By
Kseniia Klichova
December 28th, 2021
The official fan token from McLaren will be functional on the Bitci blockchain network and will give certain voting rights to the owners in team decisions.
On Wednesday, March 24, Formula 1’s popular auto racing team McLaren announced its long-term partnership with Turkey-based crypto exchange Bitci.com. This partnership comes as McLaren seeks to launch its official fan token in a first-of-its-kind move in the auto racing space.
McLaren and Bitci Network
McLaren also announced that the fan token will also run on Turkey’s first native blockchain Bitci chain. The Turkish crypto exchange is quite popular in the country with nearly $50 million in daily trading volumes. Besides, the partnership also makes the crypto exchange an official partner of the racing team. Thus, Bitci.com branding will appear on the McLaren MCL35M race cars as well as the on the driver helmets of the McLaren F1 drivers, Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo.
In the official press release, Mark Waller, Chief Commercial Officer, McLaren Racing said:
“We are delighted to announce Bitci.com as an official partner of our McLaren F1 team. This long-term partnership with the brand and our introduction of a fan token will be the first of its kind in this sport. We look forward to working with Bitci.com and seeing the brand for the first time on the MCL35M at the start of the 2021 Formula 1 season in Bahrain this weekend.”
Rising Appeal of Fan Tokens in Sports Teams
Sports teams worldwide are currently rising on the blockchain and the crypto wave with the rising appeal for fan tokens. These limited-edition digital fan tokens are making partners with their fans. The token owners also get some voting rights on certain decisions made by the teams. Besides, different sports clubs also offer the token owners some additional benefits.
Fan tokens are in the craze over the last two years. Premier football club FC Barcelona sold $1.3 million worth of its $BAR tokens last year in 2020.
Last year, Turkey was the host to the Formula 1 Turkish Grand Prix. Although the event proceeded, it was without any fan audience owing to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Speaking about this new partnership, Çağdaş Çağlar, Chairman, Bitci Technology said:
“Formula 1 is among the most acclaimed and watched sports in the world. The fact that McLaren Racing, one of the most outstanding teams and considered as one of the legends of Formula 1 all over the world with its successes, has chosen to work with a Turkish blockchain company for this project is very significant as this is the solid proof for the global success of Turkish entrepreneurs, engineers and software developers.”
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