temtum has a vision to align our technology and brand with not only individual partners but entire industries who share many of our own values. Esports is seen as one of our core targets for global cryptocurrency adoption with the future generation of consumers, also known as digital natives and Gen-Z, forming a significant share of the market. With speed, scalability, security and sustainability at the core of temtum as a currency, Esports, gamers and fans will connect with our story and mission to make payments feeless, instant, highly secure and environmentally friendly, whilst promoting tournaments, teams and sports stars globally.

Esports and Blockchain

As a high growth industry, Esports has been firmly on the radar of Blockchain startups for the past couple of years, from streaming platforms looking to take on Twitch to management portals to support teams and players, but as with many projects built on Blockchain technology, growth has been much slower than Esports itself. Due to hit $1bn by 2020, and with a significant fanbase in the lucrative Asian market, established sports teams are now jumping in feet first including the likes of McLaren F1 and Manchester United.

There is no doubt this growth is being directly affected by increased consumer awareness around the types of sports turning professional in Esports and with this comes excitement and development from tech companies, including Google with their Stadia platform.

As something new scales so quickly, inevitably a brand new set of issues rise to the surface that require solutions and this is where Blockchain is being explored in more detail than ever before. Tech that was being explored or created 18 months ago was likely ahead of its time and no longer seem relevant orr needed, while the industry as a whole continues to work towards achieving greater stability. One area that has seen significant struggles is professional contracts and payments, from teams to players to sponsors to teams, the structures are simply not there yet as they are with traditional sports such as Premier League Football.

Adam Whyte, a sports lawyer for 6 years and now Founder and CEO of Edge said, “Esports is the wild west: unpaid player salaries, prejudicial contracts, and prize money isn’t distributed. We founded Edge because my Twitter and Discord were overwhelmed with requests from players and teams who hadn’t been paid their salary or received their prize money. They had little judicial recourse and a vague understanding of the intricacies of contracts.”

How will Blockchain change Esports?

Blockchain can bring much to the industry, starting with Smart Contracts to solve the contract disputes as outlined by Whyte above. Bringing an ancient form of deal making in paper contracts into a digital world for a digital industry makes complete sense and will solve a very real problem, something Blockchain has often struggled with as many try to force a fit.

Alongside most contracts sits a requirement for payment following the completion of an action. As this technological shift happens with contracts, ease of payment will be directly supported by blockchain based cryptocurrencies, where instant, feeless transactions are actioned at the moment a contract is successfully completed.

This will bring trust and security to an emerging market at just the right time, leading to greater rights ownerships for players - something that David Beckham successfully pioneered for professional football players over a decade ago - to fans having a greater role to play in the sports, teams and players they follow.

Esports Payments Market & Cryptocurrencies

As a new digital era of sports emerges, it’s clear that it can and will be directly supported by the most innovating cryptocurrencies, improving the experience for all involved without centralised authorities, fees, security risks, all while reducing energy consumption globally, for a community who care greatly about the future of our planet.

With temtum now at the point of a fully developed mainnet, any game, esports platform or smart contract technology can build with the temtum API to activate payments in TEM. This development removes the need for multiple currencies or ERC-20 tokens to become a feature of platforms, with TEM a currency that will also be spendable anywhere through existing point of sale technology.

Professional esport player contracts

Through platforms like Edge, commercial contracts for players will be securely managed by smart contracts, reducing the need for expensive legal guidance, where temtum will allow for cross border payments to be processed instantly and without fees. Even players without an existing temtum wallet can receive TEM via the API, with wallets created on the fly.

Esport team commercial contracts

Esports teams regularly make and receive payments on an international scale, raising issues with cross border payment delays and high fees, with the likes of PayPal regularly utilised due to its prominence as a digital payment processor. On a peer to peer basis, teams will directly benefit from using TEM to process their transactions, avoiding all delays and fees, while tech platforms leading the way in management and contract services will similarly provide solutions for payments in the space via the temtum API.

Sponsor contracts

Sponsors may come into esports with increased acquisition and visibility requirements, due to the digital and data driven nature of the sport, which lends itself to complex smart contract features based on demonstrable results. When transaction fees are not apparent for any party involved, simple escrow management services from a 3rd party contract provider may see sponsorship payments processed more regularly, benefiting all involved and reducing all legal costs on each side.

Tournaments, leagues and competition contracts

Every transaction requires an element of trust and for players and teams, it’s often the competitions and events with rewards and prizes that pose the biggest financial risk to accompany that trust. With a smart contract in place, the trust requirements are reduced and a potential barrier for entry is removed.

Where a currency like temtum becomes so powerful is in realtime reward and bonus payments to teams and players.

During events and live play, sponsors, events and even fans would be able to make payments to those competing, be that via a smart contract or directly peer to peer with a micropayment right up to any $ value of TEM. In the same way an in-game scoreboard is rewarding points during gameplay, the feeless, instant transactions via TEM allow for the same process, in the real world, straight to player or team wallets. Fan purchases & engagements

We envisage a bright future for esports where fan engagement eclipses anything seen before in any sport on the globe, all backed by new technologies that provide access to content beyond what’s possible with real world sports.

Real time bidding on players virtual assets, tipping of players with micropayments, trading of licensed player cards, purchasing of virtual and consumer products during game play and upselling of future event tickets and promotions, all possible with one currency that can be used in the local supermarket while streaming the event on the same device.

As seen in sports such as Formula E with the FanBoost, Esports will be opened up to new engagement possibilities backed by trusted sources, for example not bot or faked input, where the instant and feeless capabilities of temtum are truly appreciated on a global scale.

Fan rewards

Brands giving back is often seen as a way of consumer retention, encouraging returned custom via a discount or accumulated loyalty points. As Esports evolves and fanbases continue to scale, rewards back to the communities are only going to develop to scales unlikely seen outside of the biggest brands on the planet. Without requiring another form token or collectable, TEM enables teams or players to distribute micropayments to viewing fans in real time based on any number of requirements be that engagement, viewing time and team or player performance, once again all controlled by the simple temtum API.

This opens up new opportunities for event management teams to upsell additional technology and functionality or enable teams and players to create their own solutions as part of their own advertising campaigns.

Esports isn’t in need of custom tokens, it simply needs a currency that’s fit for purpose - temtum.