“Welcome a new crypto demography,” the federation stated in a recent release, noting that it intends to do so via the “gamification of famous match moments, unique souvenirs [and] chess-related art.”
ChessNFT is the name of the new market, which will start later this month in time for the World Chess Championship 2021, which will be held at the Expo 2020 Dubai from November 24 to December 16. The revelation comes on the heels of grandmaster Magnus Carlsen being granted an NFT as a trophy for winning the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, an international chess tournament that also produced multiple NFT trophies and collectibles as part of its prize package.
A partnership with cryptocurrency exchange FTX was also established by the event’s organiser, who enabled professional chess players to compete for a prize pool of 2.1825 Bitcoin BTC. With the creation of its own NFT ecosystem, FIDE has become the first global sports organisation to do so, and it has done so ahead of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2021.
The event will take place at the Expo 2020 Dubai from November 24 to December 16, according to the schedule. Last month, Magnus Carlsen, the reigning world champion, earned an NFT trophy at the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, which was sponsored by NFT.
One of Carlsen’s replica trophies was auctioned off to a fan for 6.88 ETH, and the winner also had the opportunity to play against Carlsen. FIDE said that it intends to “welcome a new crypto demography” via the “gamification of famous match moments, unique collectibles, chess-related art,” among other things, by pushing further into the realm of NFTs.
When it came to launching its NFT marketplace, the International Chess Federation teamed with TON Labs, the company of the FreeTON Network, which has now been renamed as Everscale. TrueNFTs are the kind of tokens that will be utilised, and they vary from ordinary NFTs in that they will keep even the real media files that are included in them on the blockchain, as opposed to traditional NFTs.