Two of football’s biggest stars, who happen to be close friends, are about to face off in a World Cup quarterfinal. And the crypto market is treating it like an earnings call.
Kylian Mbappé’s France will meet Achraf Hakimi’s Morocco on July 9 in Boston, a rematch of their 2022 World Cup semifinal. The two players famously call each other “brothers,” having bonded during their time together at Paris Saint-Germain. But the more interesting subplot for digital asset watchers is what’s happening on-chain: Solana-based meme tokens tied to both players are seeing notable trading surges, and Mbappé’s NFT cards on the Sorare platform continue to command prices in the tens of thousands of dollars.
When athletes become ticker symbols
The $MBAPPE meme token on Solana became infamous in 2024 after a hack of Mbappé’s X account was used to artificially inflate the token’s market cap to $464 million before it collapsed spectacularly.
Hakimi-related tokens, including $HAKIMI on Solana, have seen their own trading spikes during this tournament. Morocco’s captain has become a rallying point for fans who apparently express national pride through both jersey purchases and token buys. The pattern is consistent: when a player performs well on the pitch, trading volume on their associated tokens jumps. When they don’t, it evaporates.
