When Football meets NFTs

10

October

2025

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In recent years, NFTs, also known as non-fungible tokens, have taken the digital world by storm. Simply put, an NFT is a one-of-a-kind digital asset that proves ownership of something unique, like an image, video, or collectible. In football, they’ve been promoted as a new way for fans to connect with players, buy digital player cards, or access special experiences (Sorare, n.d.).

But as exciting as it sounds, not every project is as trustworthy as it appears. A recent case in Spain shows how easily an emerging technology like this can turn into controversy.

According to PANews, authorities in Barcelona are currently investigating a cryptocurrency fraud case involving several well-known football players. The company Shirtum allegedly scammed investors out of about $3.4 million through an NFT project that never delivered what it promised. Some big names were tied to the project: Papu Gómez, Lucas Ocampos, Ivan Rakitic, Javier Saviola, Nico Pareja and Alberto Moreno. Prosecutors claim that Shirtum operated through a complicated business structure to avoid paying taxes. The players reportedly helped promote the NFTs as “founders.” These tokens were meant to represent the players’ image rights, but investigators say they never gained any real trading function. After the promotion, related posts on social media disappeared and the company later claimed it had been hacked without filing a police report. Soon after, Shirtum shut down completely without any explanation (Binance, 2025).

As someone who enjoys watching football, I believe NFTs have the potential to make the sport more interactive if used responsibly. Unfortunately, scandals like Shirtum’s make fans lose trust. For NFTs to succeed in sports, transparency should come first. Football players and clubs need to ensure that what they promote is legitimate and provides genuine benefits. In the end, NFTs should be about strengthening fan communities, not taking advantage of the loyalty and passion of fans.


Sources:

Binance. (2025, June 11). Barcelona court investigates cryptocurrency fraud involving football players. Binance. https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/06-11-2025-barcelona-court-investigates-cryptocurrency-fraud-involving-football-players-25461462914385

Sorare. (n.d.). https://sorare.com/football

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Can Blockchain Protect Creators in the Age of GenAI?

19

September

2025

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Generative AI is revolutionizing creativity, but it also exposes deep cracks in how ownership and intellectual property (IP) are managed. Most models are trained on vast datasets scraped from the internet, raising questions about whether creators gave consent, and how they can be recognized or compensated when their work is reused (Balan et al., 2023).

One promising answer lies in blockchain whose immutable, decentralized ledger, can record provenance, encode usage rights, and automate payments. The DECORAIT project shows how this could work: it allows creators to opt in or opt out of AI training, embeds provenance metadata through the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, and uses smart contracts to distribute rewards whenever a creator’s content contributes to a synthetic output (Balan et al., 2023).

Blockchain can underpin decentralized data marketplaces, allowing creators to monetize AI training data directly, while NFTs serve as tamper-proof certificates of authenticity and enable secondary royalties (Telles, 2025). Consulting leaders argue that blockchain may become the first mainstream safeguard against GenAI-driven IP risks. Encoding corporate knowledge assets (such as contracts, white papers, and presentations) into NFTs with embedded permissions, organizations could control how AI systems access and reuse their data (KPMG, 2023). Such mechanisms not only create new revenue models and reduce reliance on intermediaries but could also lower the risk of costly lawsuits, like the Getty Images case against Stability AI over alleged copyright misuse.

While challenges like blockchain scalability or regulatory uncertainty remain, the direction is clear. As GenAI blurs the boundary between human and machine creativity, blockchain provides a foundation for consent, attribution, and compensation which ensures that creators remain empowered in the AI economy.

Balan, K., Black, A., Jenni, S., Gilbert, A., Parsons, A., & Collomosse, J. (2023, September 25). DECORAIT — DECentralized Opt-in/out Registry for AI Training. arXiv.org. https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.14400v1

Blockchain and generative AI: A perfect pairing? (2023). KPMG. https://kpmg.com/us/en/articles/2023/blockchain-artificial-intelligence.html

Telles, Y. (2025, March 6). Generative AI and blockchain. Ventionteams. Retrieved September 19, 2025, from https://ventionteams.com/blog/generative-ai-blockchain

Popple, L. (2025, July 29). Getty Images v Stability AI: where are we after the trial – copyright? Taylor Wessing. https://www.taylorwessing.com/en/insights-and-events/insights/2025/07/getty-v-stability

How it works – Content Authenticity Initiative. (n.d.). https://contentauthenticity.org/how-it-works/

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A Fresh Look at NFTs & Crypto Payroll in the Metaverse

18

September

2025

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Source: https://www.onesafe.io/blog/nft-sales-surge-metaverse-crypto-payroll

NFTs in the metaverse are showing a bit of a comeback. In August 2025, sales rose 27% from July, reaching around US$6.5 million in trading value. That’s slightly less than July’s US$6.7 million, but still a sign that people are still interested.

However, there are some twists. While overall sales are up, the number of unique buyers has dropped by 17%. Meanwhile, there are more sellers. So fewer people are buying, but some of them are buying bigger or more expensive NFTs. Also, the market value of all metaverse NFTs has grown, exceeding US$8 billion.

Metaverse platforms are also betting on long-term growth instead of just speculation. Platforms like Sandbox, Mocaverse, Otherside, and Decentraland are improving their infrastructure: upgrading engines, launching testnets, enabling AI tools, and holding big land auctions. These changes suggest the metaverse could become more stable and useful over time.

Another interesting trend is crypto payroll. Companies are using blockchain tools to pay workers in cryptocurrencies or stablecoins. Tools now allow paying many wallet addresses in one go, which simplifies things. For people working in or helping build virtual worlds, this can be useful. It aligns payment with how people engage in these digital spaces.

As I read this news I ask myself: Is this growth in NFT sales likely to last, or is it mostly driven by a few big buyers? What happens if the number of buyers keeps falling but sales stay high? Is that healthy for the market? For crypto payroll: what challenges are there (like regulation, stability, user trust)? Could it become a standard in metaverse jobs?

What do you think? Do you believe we are seeing the start of a stable, mature metaverse economy, or is this just another wave of hype?

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Going digital: the end of an era for physical clothes?

9

October

2022

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As times change, so does fashion. It is widely known that the fashion industry is always evolving and with the constant development of technological trends, fashion goes with it. The fashion industry already changed to a more sustainable and customer-focused area as virtual fitting rooms were put into practice and new ways of producing clothing were developed (Cheuck, 2022). But now a whole new part of the fashion industry is big business: digital clothing.

Digital clothing are virtually designed clothes especially made using 3D software and computer technologies. These clothes are made of pixels rather than textiles and are designed for both humans and avatars. In the digital world the possibilities are endless, creating the opportunity to design clothing that would not be possible in the physical world (Stephenson Law, 2022). Secondly, it makes buying clothing much easier. People do not have to think about if and how it fits, if the product is ethical and how it looks (Santos, 2021).

As the Metaverse expands, everyone will soon have a digital copy of themselves, making it possible for the digital fashion to play a significant role in how we create our virtual selves. If you want to look good in the physical world, so must your avatar in the online world. In March the first Metaverse Fashion Week took place where big names as Tommy Hilfiger and Dolce & Gabbana showed their digital clothing. Besides existing (physical) brands, also Web3.0 brands Fang Gang and DeadFellaz offer digital clothing (Stephenson Law, 2022).

However, digital fashion is not only limited to dress up your avatar in games or in the Metaverse. Digital clothes can also be sold as NFT’s (non-fungible tokens). You only need to upload a picture and choose the digital garment you would like to buy. After your payment, you will receive your picture with the digital clothing item portrayed on your body (Stephenson Law, 2022). In this way, designers of digital clothing can authenticate the original ownership of their creations and also receive payments when they sell a piece (Nguyen, 2022).

Although it may seem that digital fashion is the next big thing when it comes to sustainable fashion, it cannot be seen as a substitute for physical clothing. Not to forget that NFT’s have their own way of polluting the environment. Nevertheless, it can be a nice addition to the items in your closet in the battle against fast fashion (Nguyen, 2022).

References:

Cheuck, L. (2022). Boutiques in Your Phones: How Has Technology Changed the Fashion Industry? Jumpstart Magazine. Retrieved from: https://www.jumpstartmag.com/how-has-technology-changed-the-fashion-industry/

Nguyen, T. (2022). What’s the point of digital clothes? VOX. Retrieved from: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22893254/digital-fashion-metaverse-real-clothes

Santos, R. (2021). People Are Buying Digital Clothes Because That’s a Thing Now. VICE. Retrieved from: https://www.vice.com/en/article/akvzqz/virtual-digital-clothes-fashion-game-skins-metaverse

Stephenson Law. (2022). Digital Fashion: What is it? Where Did it Come From? And Where is it Going? Stephenson Law. Retrieved from: https://www.stephenson.law/blog/digital-fashion-what-is-it-where-did-it-come-from-and-where-is-it-going

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Web 3.0 Looks Good On You

3

October

2022

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Can the Metaverse change fashion as we know it?

The emergence of immersive interaction spaces is transforming digital environments into outstandingly collaborative and sensorial virtual worlds. Such potential levels of engagement presented by the future Metaverse are opening the door to a new era of fashion. Brands and designers are accordingly making out the opportunity to take their engagement with consumers to the next level and to unlock completely new revenue streams.
This new digital world brings the concept of virtual fashion to life in multiple shapes and disciplines where the industry can reach new cohorts.
In this regard, gaming is currently a major target for fashion brands, as it gradually turns into a near substitute of the real world where clothes are becoming a sign of in-game status (McKinsey & Company, 2022). Several brands are already partnering with immersive games such as Fortnite or Roblox by offering exclusive digital garments or ‘skins’ in the shape of in-game merchandise. In June 2021, a player acquired a Gucci bag on the game Roblox for more than $4,000, an amount that overly exceeded the price of the equivalent real-world physical bag (Gonzalez, 2020). And this is just an example of the new fashion wave in videogames, which is creating a new revenue stream for brands.
A considerable part of the enthusiasm about the Metaverse points in the direction of NFTs, as they can bring value in several ways that the fashion industry can utilize to their benefit. For instance, and more importantly, by utilizing blockchain, NFTs have undeniable proof attached to them of both the creator and the owner of the item (Joy, et al., 2022). This can solve the everlasting problem of authentication in the fashion industry, but now in the digital paradigm. Blockchain provides uniqueness and traceability, so brands’ identity is protected, together with their revenue streams (Gonzalez, 2020).
The rise of digital fashion in immersive platforms is also setting the scene for an emerging business model in the industry that plays a crucial role in the inevitable disruption process. Direct to Avatar (D2A) consists of the sale of items to game avatars or characters through the digital environment, and thus omitting all types of supply chain management steps needed to deliver physical products to a consumer (McKinsey & Company, 2022). Multinational brand American Eagle was one of the first to step into this disruptive initiative in July 2021, when it released a fully digital collection for Bitmoji, an avatar creation platform (Adams, 2021).
These and more advantages offered by the coming Metaverse is turning the fashion industry towards fully digital offerings and creating infinite opportunities for new revenue streams. This is especially shocking in an industry which has traditionally been sustained on physical interactions with consumers.

References

Adams, P., 2021. American Eagle debuts digital clothing on Bitmoji in creator-focused push. Marketing Dive, 5 August, pp. Retrieved from: www.marketingdive.com/news/american-eagle-debuts-digital-clothing-on-bitmoji-in-creator-focused-push/604402/.

Gonzalez, P., 2020. Digital Fashion In The Metaverse, Milano: Politecnico di Milano, School of Design. Retrieved from: https://www.politesi.polimi.it/handle/10589/188809

Joy, A., Zhu, Y., Peña, C. & Brouard, M., 2022. Digital Future of Luxury Brands: Metaverse, Digital Fashion and Non-Fungible Tokens. Strategic Change, 31(3), pp. 337-343. Retrieved from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jsc.2502

McKinsey & Company, 2022. The State Of Fashion 2022, Retrieved from: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/retail/our%20insights/state%20of%20fashion/2022/the-state-of-fashion-2022.pdf?shouldIndex=false: McKinsey & Company

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