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The 2026 FIFA World Cup is barely underway, and crypto scammers have already built the infrastructure to steal from fans in relation to World Cup crypto scams.
Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs has identified four cryptocurrency addresses tied to three live scam operations targeting football supporters. These include two fake-ticketing sites as well as one fixed-match betting pitch, all of which are reported to Chainabuse.
Ari Redbord, Global Head of Policy at TRM Labs, explained that criminals have a tendency to exploit major events and cultural moments, and don’t wait for kickoffs. He added,
Ari Redbord
“Scammers build and position their infrastructure weeks in advance, then scale it the moment public attention peaks. The advantage now is that every one of these payments is recorded on-chain, so compliance teams and law enforcement can screen against these addresses and routing patterns today, before the losses mount.”
History offers cautionary precedents. Research from Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 shows that the Olympics has also not been immune to cyberattacks.
The Tokyo Summer Olympics of 2020/2021 were targeted by phishing and social engineering campaigns aimed at athletes and ticket holders.
Two years earlier, the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics suffered a far more dramatic blow: a cyberattack struck during the opening ceremony, knocking out internet networks and crippling both LAN and WiFi communications. More than 300 systems were compromised, and it took some 12 hours to fully restore operations.
Fake Ticket Sites Are the Clearest Threat So Far
Ticket fraud carries the clearest on-chain evidence identified so far. TRM Labs linked two fake ticketing operations to live addresses. Both mimic official or resale portals, advertise high-demand match availability, and direct buyers to pay in crypto.
One Polygon address, also deployed on Ethereum, received approximately US$1,562, nearly all of it on a single day in April 2026. A second operation, tied to a Bitcoin address, kept its phishing page live but had not yet received victim payments at the time of TRM’s analysis.
Both operations show the indications of active fraud infrastructure; convincing storefronts built to convert fan urgency into irreversible crypto transfers.
The scam sites take advantage of a genuine tension in the ticketing market. Official resale portals still carried around 180,000+ unsold group-stage seats just two days before the tournament. Yet fans seeking to buy through unofficial channels remain exposed to fraudulent sellers who exploit scarcity and urgency.
US law enforcement had already raised concerns before the tournament kicked off.
The FBI warned in May that threat actors were spoofing FIFA’s website through typosquatting, which is creating lookalike domains built on minor misspellings of official URLs, to harvest personally identifiable information, including names, addresses, phone numbers, and banking details.
The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department separately warned residents that cybercriminals were building fake FIFA websites and social media advertisements designed to replicate legitimate ticketing pages.
Its alert urged fans to be cautious of sellers requesting payment through methods like cryptocurrency and peer-to-peer payment apps, as transactions made through these channels could be difficult to reverse.
Free Streaming Sites Are Just One Part, More Scams May Come
With World Cup 2026 tickets, travel, and accommodation costs pressuring avid football fans, fake streaming platforms have emerged as another scam route.
These sites claim to offer free or low-cost access to matches, pushing viewers to sign up and pay for access that sometimes lasts a lifetime.
Certain cases use cryptocurrency payment methods, as they provide scammers with a quicker settlement path while reducing the victim’s ability to reverse the transaction.
Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 has identified other potential ways cybercriminals could use during the FIFA World Cup 2026, showcased in the table below.
FIFA’s Blockchain Ticketing Creates Friction for Scammers
Interestingly, while scammers are resorting to crypto rails to run their fraud operations, FIFA is deploying blockchain infrastructure to clean up the sport’s ticketing segments.
FIFA is deploying Avalanche and Modex for a new ticketing model to curb bots, ticket fraud, and scalping challenges, according to Coindesk.
The system, called the FIFA blockchain, runs on an Avalanche Layer-1 blockchain. It features Right-to-Buy (RTB) and Right-to-Ticket (RTT).
Right-to-Buy refers to an official allocation by FIFA for FIFA Collect users, which grants exclusive permission to purchase FIFA tickets for events like the FIFA World Cup 2026.
It sets out how many tickets a user can buy, including for which match or event. This essentially gives users access to purchase tickets during a dedicated window. After the window closes, the Right-to-Buy expires.
Meanwhile, Right-to-Ticket gives FIFA Collect users the right to claim an official FIFA World Cup 2026 ticket for a specific match and category, recorded in a collectible.
Right-to-Tickets can be traded on the FIFA Collect Marketplace, subject to a 15% resale fee. Trading restrictions apply to Mexican residents.
With these approaches, FIFA is possibly wiring to reclaim control over fan data and secondary ticket markets. This initiative is tied to FIFA’s broader ambitions to sharpen how users interact with its platforms and ship digital products that appeal to its fan base, which is said to consist of over five billion people.
Reports indicate that over 100,000 RTBs have been issued. Secondary-market Right-to-Ticket volume has passed $15 million, and combined Right-to-Buy and Right-to-Ticket volume has exceeded $25 million.
The one thing to remember here is that scammers and the sport are placing opposite wagers, and only one of them should keep your winnings.
Featured image edited by Fintech News Singapore based on an image by DAIN LIM on Magnific
