FaZe Clan partners with MoonPay on crypto and NFTs for esports

FaZe Clan has partnered with crypto payments firm MoonPay in a multi-year partnership to celebrate gaming lifestyle, esports, and youth culture.

The deal will give millions of users quick access to the crypto economy by offering an easy and secure way to buy and sell cryptocurrencies and NFTs, the companies said. The agreement represents MoonPay’s biggest partnership to date and establishes MoonPay as the official crypto and NFT partner of FaZe Clan. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The FaZe Clan and MoonPay partnership includes a series of content and media that will launch in early 2022. MoonPay will integrate into existing content across the FaZe Clan platform and the two brands will create new original content tailored for the FaZe Clan community. Plans include new original content franchises, creator and talent driven events, and campaigns that tap into fandom across FaZe Clan’s esports teams.

“We’re focused on building a culture and community-led digital goods and NFT business that excites our fans and expresses the FaZe brand in new and innovative ways. As a leading voice in youth culture, it’s vital that we also deliver on our responsibility to protect our community as the world starts to embrace Web 3,” said Lee Trink, CEO of FaZe Clan, in a statement. “Our partnership with MoonPay addresses both of these objectives by creating a strong foundation and secure pathway for our journey into the metaverse.”

FaZe Clan will also utilize MoonPay’s platforms and ecosystem for its forthcoming NFT and digital goods initiatives. Leveraging MoonPay’s extensive expertise in crypto, NFTs and security, the partnership will help educate and share knowledge on how to navigate the complexities of the digital world.

“MoonPay and FaZe Clan are united by a common goal: we both aim to empower the creator and gaming economies,” said MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright, in a statement. “At MoonPay we’re building the world’s most advanced and intuitive payments solutions for buying cryptocurrencies and NFTs. And FaZe Clan’s influence in the gaming community is unrivaled. This exciting new partnership holds the potential to create a crypto-gaming juggernaut the likes of which the world has never seen.”

With digital goods spearheading a new wave of innovation in the media and entertainment industries, FaZe Clan plans to provide its community ways to interact with the metaverse as it takes shape.

The partnership with MoonPay kicked off with a joint activation on December 4 at the Art Basel-Miami event. The exclusive invite-only event called, “FaZe Forever powered by MoonPay,” showcased digital art, NFTs and virtual fashion from FaZe Clan’s community, MoonPay and other brand partners, within a physical manifestation of the FaZe Forever’s core pillars. FaZe Clan reaches more than 350 million followers.

FaZe Clan members did a fashion-related drop with RTFKT, and Marriott Bonvoy unveiled their first NFTs created by artists from FaZe Clan’s community.

FaZe Clan said it believes there are an infinite number of ways NFTs will be applied to esports, events and content creation. For example, it could handle press access via NFTs in order to give media access to limited events.