Kraken’s FIFA World Cup deal meets its biggest test as England-Panama draws global eyeballs
England's final group match against Panama on June 27 spotlights crypto's deepening roots in global football, with Kraken serving as the tournament's official crypto exchange partner.
When roughly a billion viewers tune in to watch England try to lock down first place in Group L against Panama, they will also be watching the most expensive crypto sponsorship in sports history play out in real time. Kraken, the official crypto exchange supporter of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, is betting that moments like these convert casual fans into crypto users.
The match kicks off June 27 at 5:00 PM ET inside MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. England, managed by Thomas Tuchel, sit on four points from two matches, a 4-2 win over Croatia and a 0-0 draw with Ghana. A draw against Panama is enough to advance to the knockout stages, but the squad wants more than survival.
England’s path through Group L
Goalkeeper Jordan Pickford is set for his 29th consecutive start for England, a streak that speaks to both his consistency and the lack of a credible challenger behind him. His focus heading into the Panama fixture has been on collective discipline.
Panama have suffered two losses in Group L and need a win against England to keep alive their hopes of advancing as one of the best third-place teams.
Kraken’s World Cup bet and crypto’s stadium play
Kraken’s role as the official crypto exchange partner of the FIFA World Cup 2026 is the clearest signal yet that major exchanges see sports sponsorships as a customer acquisition channel worth pursuing at scale. The playbook isn’t new. FTX had its name on the Miami Heat’s arena before, well, everything happened. Crypto.com paid north of $700M for naming rights to the former Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Fan tokens and the Chiliz question
Neither England nor Panama currently have dedicated fan tokens trading on the Socios platform, the Chiliz-powered marketplace that has signed up clubs like Barcelona, PSG, and Juventus. National teams have been slower to adopt the fan token model, partly because federations are more conservative than club ownership groups and partly because the regulatory landscape around tokenized fan engagement remains patchy.
Chiliz, the blockchain that underpins Socios, and its native CHZ token have historically seen trading volume bumps during major football tournaments. Volume surges in the weeks leading up to the tournament, peaks during group stages, and then fades once the final whistle blows.