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Canada’s men’s national soccer team sits atop Group B of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and the next match could cement something that felt impossible a decade ago: the host nation advancing as group winners on home soil.
On June 24, Canada faces Switzerland at BC Place in Vancouver. Both teams have 4 points, but Canada leads on goal difference after dismantling Qatar 6-0 in their previous outing. A win or draw against the FIFA No. 19-ranked Swiss side would clinch first place and, critically, a more favorable knockout-round path.
What’s at stake on the pitch
The expanded 48-team format makes this World Cup the largest ever, and Canada is co-hosting alongside Mexico and the United States. That means advancing as Group B’s top seed would likely keep the team playing in Canadian venues deeper into the tournament.
Crypto’s growing footprint at the World Cup
Kraken was announced as the Official Crypto Exchange Supporter of FIFA on June 9, 2026, a partnership designed to weave cryptocurrency into the fan experience at the tournament.
Chiliz (CHZ), the token underpinning the largest fan token ecosystem in sports, experienced a 28% rally during early tournament matchdays. Fan tokens themselves, which give holders voting rights on minor club decisions and access to perks, tend to see volume spikes around major international tournaments.
There’s no official Canada Soccer fan token at the moment, which is a notable gap.
On the NFT side, FIFA’s own collectibles platform, FIFA Collect, migrated to a custom Avalanche-powered network in 2025. That infrastructure shift moved FIFA’s digital collectibles off Algorand and onto a chain better suited for handling transaction volume during peak moments.
What this means for crypto investors
The immediate trade to watch is CHZ. A 28% rally on early matchdays suggests the market is pricing in increased engagement as the tournament progresses.
Fan token rallies during tournaments have a well-documented pattern: they spike on excitement and fade when the final whistle blows on the last match. The question for investors isn’t whether CHZ pumps during the World Cup. It’s whether the Kraken partnership, the improved NFT infrastructure, and the expanded 48-team format create enough sustained engagement to break the cycle of post-tournament selloffs.
For traders with shorter time horizons, the Canada-Switzerland match on June 24 is a clear catalyst event. The 3:00 p.m. ET kickoff is worth marking on the calendar for what the on-chain activity tells us about how deeply crypto has embedded itself in the world’s biggest sport.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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