The World Cup and Digital Assets are a Global Phenomenon

Dek: Learn how Bitget is bringing them together with Lionel Messi.

Excited fans from across the world gathered together for the 2022 World Cup to share their passion for football. The World Cup, like the Olympics, is a chance for the world to share what it values as a global community. Over the last decade, the global adoption of crypto and digital assets has shown that the global community values the potential of Web3, as crypto and digital assets continue to grow in emerging markets.

Following the collapse of FTX, user trust in crypto exchanges’ transparency, security and liquidity have proven to be critical to the continued adoption of crypto. The 2022 World Cup is therefore a unique opportunity to showcase to over 4 billion potential viewers how crypto firms are prioritizing security and risk management, facilitating the adoption of crypto even during the crypto winter.

We’ve already seen a few Web3 and crypto players leverage FIFA as a chance to pave the way for the global adoption of Web3 technologies. Some examples include:

• FIFA teamed up with blockchain technology company Algorand to become the official crypto platform of FIFA. Alogrand will provide solutions for wallets supported by the official blockchain, and will also help FIFA to launch the NFT platform FIFA+Collect.
  
• Fan tokens and NFT-powered trading games. Chiliz and Bitci issued fan tokens for clubs and national teams, and the platform and exchange have jointly organized trading activities to encourage user participation.
  
• The rise of the live-streaming metaverse lounge, an immersive experience where users’ avatars can watch live streams of football games in the metaverse.
  

Bitget: Inspiring user confidence with football all-star Leo Messi

Bitget, a leading global cryptocurrency exchange, has also seized this opportunity by partnering with the world-famous and latest World Cup champion Leo Messi. The partnership is part of a larger trend between Web3 and sports, with blockchain technology helping sports players to increase their engagement with their community through NFTs, fan tokens and metaverse events.

Bitget’s move comes at a time when most crypto firms are scaling back their promotional efforts. However, the recent fall of the major exchange FTX created an opportunity for security-minded exchanges like Bitget to rebuild user trust and enhance security, helping more people to get into crypto trading, boosting market demand and therefore reducing the impact of the bear market.

The partnership kicked off with a $20 million investment by Bitget into a series of marketing campaigns, including a video featuring Messi, “Make it Count,” and various World Cup-themed activities.

Gracy Chen, who serves as the managing director of Bitget, says, "Partnering with the GOAT inspires us to strive for the best performance, and the World Cup period is the best time to remind ourselves about the importance of building and training for the moment to shine. We would like to celebrate the football spirit in the world of crypto and are prepared to continue investing in the ecosystem even when times are tough. Congratulations to the Argentina team and Messi on the World Cup Championship! We are glad to have been partners with Messi throughout this journey. "

Bitget also aims to increase crypto adoption through collaborations with global credible partners such as Italian leading football team Juventus, PGL and the leading esports organization Team Spirit.

Bitget: A leading player in security and risk management

Leveraging celebrity partnerships is just one part of Bitget’s expansion efforts, as security and the protection of stored assets remain a top priority for users. Bitget has been a leader in security and risk management, working to aggressively address these concerns by launching a protection fund in July 2022 and ushering in other security measures such as separated hot and cold wallets requiring multiple signatures to protect users’ assets, zero trust security architecture and data encryption, as well as collaborations with top security vendors.

Bitget has also been making security and transparency a top priority by launching a tracking page for users to verify their own assets reserve and revealing on-chain proof-of-reserve data on Nansen.ai. This information improves user confidence and transparency by enabling users to verify that an exchange holds all of their account balance, guaranteeing at least 100% reserve ratio to make sure the exchange is capable of handling events such as a bank run.

To further bolster user confidence, Bitget recently announced that it will increase its protection fund to $300 million, in order to provide better protection and further assurance to crypto users with a promise of no withdrawal for at least 3 years and disclosed wallet addresses on the website.

In a nascent industry, these initiatives represent a new standard for any global crypto exchange that is serious about global growth. These initiatives form an integral part of Bitget’s expansion strategy, enabling ambitious plans such as registering in Seychelles and establishing regional hubs in Asia and LATAM markets, as well as linking to the Brazilian government’s official payment gateway. Bitget also plans to strengthen its global presence with more regional hubs in Europe and Africa. The exchange also plans to increase its workforce from 800 to 1,200 by Q1 of 2023.

Bitget’s plans are backed by a joint report titled “What Does the Future Hold for Crypto Exchanges,” which Bitget conducted with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Foresight Ventures. The full report can be viewed here.

"According to the findings of the report,” says Chen, “crypto trading volume still has large headroom to grow, while LATAM and APAC remain the two most attractive regions for global players to expand into, due to higher market potential and progressive crypto regulations. This is the same view echoing our developing strategy, as these two regions are among those of our primary focus. Meanwhile, we will continue to enhance our products with creativity and innovation to boost adoption of crypto trading and social trading, with the vision to increase financial independence for the rest of the world."

Crypto is global and here to stay

The World Cup is a worldwide celebration and is facilitating the growth and expansion of crypto as the industry looks to provide its stakeholders with more security, liquidity and transparency for users no matter which country they’re in. Bitget has been the leader in this direction by investing into risk management, security and partnerships with credible figures around the globe in different fields that help global communities learn more about protection initiatives in the crypto exchange space.

Leo Messi, the new World Cup 2022 champion and Golden Ball award recipient, expressed that “It's important that everyone invest responsibly with protection, and it's reassuring to see Bitget taking this seriously with many protection initiatives."

You can learn more about Bitget and its protection initiatives here.