokens. You probably get a bigger share of the vote for the goal music if you have more tokens.

This is just like going to the fair, buying a book of tickets/tokens and exchanging one for each ride you go on. They're just using the most modern, trendy and allegedly secure way of creating and tracking the tokens.

Thank you for the explanation. That makes things a lot clearer and the token analogy is very helpful.

[Barlow Boy]

Thanks for the explanation COP, a little bit clearer, particularly with the fairground/token analogy.

Unless I have to do a lot of registering etc, as an ST holder, I’ll probably take my ‘free token’ just in case I get involved at some point in the future, but at this stage that’s all I’ll be doing as I don’t have enough knowledge.

[CheeznOnionPasty]

Thank you for the explanation. That makes things a lot clearer and the token analogy is very helpful.

No problem, I only have half a clue about this stuff because we're implementing something similar at work and I'm supposed to be leading the project - so the lawyers, accountants and techies keep using very long words about block-chain that I don't understand and I have to ask for the Dummies Guide every meeting

[Davycc]

Thank you for the explanation. That makes things a lot clearer and the token analogy is very helpful.

No problem, I only have half a clue about this stuff because we're implementing something similar at work and I'm supposed to be leading the project - so the lawyers, accountants and techies keep using very long words about block-chain that I don't understand and I have to ask for the Dummies Guide every meeting

[Another Northern Soul]

Thank you for the explanation. That makes things a lot clearer and the token analogy is very helpful.

No problem, I only have half a clue about this stuff because we're implementing something similar at work and I'm supposed to be leading the project - so the lawyers, accountants and techies keep using very long words about block-chain that I don't understand and I have to ask for the Dummies Guide every meeting

Do you have a Dummy Dummies' Guide you can lend the rest of us please?

[Another Northern Soul]

It all looks a bit shabby to me, and a thinly veiled way for people to get in to gambling.