AS Roma and U.S. fintech Zytara Labs have signed a three-year exclusive product partnership worth €36 million with the support of the DigitalBits Foundation (formerly XDB Foundation). The partners plan to use the DigitalBits blockchain to create official ASR blockchain-based digital assets, establish the digital assets as new purchasing methods, create digital player cards and collectibles (NFTs), and more. With this deal, the Italian professional football club is the first in the world to use blockchain technology on this scale. In the future, DigitalBits blockchain will be fully integrated into the club, providing a seamless, advanced experience for new users and fans, the club said. To celebrate the launch of the partnership, AS Roma will sell the first eleven jerseys of the 2021-22 season worn by its players during the friendly match between Roma and Montecatini, a match that also marked the beginning of the José Mourinho era on the club bench.
The DigitalBits blockchain network is capable of processing numerous transactions per second (+10,000 TPS) with confirmation times of 3-5 seconds and at a low cost (0.00001 XDB per transaction). As energy consumption remains a concern for blockchain networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum that use a proof-of-work consensus algorithm, DigitalBits is a layer-one blockchain protocol that prioritizes security, speed, and cost savings. DigitalBits blockchain nodes are lightweight and can be operated at relatively low cost compared to nodes in many proof-of-work blockchain networks.
