Paris Saint-Germain FC Hold Bitcoin on Balance Sheet

PSG’s Bitcoin Reserve 👛 

Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) have become the first major sports team to publicly confirm holding Bitcoin as part of its treasury reserves.

The announcement came from Pär Helgosson, head of PSG Labs, at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas.

He said:

"We took our fiat reserves and we allocated Bitcoin. We still have it in our books. And as one of the largest clubs in the world, we're the largest player in the sports ecosystem to do that."

PSG have certainly been one of, if not the most active, sports teams in the crypto industry. They run a validator on the Chiliz blockchain, are sponsored by crypto exchange BitPanda, and also launched PSG Labs in conjunction with Matchain.

Helgosson said that PSG is "a club of the new generation” with over “80% of their 550 million global fanbase under 34 years old”.

Should Sports Teams Hold Crypto? 🤔

Almost no sports team has treated crypto as a financial asset, and it’s for good reason.

We are only just seeing major corporations and states acting on partial Bitcoin reserves in 2025.

Pakistan recently announced plans to establish a national Bitcoin reserve, and El Salvador is already 2 years into buying Bitcoin systematically. President Trump has also been vocal about his plans to establish a Bitcoin reserve, but so far, the U.S crypto reserve will be made up of seized cryptocurrency.

Recently, we have seen the likes of GameStop and Swedish Healthtech firm H100 buy Bitcoin, whilst the likes of Tesla already hold over $1bn of Bitcoin on their balance sheet.

Larger corporations like Meta have overwhelmingly recently rejected shareholder proposals to buy Bitcoin:

This landslide majority shows we’re a long way from established, public corporations buying Bitcoin in a serious capacity.

It therefore raises the question: should sports teams buy bitcoin or crypto assets to hold on their balance sheet?

It’s a question that was posed at our inaugural conference Sports Blockchain Summit, and overwhelmingly the answer was no.

I agree with that sentiment.

There are several reasons I think this, but let’s take this step by step

(1) Sports teams do not have much excess cash

To build treasury reserves, you need excess capital. Sports teams do not have these, by and large, and those who do rarely add to them as operational costs are high. This is especially the case in European football, where most football clubs run at a loss.

(2) Bitcoin is still volatile

If you speak to the CFO of any corporation, their number one job is risk management.

That is no different in sport.

Bitcoin as a reserve asset, is difficult to parse, mostly due to the volatility.

The Volatility index of Bitcoin is smoothing out, and you would expect that to continue as it becomes more mature.

(3) It’s still early for Bitcoin

A more regularly used hedge on fiat currency in reserves is Gold.

Gold has been seen as valuable by humans for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Bitcoin was created in 2008, and has only had mainstream public and institutional participation in the last few years since the launch of the Bitcoin ETF.

It’s also less volatile.

If you look at the Gold Volatility Index, it has only had one major spike, which dates back to the period subsequent to the 2008 financial crisis.

(4) DeFi does not have scale or safety yet

Crypto assets become yield-bearing when you apply Decentralised Finance principles to them (decentralised lending, staking, etc.).

One could argue that buying Bitcoin and borrowing stablecoins against those reserves could make sense. You have a USD-backed asset, as the Bitcoin is still owned by you, and is redeemable when the loan is paid.

But any mention of this to almost any CFO will make them shiver. The risk, the volatility, the tax implications — it almost isn’t worthwhile. So until this aspect of crypto is simplified and the regulations are clear-cut, it’s difficult to see this being a motivation for any institution.

(5) With all that said… we’re seeing fiat risks in real time

The Western world does not usually even consider debasement of currency, or FX risk, because our currencies have always remained, by and large, strong. If you live in the global south, this is not the case, you are constantly worried by currency volatility.

If you live in the States and are holidaying in Europe, you are going to feel it this summer in a real way, due to a weakened dollar in comparison to both the Euro and the Sterling.

And we have had the inverse, with USD rallying a few years back to almost parity with the Sterling.

So perhaps these micro-incidents of currency volatility are forcing treasury management to create better hedges and more variety. Bitcoin could be part of that, but I still don’t see it short term.

Analysis & Concluding Thoughts 🧠

Overall, I think the fact that PSG have engaged in this type of treasury management is specific to them as a forward-thinking sports club who want to be at the forefront of the digital, rather than setting precedent for what is to come.

I think this is more of a marketing play to showcase PSG’s seriousness about this domain, and to highlight their PSG Labs play, which hopes to accelerate businesses, using their large fanbase as a go-to-market strategy.

To do this successfully, you need high-quality businesses to incubate — and the Bitcoin strategic reserve headline certainly bolsters that top of funnel, and crucially to the crypto native crowd.

Longer term, Bitcoin will be part of many company treasuries, but I’m not sure if many sports teams will act in this direction.

More Sports & Web3 Stories

• Crypto sports sponsorship spend rockets 20% to US$565m (Read more here)

• Tom Brady Returns to Crypto With Investment in AI Startup (Read more here)

• a16z Crypto Leads $7M Round in KYD Labs That Aims to Transform Ticketing Industry (Read more here)

• PSG expands Concorde Collectibles to Chiliz Blockchain (Read more here)

General ‘Stuff’ that Could Impact You

• Fashion Label 9dcc Is Shutting Down (Read more here)

• Congress Rolls Out New Crypto Market Structure Bill: CLARITY (Read more here)

• Bored Ape Yacht Club Maker Sells Moonbirds IP to Gaming Startup (Read more here)

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