[TOKEN2049] Chiliz CEO Says Fan Tokens Show Crypto’s Mainstream Future

At Token2049 in Singapore, one of the industry’s largest annual gatherings, the focus turned to whether consumer-facing crypto products are finally ready to scale. Onstage at the panel “Mainstream Moment: Consumer Crypto at Scale,” speakers from Dapper Labs, Scale AI, and eva.world debated how far blockchain has penetrated everyday use cases. But it was Chiliz CEO Alexandre Dreyfus who drew the most attention, arguing that sports and entertainment already prove crypto’s mass-market potential.

Dreyfus said Chiliz now works with more than 80 professional sports teams and organizations worldwide, giving millions of fans the ability to participate in club decisions and access exclusive experiences through tokenized systems. Unlike speculative tokens that trade mainly on price swings, fan tokens “deliver tangible utility that consumers can feel directly,” he said.

The company is preparing to launch an online sports gaming platform later this year, which Dreyfus described as the next stage of consumer crypto — moving beyond token ownership into active engagement. “Sports fandom is one of the fastest ways to bring mainstream audiences on-chain,” he told the audience, positioning Chiliz as an early proof point for blockchain adoption at scale.

Other panelists highlighted the structural challenges still facing the sector. Roham Gharegozlou, CEO of Dapper Labs, warned that sustainable token economies remain elusive, noting that early experiments often collapsed under unsound incentive models. Alexandra Leow of Scale AI pointed to blockchain’s advantages in transparency and auditability, while Eva Wu, founder of eva.world, argued that mass adoption hinges on removing onboarding barriers such as wallet setup and seed-phrase management.

Despite these concerns, the panel converged on a common theme: consumer crypto must move beyond trading and speculation to offer clear, lasting utility. For Dreyfus, that transition is already under way. “The fandom is already on-chain,” he said. “The question now is how fast this experience can scale.”