The United States Men’s National Team closes out its World Cup group stage campaign against Turkey on June 25 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, with kickoff set for 7:00 p.m. PT. The USMNT has already locked up a spot in the knockout round, making this a relatively low-stakes affair on the pitch.

Off the pitch, though, things are more interesting. This match represents the highest-profile convergence yet of crypto infrastructure built around the 2026 FIFA World Cup, from exchange sponsorships to on-chain prediction markets to digital collectibles.

Crypto’s World Cup footprint keeps expanding

Kraken was named FIFA’s Official Crypto Exchange Supporter on June 9. The deal positions the San Francisco-based exchange as a primary crypto partner across North America and Europe for the duration of the tournament. The partnership’s role centers on fan engagement and driving crypto adoption among the millions of viewers tuning into the tournament.

FIFA Collect launched its National Teams Dynamic Collectibles on May 28, giving fans the ability to purchase digital assets tied to participating nations. The “dynamic” label means the collectibles update based on real-world tournament results, adding a layer of interactivity that prior NFT sports partnerships mostly lacked.

The tournament also features its first official prediction market, operated by ADI PredictStreet and built on Chainlink’s oracle infrastructure. Having a FIFA-sanctioned prediction platform that relies on decentralized oracle networks to settle outcomes represents a meaningful step toward legitimizing on-chain prediction markets in mainstream sports.

Fan tokens and on-chain activity

While neither the US nor Turkey has a prominently featured team-specific token, Chiliz, the blockchain platform behind most major sports fan tokens, has reportedly seen increased on-chain activity across its tokens available on Solana and Base.

Prediction markets meet the beautiful game

The ADI PredictStreet prediction market deserves a closer look. Prediction markets have been one of crypto’s breakout use cases over the past year, with platforms like Polymarket generating billions in volume around the 2024 US presidential election. What makes this iteration different is the FIFA endorsement. Previous crypto prediction markets around sporting events existed in a gray area, operating without official blessing from governing bodies.

The Chainlink infrastructure handles the oracle side, pulling verified match data to settle prediction contracts. This eliminates the trust problem that plagued earlier attempts at sports prediction markets, where participants had to rely on centralized sources to confirm outcomes.

What this means for investors

If ADI PredictStreet generates substantial volume during the group stage, it validates the thesis that on-chain prediction markets can scale beyond political events into recurring sporting calendars. Political elections happen every few years. Major football matches happen every few days during a World Cup.

Kraken’s sponsorship also creates a marketing funnel worth monitoring. Crypto.com’s 2022 World Cup advertising push was credited with meaningful user acquisition in certain markets, and Kraken will be hoping for similar results.