Blockchain 3.0: Ready to Impact The Sports Business Model

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Editors’s Note

Hey folks - I’m away this week so I’m leaving you in the incredibly capable hands of Sandy Khaund. Sandy sold a blockchain ticketing company to Ticketmaster in 2018, and is now the CEO of Credenza.

His piece is about how data is the next big unlock for blockchain in sports.

Blockchain’s Bizarre Arc

2025 marks my tenth year working on blockchain-related products.

As I will tell anyone who will listen, I am more bullish about it today than I have ever been. As my friend John Kosner would say, there is still reason to believe in blockchain.

To understand where it is going, it’s worth a quick look back.

Has any technology undergone as bizarre an arc as Blockchain? 

From its peculiar beginnings as a pseudonymized Bitcoin white paper in 2008 and then the 17-year old wunderkind Vitalik Buterin that helped usher in smart contracts on Ethereum, it's amazing to think about what Blockchain has experienced--and endured. Crypto bros, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), energy consumption concerns, black market transactions, passphrase scams.

It has even been the political firebrand that arguably played a role in the most recent US Presidential election. 

The schadenfreude of naysayers who watched NFT values plummet was vicious.

Has anyone ever rooted harder against a technology? 

Say what you will about AI, but generations of AI have existed before we reached the phase of Generative AI, and it's only now that it has to battle public perception.

Blockchain wasn't even 10 years old when it was already associated with rampant controversy in many circles. 

And yet blockchain endures.

The security model continues to be sound. New blockchains make tremendous strides in throughput and latency, creating a Moore's Law effect, while increased proliferation of wallets is building the foundation for Metcalfe's Law (the power of a network is proportional to the number of users squared).

This is a good time to introduce the reason for my optimism

Blockchain 3.0.

If the mainstreaming of Bitcoin and the proliferation of cryptocurrencies in 2017 represent Blockchain 1.0, and the NFT boom represents Blockchain 2.0, it's only natural that we have another iteration. That next iteration is going to be sustainable because it’s going to be built around data. 

I’ll explain what I mean by this.  

The problem with the first two phases of Blockchain popularity is that we quickly moved to the unsustainable money grab instead of truly investigating the technology and its possibilities. 

Murphy’s Law says “anything that can happen, will happen” – and if you apply that to blockchain technology, where permissionless access and value transfer are inherent, it’s no shock that there has been an overabundance of speculation. 

And yet, it was never intended to be about that, but rather a more efficient transaction-capable alternative to our existing systems that removes friction and democratizes access.

We can dwell on the bad actors that took the industry's intent and failed it, but we need to look at the survivors and the importance of these players. Escrow, collateralized lending, micropayment distribution — these are existing real-life use cases that are infinitely better on a blockchain.

The travails of Terra Luna and FTX don't discredit these use cases any more than Bernie Madoff discredits wealth managers and Theranos invalidates bio-tech. Yet we use the failures of bad actors to discredit an entire technology. 

I’m confident the true benefits of these iterations will ultimately come to fruition. 

While the previous waves of popularity for blockchain held promise, I always found the successes of these movements frustrating. Yes, digital money was exciting. And yes, authenticated digital assets had their place. But the flexibility and programmability of the blockchain were largely being ignored. Blockchain is built on a public key infrastructure that enables unique digital identities that are bound by mathematical algorithms, not usernames & passwords in someone’s database. The smart contracts which serve as the fundamental building blocks not only provide self-executing responses to state changes, but there’s a layer of security around the functionality of the smart contract that enables what Microsoft used to describe as Code Access Security that requires authorization to perform actions (this is why only the owner of a traditional NFT can transfer that NFT once it is sold). Blockchain also has the intrinsic capability to broadcast information to other digital entities that may be listening (think of it as notifications for services and applications). This allows for the trigger of external actions when a specific event happens (in technical terms, this can be described as a publisher-subscriber or pub-sub model). 

It’s easy to read this and think:

“So what does any of that have to do with data?” 

Well, think about the problems with data in most systems. It’s often inconsistent, inaccessible, and inflexible.

A lot of care is taken to try to attribute data to the correct user, often using an email address as the common ID, even though that skirts the line regarding customer privacy.

A blockchain identity is a seemingly random set of hexadecimal characters that contains no personally identifiable information, and can also be paired with a unique password (managed by a blockchain wallet) that can authorize not only a confirmation of identity, but also subsequent actions and access that should be controlled by the customer. The business gets greater data fidelity, while the customer can provide consistent credentials that don’t expose data that isn’t important (like your email address). 

Of course, most systems pack the data away in a special vault, whether it’s a database, a CRM system, a data warehouse, or the dozens of other options that are intended to protect the data while enabling tremendous analytics, which will only improve with the proliferation of AI. 

But how do you extract that information for real-time hyper-personalization? 

Real Time Hyper-Personalization

Most current data centres are focused on the macro, but have a modest impact on the micro. And lest we forget that this data often lives across systems. 

The best businesses aren’t fiefdoms, but rather ecosystems. 

Partners, Vendors, Sponsors. They all participate. 

Blockchain offers a decentralized alternative.

This allows rightsholders to effectively and responsibly share data domains devices in the world. The blockchain has removed the personally-identifiable information (PII) that represent a vulnerability when attempting to comply with legal requirements such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), taking the authorization power out of the hands of a third-party, and created a consistent profile of data that is portable in the myriad of scenarios where a fan interacts with their favorite team.

The smart contracts can determine the fidelity of the data that is returned (detailed data vs digest data vs an overarching score) and can be updated as vendor/sponsor relationships are continually changing.

Ecosystem contributors can participate in publishing data, reading data, and listening to updates to data, to provide timely responsiveness to action.

Ultimately, all businesses are about getting the right offer to the right person at the right time. Blockchain is uniquely suited to address these elements. Data all in one place and the ability for the user to authorize themselves, it also creates authorized access to their own data, allowing them to remove or delete it.

Given the constraints of laws like GDPR, CCPA, there is an opportunity to provide the user with “self-sovereignty” of their data. It’s the best of both worlds—the data is not linked to a personally identifiable ID, and yet the customer has detailed access to the record that is on file against this agnostic PII-free identity. 

The Opportunity for Sports

At Credenza, we built our technology on this philosophy with the belief that the sports world could benefit from this approach to data more than any other industry. 

Why? 

Rightsholders rarely sell their fans anything. 

They license companies like Ticketmaster to sell tickets, companies like Fanatics to sell merchandise, companies like Aramark and Legends to sell concessions, and the TV networks and streaming services to broadcast content.

It’s those proxies that manage the experiences, but it’s the rightsholder that holds the data. That is a very real fragmentation that can be overcome by the Blockchain 3.0 approach.

Of course, starting a blockchain company in 2022 wasn’t easy. The hangover from the NFT boom, coupled with the high-profile destruction of the cryptodarlings Terra Luna and FTX made for a difficult environment. 

Fortunately, the St. Louis Blues in the National Hockey League were intrigued with our value proposition and signed on to be our first team.  

A core philosophy of Blockchain 3.0 is that, unlike earlier iterations, the technology itself is no longer the star. In the past, cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were central — the key attraction being that they were on the blockchain. But the Blockchain 3.0 approach is different: it must seamlessly integrate blockchain technology into existing environments. 

To borrow a line from the chemical company BASF in the 1970s: “We don’t make the products you use. We make the products you use better.” 

In that spirit, we focused on embedding our technology into established systems and services — without requiring a complete overhaul.

The St. Louis Blues are one of the more forward-thinking teams in professional sports, and at the time of engaging with them, already had several innovative investments we wanted to accommodate. At the forefront was Tunespeak, a St. Louis-based company that creates immersive experiences across music and sports. They developed a community platform called Bluenatics, which included features like polls, voting, and "register to win" contests. It became a hub for Blues fans to connect and engage directly with official team content — without relying on third-party platforms like Facebook or Twitter.

Led by Matt Gardner and his team, Bluenatics became the cornerstone of the Blues’ fan engagement strategy. For us at Credenza, the goal was to integrate with Bluenatics, not replace it or sit beside it. Success meant fans wouldn’t have to change their behavior—their experience would simply evolve. Tunespeak had already done a fine job engaging over 100,000 registered users with their features. Our goal was to accentuate, not distract. 

Beyond Tunespeak’s Bluenatics community, the Blues worked with several partners, including Yinzcam for app development, Rank & Rally for e-commerce, RetailCloud for in-venue transactions, Ticketmaster for ticketing, and Mantis XR, which helped create a unique virtual 3d experience. Our mission was to collaborate with these providers, ingest relevant data, and build a composite model for each fan’s blockchain wallet. This would ultimately allow any of these services to access shared customer data, with the user’s consent.

Before any of this could work, though, we needed a universal identifier.

There are many existing blockchain wallets, but we didn’t want to rely on Metamask or traditional wallets—they’re too complex for casual fans, especially on mobile devices. Historically, Credenza managed credentialing and wallet association ourselves. However, the Blues had already worked with Tunespeak to create a Bluenatics login built on OAuth, providing a consistent identity across their platforms.

This identity, rooted in an email address and platform-specific IDs, needed to be linked to a blockchain key pair. Our goal was to associate each user’s existing login with a public key, making that the universal, privacy-preserving identifier. This way, no personal information is exposed, and every service can reference the same identity. 

We’d already built OAuth adapters for Google, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Bluesky, Ticketmaster, and Spotify. So, integrating with the Bluenatics login was straightforward. Tunespeak was an outstanding partner—they enabled us to extend existing accounts into the blockchain with user consent and made it part of the onboarding process for new signups.

This leads to a broader point about how blockchain can transform data strategy. For years, success was measured by how many email addresses you could collect—especially during the heyday of email marketing. At Ticketmaster, we used a term “names to file”. But those addresses often came with minimal context. At best, a CRM or CDP would append some basic activity data. It’s remarkable how many emails I receive from teams I don’t care about because I attended a game in their building, even though I was there to see the visiting team. I was a “name to file”, but I haven’t provided much ROI.  

A blockchain address adorned with contextual data collected across sources and syndicated across sources could be something very different. A friend from one of the major US sports league offices challenged me with a question:

“What is a blockchain address worth?” There have been attempts to quantify the value of an email address, but could you distinguish the value of a blockchain?

At Credenza, we view blockchain addresses as more powerful than email.

Rather than focus on “universal identity,” we emphasize universal credentialing.

Blockchain allows us to enrich user profiles with assets, attributes, and actions accumulated from across the ecosystem—teams, partners, vendors, sponsors—creating real-time, actionable insights that are accessible from those same (authorized) partners, vendors, and sponsors. Email is rear-view marketing with little context that is often limited to the rightsholder. Blockchain enables live, responsive engagement—on the team site, a sponsor site, or a partner platform. It enables “all-party data.”

Once we were able to align our technology with the Blues incumbent authentication system and became an extension of the existing user flow, we quickly onboarded tens of thousands of wallets. 

With the wallets in place, the next step was to enrich those profiles with data. We pulled from archived sources—ticket history, e-commerce purchases, and community activity. While we initially relied on email addresses to link this data, everything eventually anchored around the public key to protect personal identity. As data flowed in, user profiles began to differentiate, enabling personalized experiences. In year one, our main goal was ensuring real-time data capture and display, so that any time a user logged in, their profile was up-to-date and queryable. 

As the first full implementation, we wanted to take it slow and make sure there weren’t any jarring changes for the customers. Our goal was to quietly build a rich history of data that would be accessible by all the subscribing systems. As the system matured, we shifted to defining what meaningful experiences could be offered based on each fan’s profile and behavior. The Blues provided incredible guidance here. One of the main objectives was to trigger actions on partner or sponsor sites based on fan activity on Bluenatics.

While we used a third-party to manage our wallets in year 1, we realized that managing our own wallets would give us far better flexibility and also allow us to do customizations that would make the experience seem more native to the Blues and the Bluenatics platform. We also decided to switch blockchains, moving from Polygon to Sui to leverage the faster transaction times and higher throughput, given we were working with significant amounts of data. 

With the updated system in place, our vision came to life in year two.

Users who completed certain tasks or contests were presented with personalized offers. These offers were generated using a rules engine that factored in assets, attributes, and actions collected over time.

Working closely with Tunespeak and the Blues, we refined the rules engine to support hyper-personalization, better aligning it with how the team wanted to notify and activate their fans. For several different actions, we were able to create customized offers and also integrate with the Yinzcam app to push notifications that highlighted these offers. What resulted was a significant increase in engagement on those notifications.

As we move into Year 3, we’re excited to launch more targeted campaigns, tap into additional data sources, and build innovative partnerships with sponsors and partners. These initiatives will create richer experiences for fans and unlock new revenue streams for our team partners. Will cryptocurrency and collectibles still have a place? Perhaps. However, it’s the more cohesive data strategy behind the scenes—made possible by blockchain—that has delivered the greatest value for the Blues. This foundation is poised to unlock additional benefits across sports properties and, ultimately, achieve the widespread acceptance it deserves. 

Ultimately, Blockchain 3.0 will create a decentralized data ecosystem that respects the customer, enables partners and vendors, and enables user experiences that can be transformational. It’s not what blockchain was originally intended to enable, but then again, Amazon wasn’t what the internet was created for either - but it sure feels like it. Privacy-compliant Universal ID. Data Publish & Subscribe. Real-Time, Hyper-personalization. 

This is the next generation of blockchain.

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