The US men’s national team takes on Belgium today at Lumen Field in Seattle, with kickoff set for 5:00 p.m. PT. The Round of 16 match will be played in front of roughly 68,740 fans.

The USMNT earned their spot here with a clean 2-0 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina in the group stage. Belgium’s path was considerably more dramatic: they trailed Senegal 0-2 until the 85th minute, clawed back to force extra time, and ultimately won 3-2 on a penalty converted by Youri Tielemans in the 120th minute plus stoppage time.

Kraken was named the Official Crypto Exchange Supporter of the FIFA World Cup 2026 back on June 9, making this the first World Cup with a major crypto exchange as a headline sponsor. The partnership is aimed at boosting fan engagement across North America and Europe.

FIFA’s digital collectibles platform, FIFA Collect, runs on the Avalanche blockchain. That means every digital collectible and ticketing transaction processed through the platform touches AVAX infrastructure.

Belgium has an active fan token available on Socios.com, which operates on the Chiliz blockchain. The US doesn’t have a comparable fan token in the same ecosystem, which creates an asymmetry worth noting. Belgian fan token holders have a direct financial instrument tied to their team’s performance.

Prediction markets have already processed over $2 billion in volume tied to the tournament. Platforms like Polymarket and others have turned match outcomes into tradeable contracts.

Fan tokens and prediction market positions are essentially short-duration bets with binary outcomes. A single red card, a controversial VAR decision, or an injury to a key player can invert the expected outcome in seconds.