It’s kick-off time: Enjoy Euro 2020 finals the crypto and blockchain way

The date is set. July 11 is when soccer fans all over the world can, for a period of at least 90 minutes, forget all about what’s wrong with the outside world and finally get to witness who will be the winner of one of the most widely viewed sports in the world. England and Italy will compete for the honor to win the coveted UEFA European Football Championship 2020, or Euro 2020, trophy, which only comes around once every two years.

Here is a little thought experiment for all the casual soccer fans out there: Try to think of every active soccer player you can think of. If the athletes in question are all relatively established and play for the top leagues in the world, then there is a high probability that they are representing their country in this year’s Euro 2020 championship.

To really put things into perspective as to how big this event is, a recent study showed that a staggering 23.8 million viewers watched England’s historic Euro 2020 victory against Denmark, with the last five minutes of the nail-biting semi-finals drawing a peak audience of over 25.7 million. In fact, the event’s viewership was only eclipsed in recent memory by the United Kingdom Prime Minister’s coronavirus announcement back in May, which was seen by nearly 27 million people across six different local news channels.

This final promises to be a banger

A month of tense and exhilarating soccer has passed by and now it’s time for the two remaining top dogs, Italy and England, to fight it out at the historical Wembley Stadium.

In the past, the tournament has seen many of Europe’s heavyweights slug it out. However, it bears mentioning that this time around, the Italian team, The Azzurri, has yet to lose a match in a whopping 33 international games, leaving them just a step away from carving their names in the records of soccer history.

Their opponent, England, also known as the Three Lions, has also had strong gameplay through this year’s Euro 2020. They only allowed one goal during their entire campaign, which is quite an impressive feat, considering the level of competition they had to face — countries like Germany, the Czech Republic and Ukraine — to get to the finals. In all, the rosters for both teams look stacked and on paper, this clash should and probably will be a thriller.

As one can expect, there is going to be a lot of betting happening for this game, with the oddsmakers giving the slight edge to England, which is arguably a surprise considering Italy’s unbeaten run. However, the importance of home-turf advantage can never be underestimated in soccer, no matter how many Italian’s may have crossed over to watch the finals in person.

Lastly, with the rise of blockchain casinos and increased crypto adoption globally, a growing number of digital currency investors seem to have started making use of their crypto assets for gambling purposes. Therefore, it stands to reason that a lot of these folks may be betting on this game as well, either through crypto gambling platforms or even prediction markets.

How to get engaged: The crypto way

In recent years, a growing list of mainstream soccer clubs has continued to launch their very own digital currencies/fan tokens. And while the jury is still divided on the actual utility of these offerings, the fact of the matter remains that the soccer world has been quite sharp in recognizing the technological and monetary proposition put forth by crypto.

In terms of betting, there are dozens of established gambling websites that accept a wide range of cryptocurrencies — including Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Tether (USDT), Ethereum (ETH) and more. There are many options out there and it’s just a matter of which platform a person decides to use in the end.

It also goes without saying that several betting sites are currently offering their users numerous side-bets — another facet of online gambling that crypto enthusiasts can engage with. For example, the