The 2026 FIFA World Cup has reached the point where every match carries elimination stakes, and Matchday 13 on June 23 delivered exactly that kind of pressure. England faced Ghana while Panama took on Croatia, with both fixtures carrying serious implications for which sides would advance to the knockout round.
This World Cup is already historic before a single knockout ball is kicked. The expanded 48-team format means 104 total matches spread across Canada, Mexico, and the United States, making it the largest edition of the tournament ever staged.
Kraken entered as the official crypto exchange of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, a sponsorship that went live around the tournament’s opening in June. That deal places a crypto brand in the same category as the automotive and beverage giants that have historically dominated World Cup commercial partnerships.
The more direct market story is playing out on Socios.com, the platform built on the Chiliz blockchain that lets fans buy and trade tokens tied to national teams and clubs. Chiliz, the underlying token that powers the ecosystem and trades under the ticker CHZ, rose 28% during the tournament’s early matchdays. That move was tied to heightened trading activity in national team fan tokens as match results drove buying and selling behavior among holders.
