NBA champion Tristan Thompson is teaming up with Unbelievable CEO Herman Narula and co-founder Hadi Teherany to roll out a brand new web3 expertise designed to reinvent basketball fandom for the digital period.
The venture, named basketball.enjoyable, will debut in October forward of the NBA season and can try to gamify the way in which followers work together with gamers and video games, Thompson introduced.
It has been developed on Somnia, a layer 1 blockchain that went reside at the beginning of this month, already notching billions of {dollars} price of buying and selling quantity in its first two weeks.
“That is how we expertise moments collectively, it’s not nearly basketball,” Tristan Thompson stated in a press launch. “We’re creating one thing for the followers that lives past the sport, the place your presence, ardour, and play really matter.”
Tokenized NBA gamers
In contrast to conventional fantasy sports activities or fan tokens, the platform will tokenize NBA gamers with values that fluctuate in actual time based mostly on sentiment and efficiency. Followers will be capable of assemble rosters, speculate on rising expertise, and earn rewards tied to their predictions and engagement.
“The best way followers worth and understand gamers ought to be totally different than house owners and information networks,” Teherany stated in an interview with CoinDesk. “We’re making an attempt to provide energy again to the fan — not simply to foretell who they assume is nice, however to really earn incentives from it. Think about having the ability to show that the fan consensus on a rookie’s potential is extra correct than a group’s entrance workplace.”
Teherany confused that the app gained’t launch with a local token, distancing itself from initiatives like Socios that hinge on token value. As a substitute, gamers will maintain in-app worth that displays fan sentiment and recreation outcomes.
Why Somnia, Not Solana?
Requested why the group selected to construct on Somnia as an alternative of extra established chains like Solana or Avalanche, Teherany pointed to each relationships and philosophy.
“All the pieces on this business comes from genuine relationships,” he stated. “After we met Herman Narula, it was an alignment of imaginative and prescient. He’s not chasing short-term token hype however is dedicated to constructing sports activities and leisure on-chain for the long run. That gave us confidence that this wouldn’t simply be valued on market hypothesis.”
The choice additionally got here after classes realized from a earlier venture, TracyAI, which Teherany stated turned too depending on token efficiency. This time, the main focus is on infrastructure, gamification, and sustainability.
Somnia’s Technical Edge
Somnia went reside on Sep. 2, following a six-month testnet that processed over 10 billion transactions and onboarded 118 million wallets. Backed by UK-based metaverse firm Unbelievable, the community is positioning itself because the quickest EVM-compatible chain, claiming to deal with a couple of million transactions per second with sub-second finality.
At launch, Somnia onboarded 60 validators, together with Google Cloud, and has built-in with protocols like LayerZero, Sequence, and Thirdweb. Its native token, SOMI, has practically doubled in worth since launch and is already processing billions in each day quantity.
For Teherany, Somnia’s traction provides credibility: “They’ve accomplished billions in each day quantity, larger than a number of the main exchanges. That’s a testomony to what they’re constructing—and what we’re constructing on high of it.”
Street to Tip-Off
The venture’s first main reveal is scheduled for Korea Blockchain Week, the place Thompson will share his imaginative and prescient alongside Narula and Teherany. Attendees of Somnia Home, the community’s flagship facet occasion in Seoul on September 23, will get an early have a look at the app and roadmap.
“We need to make this as approachable as potential,” Teherany stated. “The blockchain layer ought to really feel invisible. Whether or not you’re a crypto native or only a basketball fan, you’ll be capable of be a part of, play, and assist outline the narrative of the game.”
