The Lionel Messi phenomenon doesn’t stop on the football field: after revolutionizing the world with Inter Miami’s tour in different countries, he now stirred up the Sorare blockchain game NFT market with the auction of his cards.
In fact, one of his “rare” cards reached an Ethereum value similar to a studio apartment in Argentina.
In dialogue with iProUP, Nicholas Julia reveals that Sorare currently has over 35,000 Argentine users, placing “Albiceleste” players among the most numerous on the platform.
“It is, in fact, the Latin American country with the highest number, above Brazil, which has around 30 thousand,” confesses the developer, who also points out that Argentina ranks seventh overall, below the United States and a small group of European countries.
How Sorare works, the “Crypto Fantasy Football”
A Sorare card is a digital NFT collectible item representing a football player and is linked to a particular season.
The value of each card is backed by demonstrable scarcity benefits (there is a fixed supply of Sorare cards, and each one has a digital record on the Ethereum blockchain, making them unique and irreplaceable) and the inherent attributes of each footballer.
Furthermore, these tokens can be freely exchanged, sold, and used in an open-world of different applications and games.
There are 1,111 cards per season for each footballer, distributed across four levels:
1 Unique (with a very significant market value)
10 Super Rare
100 Rare
1,000 Limited
How to buy Messi’s special cards
Those who start this game have a virtual budget of 400 million upon registration to choose an initial team of 10 player cards (common), with which they can then design their first team for the tournament, the novice league, which lasts for eight weeks.
While common cards cannot be sold, they will help to earn points to gain experience, matches, and cards with real monetary value.
For the second stage, you can only build your teams with a common card, meaning you will have to buy rare cards to play, which can appreciate over time due to market supply and demand.
This world within the NFT universe can lead users to invest a lot of money. For example, a card representing Messi in the previous season sold for 242,500 euros.
Sorare’s transfer market is very entertaining as it allows players to list their cards for sale – there are no auctions – and acquire them by simply clicking on the cards currently being sold.
Sorare allows selling unique, rare, or super rare cards. To do this, simply select the card you want to sell, set the selling price, and wait for another player to buy it.
When this happens, a notification will be sent, and the money will be immediately transferred to the user’s registered account.