After Saudi Arabia Unexpectedly Beats Argentina, NFT Collection Sales Soar High

Sales for the Saudi Arabia-themed non-fungible token (NFT) collection called “The Saudis” increased by 387% on Tuesday following the country’s 2-1 win against Argentina, one of the best soccer teams in the world.

Argentina’s fan token (ARG), in contrast, dropped 21% over the past 24 hours and is trading at $5.44 (at time of publication), according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Crypto tokens have become popular among gamblers in this year’s World Cup. Chiliz (CHZ), the native token of the Chiliz blockchain that powers Socios.com, the largest sports fan token creator platform, surged 39% in the week before the start of the competiton as fans basked in a fresh wave of hype.

However, the hype died down quickly and other fan tokens, including those of Portugal (POR) and Brazil (BFT) all declined after Monday and underperformed both bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH).

“Big events often present big opportunities for traders,” Priyansh Patel of Delphi Digital wrote on Monday. “Some market participants begin positioning a few weeks before the actual event in order to take profits when the event occurs.” The World Cup, he wrote, was no exception and fan tokens “experienced hefty corrections just two days before the event began.”