England arrived at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas on June 17 for their opening World Cup match against Croatia, a rematch of the 2018 semifinal that still stings for Three Lions supporters. Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, and the rest of the squad are stepping onto a stage that looks very different from four years ago, and not just because there are now 48 teams in the draw.
FIFA’s blockchain buildout
Kraken was announced as the Official Crypto Exchange Supporter of the 2026 World Cup on June 9. That makes the San Francisco-based exchange one of FIFA’s headline commercial partners for a tournament being hosted across 16 cities in the US, Mexico, and Canada.
Avalanche, meanwhile, underpins FIFA’s ticketing infrastructure and its digital collectibles platform, FIFA Collect, targeting the perennial problem of ticket fraud and scalping. Instead of just slapping a logo on the broadcast, Avalanche is actually embedded in the plumbing of how the tournament operates.
The fan token gap
