World Cup crypto betting heats up as Colombia faces Switzerland in round of 16

Colombia and Switzerland meet at BC Place in Vancouver on July 7 for a World Cup round of 16 clash. Betting markets slightly favor Colombia heading into the fixture, and those odds aren’t just living on traditional sportsbooks anymore. Prediction platforms like Polymarket are running specific contracts on the Switzerland vs. Colombia outcome, while crypto-native sportsbooks like Cloudbet are heavily promoting the match to their user bases.

Kraken, Polymarket, and the crypto World Cup infrastructure

Kraken was named FIFA’s Official Crypto Exchange Supporter on June 9, 2026, a partnership designed to drive fan engagement through initiatives like Bitcoin-rewarded trading contests.

Prediction markets have also found their sweet spot. Polymarket features contracts tied to individual World Cup matches. Coinbase and Robinhood have entered the prediction market space as well, offering users exposure to match outcomes without needing to navigate offshore sportsbooks. Zoomex is dangling up to $1 million in digital assets for correct predictions.

The CHZ rally tells a bigger story

Chiliz, the token that powers fan engagement platforms in professional sports, saw its CHZ token surge 28% following Colombia’s successful group-stage campaign. That rally happened despite the fact that Colombia doesn’t even have an official national team fan token on the Chiliz ecosystem.

For context, CHZ had spent much of 2025 trading sideways as fan token enthusiasm cooled from its 2021-2022 highs. The World Cup appears to have reignited interest in a sector that many had written off as a novelty.

FIFA’s blockchain experiments go beyond sponsorships

FIFA has been exploring Avalanche blockchain technology for ticketing solutions and digital collectibles, a move that could fundamentally change how fans interact with the tournament. Blockchain-based ticketing addresses one of FIFA’s persistent headaches: the secondary market. Scalpers and counterfeit tickets have plagued previous tournaments. A blockchain ticketing system creates verifiable, traceable tickets that are much harder to forge and can include built-in rules around resale prices.

FIFA already experimented with NFT-adjacent products in 2022. The difference now is that the infrastructure is more mature, gas fees on networks like Avalanche are minimal, and consumer comfort with digital ownership has increased.

What this means for investors

The risk, as always, is that the hype fades when the tournament ends. Fan tokens surged during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, then gave back most of those gains within weeks. Prediction markets, blockchain ticketing, and exchange sponsorships aren’t one-off NFT drops — they’re products with utility beyond the final whistle.

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