Cristiano Ronaldo’s World Cup legacy and the crypto ecosystem built around his name

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is underway, and Cristiano Ronaldo is once again at the center of global attention. At 41, the Portuguese forward is participating in his sixth World Cup edition.

Ronaldo’s most iconic World Cup moment remains his hat-trick against Spain on June 15, 2018, a 3-3 draw. He scored a penalty in the 4th minute, added another goal in the 44th, and sealed the performance with a stunning free-kick in the 88th minute. That match made him the oldest player to record a hat-trick in World Cup history.

From the pitch to the blockchain

Ronaldo’s partnership with Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, produced the CR7 NFT collections around the 2022 World Cup. Those collections, branded as ForeverZone and ForeverSkills, were designed to let fans own digital pieces of his career milestones.

There’s also Ronaldo Coin (RONALDO), a fan token trading on the Ethereum network. It’s not officially affiliated with Ronaldo himself, but it exists as a community-driven celebration of his career.

A World Cup record book that keeps growing

Ronaldo is the first player in history to score in five different World Cup editions, spanning from 2006 through 2022.

What this means for crypto investors watching the World Cup

For Ronaldo-linked assets specifically, his CR7 NFT collections on Binance were built to capitalize on moments exactly like this. The ForeverZone and ForeverSkills collections were designed with event-driven demand in mind.

The risk, as always with athlete-branded tokens and NFTs, is that attention is fleeting. Fan tokens tend to correlate more with media cycles than with fundamentals, because there are no fundamentals in the traditional sense. There’s no revenue model, no earnings report, no product roadmap.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.