Author: TechFlow
The market may fluctuate ruthlessly, but that won’t stop us from watching the Olympics.
From the opening ceremony that combined art and abstraction to the emergence of Yusuf Dikec, a Turkish sharpshooter with his hands in his pockets, this year's Paris Olympics has been a hot topic. The Olympics, or sports in general, never lack spectators. The pursuit of breaking through human limits is itself a great attraction, and the stories that happen in the arena, whether it's a rookie becoming famous in one battle or a veteran realizing his dream after many twists and turns, are enough to move people.
This level of attention has also been further extended to the Web3 industry. As the slogan of "embracing the attention economy" has gained momentum, Web3 projects with sports as the main narrative have also begun to capture a lot of attention. Among them, a Web3 sports project named "Atleta Network" and the test network name "Olympia" seems quite appropriate.
Atleta: ἀθλητής in Ancient Greek, usually referring to the champion of a public game;
Olympia: Ολυμπία in ancient Greek, a city in the southern plains of Greece, the site of the ancient Olympic Games.
As the first universal, modular, multi-layer blockchain network built specifically for the sports industry, Atleta Network launched a test network activity in May this year. Participants can accumulate points and airdrop chips by completing tasks, staking interactions, and other operations. The transaction volume in the first month exceeded 3 million transactions, attracting more than 200,000 Web3 users.
In addition, in order to further attract users and developers to participate in the ecosystem, Atleta Network has also launched a number of incentive programs: the Atleta Ambassador Program aims to recruit passionate, influential and creative community members to create high-quality content and spread it widely on social media. Creators will be able to obtain a total bonus pool of US$150,000 and other network rewards; the Atleta Developer Grants Program aims to encourage developers to deploy sports dApps, DeFi tools, network infrastructure and other innovative solutions based on Atleta. Successfully selected developers and projects can receive up to US$50,000 worth of ATLA token rewards.
The outstanding performance of the test network and multiple incentive plans have driven more community members to be curious about Atleta Network: How does Atleta enable the comprehensive development of the sports industry in the Web3 world through blockchain technology? Is the test network activity worth participating in?
This article aims to take a closer look at Atleta Network and further understand the future development opportunities and challenges of Atleta Network and Web3 sports by exploring its project logic, team background, and specific ways to participate in the test network.
Blockchain Sports Ecosystem flagship product: Supported by Adidas Web3 Director and former Binance Director
As we all know, from event tickets, fan economy to prediction markets, behind the extremely high attention paid to sports is a huge commercial economy.
Taking football as an example, according to the "2023 Football Financial Report" released by Deloitte, one of the world's four largest accounting firms, the annual revenue of the top five European football leagues exceeds 17.2 billion euros. In addition, the World Cup cycle financial report released by FIFA shows that the 2022 Qatar World Cup revenue reached 5.769 billion US dollars. The event attracted more than 5 billion viewers, accounting for 62.5% of the world's population.
As the influence of Web3 continues to grow, major sports officials have also begun to explore the introduction of Web3 technology to bring the latest gameplay in recent years. The decentralization, openness and transparency of Web3 do have a wide range of applicable scenarios in the sports field. For example: the introduction of blockchain technology in ticket sales can further ensure ticket transparency and fairness; using NFT and token economy, teams and their athletes can establish closer ties with fans; through smart contracts, transactions in the prediction market are automatically executed and settled, which greatly enhances the credibility of the prediction platform.
According to Mordor Intelligence research, Web3 sports will grow rapidly at a compound annual growth rate of 9% by 2028.
At present, we can also see many Web3 projects that combine sports narratives, such as NBA TopShot, which has a daily transaction volume of more than 40 million US dollars with the official endorsement and fan base of the NBA. Another example is the football game platform Sorare, where players can buy their favorite star NFTs to form a fantasy team to participate in the game and win rewards. As of July 23, the Sorare game platform has accumulated a total of 3.7 million game players. It can be said that the market for Web3 combined with sports has already taken shape.
Unlike most application-based Web3 sports projects, Atleta Network aims to build an EVM-compatible, modular Layer 1 ecosystem with native cross-chain interoperability, providing high-performance, low-cost one-stop Web3 services to sports organizations around the world.
According to the official white paper, Atleta Network is the flagship product of Blockchain Sports Ecosystem. As an international blockchain sports project, Blockchain Sports Ecosystem aims to introduce advanced technologies such as AI, VR/AR, IoT and blockchain into the sports world, help talented young players grow and promote the prosperity of blockchain experience. After years of deep cultivation in the industry, Blockchain Sports Ecosystem has established 3 football academies in Brazil, a football powerhouse, attracting more than 200 players to study and gaining recognition from 500+ professional players worldwide.
After years of involvement in the blockchain sports field, Blockchain Sports Ecosystem has established a deeper insight into the pain points of the track, market demand, and product forms, and has also laid a good foundation for Atleta Network to better serve sports organizations and empower the development of Web3 sports.
In addition, we can see that although we can currently obtain less information about the project on social media, and Rootdata does not show either the team or financing, according to the recent updates of the Atleta Network official Twitter, many industry leaders have joined the Atleta Network by serving as consultants and participating in investments:
Among them is Evgeniy Medvedev, the former global head of Web3 strategy for Adidas, the world's top sportswear manufacturer. Evgeniy Medvedev also worked at the NFT project Rarible in charge of business development. With his deep understanding of the sports industry and keen insight into emerging technologies, the addition of Evgeniy Medvedev means that Atleta Network will be able to better integrate sports resources, promote innovation and cooperation, and further expand market share.
Another member worth noting is Ryan Horn. As a global leader in the Web3 industry, Ryan Horn has extensive resources in sports, entertainment, and gaming. He previously served as CEO of MARK, co-founder of N3On, and Director of Binance NFT. As a member of the Atleta Network Advisory Board, Ryan Horn's rich resume not only provides a forward-looking perspective for project development, but also makes the community have high expectations for Atleta Network's subsequent in-depth cooperation with Binance.
Tailor-made for the sports industry: an inside look at the Atleta Network architecture design
Atleta is a modular Layer 1 blockchain that is EVM-compatible and has native cross-chain interoperability. It combines smart contract creation, distributed data storage, financial transactions, and a decentralized application deployment ecosystem, aiming to provide a one-stop service for sports organizations in their exploration of the Web3 world.
Since the beginning of 2023, about 1,000 Web3 developers from all over the world (UAE, Eastern Europe, Germany, etc.) have been working on the development of Atleta Network to better meet the needs of sports data management, financial activities and sports dApp (decentralized application) deployment.
Architecturally, the Atleta blockchain is built on the Polkadot software development kit (SDK) and combines four main elements: parachains, XCM+, cross-chain interoperability, and NPoS.
Parachain
Supports different sports organizations to create their own independent chains on Atleta to take advantage of all the features of the network. Therefore, sports clubs can keep certain data private on Atleta's distributed ledger while taking advantage of all validator sets, block explorers, decentralized exchanges and other features.
XCM+
Atleta will adopt XCM (Cross Consensus Messaging) for communication between parachains. The Atleta team is expanding the current capabilities of XCM with the aim of integrating complementary ancillary solutions such as IBC or CCIP.
Three-layer modular design
Atleta divides different network functions into three layers to achieve better performance. Atleta’s modular structure includes data storage, smart contract execution, and decentralized application deployment layers:
ATLETA - EL - (Execution Layer): EVM-compatible smart contract platform that supports transactions and development of decentralized applications.
ATLETA - IO - (Interoperability): Responsible for cross-chain communication, using relay points to transfer assets and messages.
ATLETA - SL - (Storage Layer): A data layer for storing any type of information (videos, text files, etc.) in a decentralized manner.
All three layers are interconnected and managed by a general-purpose node network, designed to leverage the verifiability and auditability of blockchain data structures to provide an open, permissionless, censorship-resistant, trusted and neutral environment for the development and deployment of decentralized applications.
NPoS
Atleta's unique consensus system is different from traditional proof of stake, adding a new layer of transaction approval participants - nominators. Users become nominators by staking Atleta's native token $ATLA, randomly assigning validators among network nodes or users. As a result, the network becomes more secure and more beneficial to stakers.
The unique architecture makes Atleta Network more suitable for the needs of the sports industry. Specifically, Atleta Network provides the following functions for sports organizations:
Transparently and securely store data in a decentralized manner to enhance data management;
Create custom dApps and deploy them on Atleta’s dApps execution layer;
Issue fan-oriented tokens to enhance the connection between fans and sports organizations and idols;
Simplify financial operations through a series of DeFi components within the ecosystem, provide diversified investment strategies and reduce transaction fees;
Create new ways to monetize by selling digital goods and memorabilia on the platform’s NFT marketplace.
For individual users, Atleta Network also provides a variety of participation options and income channels:
Buy and sell sports digital products in the marketplace;
Store assets including cryptocurrencies, NFTs, etc. in native wallets;
Leverage Atleta’s DeFi ecosystem for cryptocurrency trading, exchange, and lending;
Participate in fantasy sports games and win big prizes by winning in the league;
Interact directly with sports stars, support them and get rewarded;
Vote on decisions about your favorite team or athlete.
With its unique architecture, flexible modular design, innovative consensus mechanism and rich industry resources, Atleta Network not only further enhances the user experience, but also opens up new business models and ways of interaction for the sports industry. It is becoming an important force in promoting the deep integration of Web3 and the sports industry.
Token TGE is coming soon: Atleta Olympia testnet interaction details
As the native token of Atleta Network, all activities on Atleta are in ATLA, which has the following utilities:
Gas settlement: Users’ interactions on the Atleta Network need to use ATLA as Gas settlement;
Participate in governance: Users who stake ATLA can receive staking rewards and participate in governance;
Parachain deployment: Parachains on the Atleta Network lease the security of verification nodes. In order to obtain a parachain slot, joining a parachain requires locking a certain amount of ATLA.
In addition, the ATLA token adopts a fixed supply + destruction deflation mechanism. After the main network is launched in the future, the tokens will be destroyed based on the community governance voting results. When the network enters the operational maturity stage, Atleta Network will directly incorporate the destruction mechanism into the transaction model. To significantly reduce the supply of ATLA tokens to protect the rights and interests of currency holders.
According to the currently published token economic model, the total supply of ATLA tokens is 7.5 billion, of which 20% will be used for user ecosystem incentives, and this testnet activity will allocate 5.33% of the airdrop quota.
In this testnet, Atleta Network provides each user with daily tasks updated every 24 hours and weekly tasks updated every week. Participants can earn points by completing tasks, staking interactions, and other operations. After the testnet ends, participants with the highest points will receive rewards.
The specific ways to participate are as follows:
1️⃣ Click the link below to directly participate in the testnet:
https://app-olympia.atleta.network/verification?invite=11awcN
On the testnet page, users first need to connect to their wallet/Twitter/Discord. In addition, the Atleta Network testnet also introduces social gameplay, where participants can obtain points acceleration by binding invitation codes and successfully inviting friends through invitation codes.
2️⃣ Water
Click Faucet on the homepage, enter the address in the box below, and click Send.
3️⃣Score
Participants can continuously improve their points ranking by doing the following:
Participate in governance and staking tasks, and interact across chains through bridges (this process can be repeated multiple times to increase on-chain interaction data);
Share your invitation link with your friends. The more friends you successfully invite, the more points you will earn.
Check daily and weekly tasks and keep completing them
According to Atleta Blockchain Explorer, an average of over 1,000 users perform 75,000 ATLA transactions per day. Currently, the total number of transactions exceeds 5 million.
In general, the task settings are relatively conventional, and the time and economic costs required for participants are not large. In addition, the official team has made it clear that the Atleta Network mainnet will be officially launched in the fall of 2024 and the token TGE will be launched subsequently. This will greatly shorten the user's time cost to a certain extent. Therefore, many community members believe that participating in the Atleta Network testnet will be a good choice for laying out the Web3 sports track.
Conclusion
According to the official roadmap:
On the product side, in the third quarter of 2024, Atleta Network will end the testnet, complete the code audit and promote the launch of the mainnet, and will then assist dApps in the ecosystem to transition to the mainnet; in the fourth quarter of 2024, Atleta Network will focus on integrating/activating DNS and implementing ATLETA V1 and Bridge V2.0.
On the market side, Atleta Network has announced partnerships with a number of projects including Aether, Cookie3, ChainGPT, Dmail, Nancen, etc., and the ecological landscape is gradually enriched. In addition, Atleta Network has also launched an ambassador program to encourage more active participation from community users. In the third and fourth quarters of 2024, Atleta Network will implement a number of ecological incentive plans on the one hand, and on the other hand, it will actively promote the listing of ATLA tokens and continue to seek cooperation with more DeFi and other projects to continuously promote the further prosperity of the ecology.
2024 is a big year for sports. Whether it is the European Cup or the Olympics, we have witnessed the global enthusiasm and attention for sports. The combination of Web3 and sports can not only improve the operational efficiency of sports organizations through the power of decentralization and create more business opportunities, but also enhance the participation and inspiration of fans, showing a broad development prospect.
With its unique positioning as "the first universal, modular, multi-layer blockchain network built specifically for the sports industry", rich industry experience and resources, and sophisticated product design, Atleta Network is becoming an important bridge connecting sports and blockchain technology.
With the mainnet approaching, the token TGE coming, and a series of milestones being achieved, Atleta Network, as an important force in paving the Web3 transformation of the sports industry, is looking forward to more exciting performances from Atleta Network in the future.