Messi turns 39 at the World Cup, and crypto markets are paying attention

Lionel Messi rang in his 39th birthday the way you’d expect from someone still playing at a World Cup: with a midnight workout before the final round of group-stage matches kicked off on June 24.

The GOAT keeps scoring, and traders keep buying

Messi scored twice during the group stage, pushing his career total to 18 men’s World Cup goals. That makes him the all-time leading scorer in the history of the tournament.

Every time Messi does something remarkable on the pitch, something interesting happens off it. The Argentina fan token, $ARG, saw trading spikes during his most impactful matches, with prices peaking above $5.

Messi himself has been connected to the fan token ecosystem for years. His endorsement deal with Socios.com, the platform behind many of these tokens, is valued at over $20 million since 2022.

Kraken, FIFA, and crypto’s biggest stage

On June 9, Kraken became FIFA’s first official crypto exchange supporter. That’s a landmark partnership, the first time the governing body of global football has formally aligned with a cryptocurrency exchange.

Then there’s FIFA Collect, the organization’s NFT platform that launched dynamic national team collectibles in May 2026. These NFTs run on the dedicated FIFA Blockchain and evolve based on tournament progress. So if Argentina advances, the collectibles tied to the team change accordingly.

What this means for the crypto market

Fan tokens have historically been a niche market with relatively thin liquidity. The $ARG token spiking above $5 during Messi’s goals illustrates how quickly sentiment can shift trading volumes when a massive audience is watching simultaneously. Prediction markets have also seen rising activity as match outcomes unfolded throughout the group stage.

The risk is that this is almost entirely sentiment-driven. Fan tokens don’t represent equity in a football club. They don’t generate yield. Their value is a function of attention, and historically, fan token prices have corrected sharply after major events.

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