Football.Fun is about to go fully live. The Founder Packs dropped last week, and the market opens tomorrow. I’m jumping in – and I’ll be sharing my approach as I get involved in this new game.

But first, a quick look back at how we got here.

Football.Fun (FDF) is a football trading platform offering both a free-to-play game and a real-money ‘Pro’ version on Base chain. After a successful beta earlier this year, it’s now ready for full launch ahead of the new season.

FDF blends fantasy football mechanics with speculative trading: users hold shares in real-world players, trade them on a live market, and earn tournament points from real match performances. Those points can then be used to open packs containing more player shares.

The market is entirely user-driven. Every buy pushes the price up, every sell brings it down. The aim of the game – buy the players who will go up in price, either because of pure speculation or because they’re crushing it in the tournaments.

In the Pro version, tokenised fractional ownership lets you buy or sell parts of players, opening up the game to all budgets.

The FDF team brings serious sports and crypto experience to the table. They built a fully functioning product before launch, then rolled out a gated release of Founder Packs, deliberately getting them into the hands of trusted, socially credible players rather than bots and farmers. It’s a refreshing approach in the Web3 world.

My Founders packs

I picked up 28 packs in the Phase 1 Founders Packs sale, which turned into a spread of 66 players. My biggest holdings are in Pedri and Quansah (2000 shares), and I’m more than happy with the overall mix – especially landing some shares in some of the headline acts like Mbappé, Yamal, and Jude Bellingham, and potential tournament monsters like Koundé, Maignan and Valverde.

FDF covers the top five European leagues plus the Champions League and Europa League. The first 100 players skew towards the Premier League, so it’s no shock that most of my squad hails from there – but I was pleasantly surprised to find Barcelona topping my ‘most-packed club’ list.

There are a few names in that top 100 I was disappointed not to pull – players who are now firmly on my watchlist for the market launch:

• Chevalier
• Cucurella
• Guirassy
• Hakimi
• Kimmich
• McTominay
• Vinícius
• Vitinha

And, as an Arsenal fan, I’m sorely tempted by Gyökeres… but as he’s untested in the Premier League, that would be a heart-over-head move… so I don’t know.

Market launch

The FDF market opens on 12th August, with a staggered release of tradeable players and initial buy limits to give everyone a fair shot at getting the players they want at a decent price. Ten players will unlock each day until 21st August, and the first tournament kicks off in the middle of that, so the next couple of weeks are going to be wild.

If you want a better understanding of the maths that underpins the prices of players and what might happen at launch, take a look at this post by PLIR on X.

So that means decisions need to be made. I’ve got to map out which players to target on which days, because when the button is pressed prices are going to swing fast. By the time I get a buy order through on my first target, my next one could already be 10x higher.

Day one’s big dilemma is clear: my main target is Kimmich. FDF’s well-rounded scoring system plays to his strengths, and with Bayern tipped to dominate the Bundesliga again, he looks like a consistent points machine. I’d also like to top up on Yamal, Trent, Alisson, and Gvardiol (in that order) but I’ve already got 500 shares in each.

So do I go for Kimmich first because I don’t own any of him yet… or Yamal first because he’s likely to be the hottest property in this first sale window? What would you do?

I also need to keep some powder dry for the next 100 players. That drop could take the form of another pack sale – though that’s not confirmed yet. I’ve already spotted some big names missing from the initial list, like Grimaldo, Kvaratskhelia, Zubimendi, Thuram, Schlotterbeck, Cherki, so if and when they arrive, it’s going to be a juicy one.

PRepare for launch

If you want to get set for the Pro launch, head over to pro.football.fun now. If you connect your wallet and socials that will help build your ‘rep’ score to help with things like buy limits.

And make sure your wallet’s loaded ahead of time – the team have put together a quick graphic to show you how – so you’ll be ready to pounce when the first players hit the market.

Remember – FDF runs on Base chain so you must send USDC on Base Network only. Sending USDC from another network will result in lost funds. If you need a walkthrough on how to get USDC into Metamask, check out this post from community member RavenX.

For more info, help, and a place to swap strategies (or just get caught up in the pre-launch hype), jump into the FDF Discord. The community’s already buzzing, and it’s the best way to stay on top of announcements and price action once trading opens.

The next couple of weeks are going to be a blast!