FIFA wanted Avalanche's blockchain to help curb World Cup ticket scalping. Here's how it's going

4 min readMake preferred on ShareShare this articleCopy linkX iconX (Twitter)LinkedInFacebookEmailMake preferred on Lionel Messi (Koji Watanabe/Getty Images)SummaryShowWelcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s tech newsletter covering the most important stories in blockchain. I’m Margaux Nijkerk, a reporter at CoinDesk. We’re revamping the newsletter to bring you a deeper look at the biggest trends, breakthroughs and debates shaping blockchain technology each week. This week, we're looking at how FIFA is using the Avalanche blockchain to test out a new ticketing system As the 2026 FIFA World Cup unfolds across North America, one of blockchain's biggest real-world tests is happening largely behind the scenes. FIFA Collect, the federation's digital collectibles and fan platform, is using the Avalanche network and Modex for its operations to power a new ticketing model designed to address some of the biggest frustrations in sports: bots, ticket fraud and runaway secondary-market prices. The system, which is on a customizable Avalanche Layer-1 blockchain known as the FIFA blockchain, revolves around two features for a designated number of tickets: a Right-to-Buy (RTB) and a Right-to-Ticket (RTT). Neither is the ticket itself. Instead, an RTB is a digital entitlement that gives fans priority access to purchase a specific ticket before it becomes publicly available, giving them another way to buy tickets. Fans can acquire RTBs through FIFA Collect and trade them on secondary markets at a market value. Once redeemed, the RTB converts into an RTT, which can then be used to purchase an official match ticket through FIFA's existing ticketing infrastructure. The concept may sound complicated, but the underlying goal is straightforward: move ticket resale activity into an environment controlled by FIFA rather than third-party marketplaces. "It's a little bit of the Taylor Swift problem," said Dominic Carbonaro, who leads the consumer enterprise vertical at Ava Labs, the main developer firm supporting Avalanche. "Concert gets announced, huge influx of buying comes in, primarily from bots. They buy all the tickets, and then the secondary market sales happen." The RTB model, he said, "shifts where the secondary sales market takes place." Traditionally, event organizers sell tickets at face value and much of the value created by overwhelming demand is captured later by companies such as StubHub, SeatGeek or Vivid Seats. FIFA's approach attempts to bring some of that activity back into its own ecosystem, part of a broader strategy around the 2026 World Cup that has seen the organization seek tighter control over everything from ticketing and fan data to stadium branding and commercial operations around venues. According to figures shared by Ava Labs, more than 100,000 RTBs have been issued to date. More than 50,000 Club World Cup tickets have been distributed in bundles with RTBs. Secondary-market volume for RTTs has surpassed $15 million, while combined RTB and RTT volume has exceeded $25 million. The numbers are notable because they represent something the crypto industry has struggled to produce in recent years: a blockchain application tied to a real-world product rather than speculation. For Ava Labs, the project is less about NFTs and more about infrastructure. "We want to deliver Web2 experiences with blockchain underneath," Carbonaro said. "The user should not even know they're using blockchain." The goal is for fans to interact with a familiar consumer application while blockchain handles verification and asset ownership in the background. The actual match tickets, however, are still issued through FIFA's existing ticketing infrastructure. When a fan redeems an RTB, it converts into an RTT, which can then be used to access the official ticket purchase process and obtain the underlying ticket through FIFA's traditional system. "The tickets are now 100% verifiable onchain, so it reduces all types of fraud, fake secondary sales, etc.," Carbonaro said. That may be particularly valuable for an event like the World Cup, which attracts global demand and has historically been a target for ticket scams and counterfeit listings. But the experiment raises an important question: who benefits most? Ava Labs claimed that for fans, the value proposition is greater certainty. Rather than entering lotteries or waiting in digital queues, users can acquire a tradable right that guarantees access to purchase a ticket. For FIFA, however, the benefits extend much further. Beyond new revenue opportunities, the model gives FIFA more visibility into who ultimately attends its events. In the traditional ticketing ecosystem, much of that information is controlled by secondary marketplaces. "The actual administrator of those tickets, FIFA, has no idea who the people are buying," Carbonaro said. "That data sits with SeatGeek, StubHub, Ticketmaster, Vivid Seats." He argued that FIFA Collect's RTB and RTT system gives FIFA greater

FIFA wanted Avalanche's blockchain to help curb World Cup ticket scalping. Here's how it's going

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FIFA wanted Avalanche's blockchain to help curb World Cup ticket scalping. Here's how it's going

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