FIDE Becomes The World’s First Sporting Body To Own An NFT Marketplace

The world is going digital and sporting organizations like the World Chess Federation FIDE, have no intentions of being left behind. This was confirmed after the chess body announced its plans to launch a nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace. According to the organization, the marketplace will launch towards the end of November, and will be known as ChessNFT.

FIDE Is The First Sporting Association To Have Its Own NFT Marketplace

The World Chess Federation, commonly called by its French acronym FIDE, is an international organization headquartered in Switzerland. The organization is now the first global sports federation to launch its own NFT ecosystem. Quite interestingly,  the launch is coming just a few days before the FIDE World Chess Championship 2021, slated to take place from November 24 to December 16 in Dubai.

Just last month, the reigning world champion, Magnus Carlsen, won an NFT trophy in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. Meanwhile, a replica trophy was also sold to a fan for 6.88 ETH auction price, and a chance to play with Carlsen.

Talking about its move into the world of NFTs, FIDE says that it’s looking to usher in a new crypto demographic by gamifying unique collectibles, chess-based art, and iconic match moments, amongst others.

The Partnership

FIDE had to partner with TON Labs — the creator of the FreeTON Network (formerly known as Everscale Network, to achieve the ChessNFT marketplace. But according to reports, the NFTs will utilize a different variation of the technology called TrueNFTs.  And TrueNFTs have the capacity to store actual media files on the blockchain, instead of linking to other destructible content, that are usually hosted elsewhere. Also according to the release, the platform will be accommodating both crypto and fiat.

ChessNFT.com joins the likes of OpenSea on the list of NFT marketplaces, presently growing at an almost alarming rate.