Stocks FC

Is Stocks FC Truly a Reliable Football Trading Platform?

I've always been a little cynical about Stocks FC because I couldn't imagine it succeeding after the bad crash of the Football Index. With the number of active users, the amount of money lost, and going out and trying to build another Football Stock Market, it didn't make sense to me. But they've recently gained momentum, as you know, and their trading value has now exceeded £1 million, so I started thinking, what's going on with this? It can't just be a Football Index. It has to give fans some sort of confidence to go out and invest that much money in a platform that looks very much like a Football Index. Its more difficult for such platforms to prove their sustainability, unlike traditional non GamStop casinos. 

I really wanted to know more about it, and everywhere I saw it on X ”formerly known as Twitter”, it seemed like it was sustainable. Read the Whitepaper. It's sustainable because of this, and it's unlike anything else in reality. I dug into the facts and thought, ‘You know what? I'm going to do it myself. This is my assessment of whether or not Stocks FC is sustainable.' Of course, this is just my opinion, but I think I'm well-versed in it. 

I'm a professional casino player, and I've been interested in the industry since around 2017, so I've seen my share of scams. But before we dive into the topic, I want this analysis to be completely impartial and provide as real a perspective as possible. To do that, I had to contact the Stock FC team to get as much information as possible. 

This isn't a sponsored review, but they gave me £50 to try out the platform, and I invested £50 of my own money, because to conduct a real analysis, you need to use a platform and understand the risks. I understand how the platform works and how everything works as best as possible now.

I've only been using the platform for two or three weeks, so I'm not completely impartial, nor am I an expert who's been using it for years. This is a fair analysis of my opinion on the platforms, so I hope you find this helpful.

What Is the Source of Stocks FC's Revenue?

The most important thing for me is their source of revenue, and from the outset, as you can see in the whitepaper, it states that they have free sources of revenue.

This was really interesting to me because it's obviously a great starting point for analysis, where you have multiple revenue streams, so that if one stream dries up, you can use the others to fill the gap.

This will stop these big downward spirals and market panics. 

It was a warning sign when too much of your revenue is interdependent. You know, if people leave the platform, you won't get high trading commissions, and therefore you won't get high IPO commissions.

If you don't know, an IPO is like a player's initial public offering, which is basically where a player markets their stock on the stock market. So it's the first time they get it, they set a price, and then you can get up to 100,000 copies of that player, and so on. These two are closely related, and the former is good, but it also has its own concerns about storage formats.

Staking

Now, in terms of staking, they're of course storing Ethereum. I wish you were at home. I know it should be, but that doesn't mean it's risk-free or free money. In fact, quite the opposite. As you know, many staking protocols are risky, and we've seen staking protocols go bankrupt before, losing all your funds or being hacked, fortunately. I've seen them insured to a high value, so they can be considered fully insured, which is great for savings, but I don't see them as a real source of income!

If you think you're going to get 3-4% of your initial deposit annually, you can't afford a significant drop in trading and IPO commissions unless your initial deposit is in the millions or billions. So, the idea of ​​having multiple income streams is very impressive in the charts. This is where they explain that the longer you run, the less you'll focus on commissions, given the fact that you have income from staking, and that income will be larger, and of course, it will increase as the number of players increases. But at the same time, I think they're still so interconnected that you know if… you start losing users, you'll start losing all your sources of income at the same time. So, I think these positive expectations indicate that you don't need a large commission, and over time, you won't need to sign up new users.

This is probably an underestimate of its actual importance. Even if you're staking and things go well, it's fully insured.

They're Betting on Ethereum!

The other point to note is that they're betting on Ethereum, and the risk isn't limited to it being hacked or disappearing. Because it's fully insured, you'll experience price fluctuations. So, Ethereum is currently on the rise, and it continues to rise every week, but we know that doesn't last forever. 

The essence of cryptocurrencies is that they are volatile, and their market cap is small compared to gold, and you know the stock market itself, so these fluctuations will greatly impact returns. Right now, everything is on the rise, everyone is making more money, and the more money you make, the more people buy players, and so on. 

But the same thing happens on the downside, so my advice to them, if you're sure they'll be watching this, is: Yes, maybe now is the time, as prices start to reach all-time highs. So do it the right way, and at the top of the market, you're now saying we're going to diversify and reduce risk a little, and reduce dependence on the cryptocurrency market. So in my unprofessional opinion, I'd say the business still relies on new users joining the platform, or existing users spending more on the platform. This is nothing new, but at the same time, I think they've underestimated the importance of new user growth. Like in any business, you need to keep your existing fans happy, keep them spending money, and after revenue, of course, you're going to spend more on your expenses. And no, I don't have all of their expenses in front of me, and it's very rare that you share that as a business unless you're a shareholder in the business, which is supposed to be. I'm not, but I can estimate some of their costs based on what I've seen.

I don't see this business as a high-cost business. I see it as very easy to manage, as expenses remain relatively constant over a long period. The main cost for them will be the license. 

To get these players, they already have a license, and they told me there will be expenses like website maintenance and everything else. But I think the majority of those costs come from the staff at the company, and they currently only have three employees. So if they can maintain a market value of over £1 million, however, I don't see any major warning signs in that area.

I can't see any ways for them to increase their expenses, so that would be a major warning sign for them, because even though they said they were looking to expand into the top five leagues in the world, they're currently doing just that. Even the Premier League won't have a huge impact, but at the same time, you have to understand that if you're dealing with a company that only has freelancers, things might be a little bit slower, and it might not be as secure, you know. All these different aspects have to be taken into account, and you know, it's about your personal risk tolerance at that point. So, if I'm right in that sense, the expenses should be relatively constant, and obviously bearable at the moment, and then this growth starts with each new user, and then this cyclical effect happens, you know, the better people perform, the more they share the revenue, and the more people perform, the higher the prices, for example. 

That would be very positive for the company, as they get a bigger share of the cost, because if they take a fixed percentage of what goes into the business, if that number is higher, of course they get a bigger split, even if they maintain the same percentage. 

I hope that makes sense, it's a simple calculation. But the next part I wanted to delve into was revenue splits, because what's most important for these platforms—yes, I'll go with that—is how much you can earn as a user. 

So whatever you invest is fine, but it's more like, “Okay, how much can I earn or how much can this player's value increase?” It's really hard to understand because the payment system is so complex, and the fact that you buy and sell players whenever you want, and then they get paid, basically like dividends, but not actual dividends if they perform well in football matches on a weekly, monthly, or season basis. 

That's very confusing trying to calculate the expected value. What you'll see now is people throwing out huge numbers, huge ROI numbers, and saying, “I did this in two weeks, three weeks, four months.” But of course they do that, because it's one of those things where if you start early, you get cheaper prices, and if people want to join, they have to buy them from you. 

You own these shares, so you get a better price, and you can reinvest them in the platform. And if this growth continues, you know, we've seen it in many different games and different industries, frankly, you know, in the financial markets. The earlier you start, the better, and these returns gradually slow down over time, because you can only sustain it if you're truly in a Ponzi scheme, like a football index. So, if you're going to participate, start. Starting early is always a better idea, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

Because at some point, the growth stops, diminishing returns start to show, and eventually, diminishing returns turn negative, and that's where you start to see the heart of the business, and whether people enjoy making money on the platform, or whether they actually enjoy it.

That's a key question I want to raise here, because we saw exactly the same thing with Sare. You know, it's the game I know best, so why do I keep thinking about it? 

And I'm sure many of you at home do too, but that's where you really figured out: Do I enjoy putting five players in a lineup? Or do I enjoy the bonus day, and how much money I made? This hasn't been seen yet with Stocks FC, so if you're considering joining, it's one of two scenarios: Where am I early enough to join? The returns de-risk before that happens, or do I wait for that to happen? I see how much user growth there is, or yes, how much user growth there is in a negative period? I see how strong and sustainable the fun of this game is ultimately, and then I see it depends on your risk tolerance, how much money you're willing to invest, and everything else, not facts and figures at this point.

Marketing

Now, the next section I'm going to talk about is marketing, which is largely opinion-based. So if you've resisted opinion, this goes beyond that. It's just a feeling, and feelings are good in some places and bad in others. Where I think they're good, they're going well. You know, trusted faces in the NFT community, like Harry and Nines, this seems like a smart choice to attract and educate users. 

There are some other things I don't like, like them offering £100 prizes if you share your earnings on Twitter. It's like you've entered a competition every week, like you're trying not to be a star.

In the world of football, I don't think what you want to promote is how much money everyone makes every week, because while it sounds fun, and that's what will immediately grab attention, people will look and say, “You can make £1 a week, but if it slows down, it's pretty obvious.”

At the same time, for people who aren't involved, it just seems like a big red flag, so it's not something I particularly like. They also introduced a referral program that gives you certain amounts of money if you deposit certain amounts of money. 

It's very common. Clearly, cryptocurrency trading platforms across various NFT projects are not new, they're not revolutionary, or anything bad. They're probably very good in theory. That's what they're promoting: click on my link and sign up to get paid. 

It sounds like a Ponzi scheme, even if it's not, because everyone wants you to join them so they can get paid. Five, ten, or twenty pounds, so yes, it depends a lot on opinions. 

I think if you're trying to break the stigma of the football index, the best way to do it is through playing and having fun, which of course has a financial component, but pushing users to share how much money they're making is something I don't like. 

I don't like the concept, and it's not just a warning sign or anything like that. A point to make to address what I mentioned earlier: it's very crypto-centric, and very Ethereum-based. 

So, you need Ethereum or Bitcoin to buy and sell. Set market limits. Place orders. You'll be viewing Ethereum prices. Because everything is linked, so as a user, of course, not many people will like this. It doesn't affect me. I'm a cryptocurrency buff. It's likely that many users won't realize it's based on cryptocurrencies, and they may not like it at the moment. In that sense, I find it a hard sell. Once you get past that initial base of native crypto users, maybe they'll understand how to use it a little bit, or they can convert it to US dollars or something else. 

You know, people have used rare, similar platforms like this. What does growth look like? That's what worries me from a business perspective right now, and it's something they need to think about. You have a cryptocurrency and you have a football index, you know, a similar product. 

So if you're new to the market, and if you're a football fan, a lot of football fans hate cryptocurrencies, and a lot of football fans hate the football index. I've heard about it, and it's crashed, so growth is going to be difficult.

I'm not saying it's impossible, or anything like that. I'm just thinking, in a year, in two years, how do you grow your business? Will it be difficult? Are you a football index? 

No. I think they have some great documentation, and I'll show it here. It seems like these people have played or understood the football index to a great extent, and they've just seen all of its weaknesses, reviewed them, and improved them. 

But at the same time, that doesn't make the business sustainable forever. What I saw in the white paper on sustainability is the fact that because £100 of Ethereum can be divided a million different ways, if it goes to £10, you can still do the same thing because it's divisible by eight figures. 

I think so, but again, that doesn't make anything sustainable, because ultimately, if you go from a weekly prize of £1,000 to a weekly prize of £10, people won't be as enthusiastic, they won't play the game the same way, and they won't get the same love. I wouldn't bother playing for £10.

IPO Commission

The other thing I wanted to gather, but I'm not entirely sure this is entirely accurate, so maybe it should be taken with a grain of salt, is their IPO commission and their trading commission. I think they take 60% of that and put it into the reward pool, and 40% goes towards expenses, themselves, and everything else. 

This is subject to rapid change, and will need to be changed in certain aspects, as in any business. I wish it was more clear and consistent. Maybe we could say, “You know, we take this, and they take this for expenses.” 

This doesn't need to be detailed. What I mean is, I've seen them display their different portfolios for rewards and how much money they've earned, and I think that's pretty cool. 

They're displaying exactly how much is available, so any early warning signs that this isn't going to work, users can know when to reduce their risk. I think that's one of the biggest warning signs I've seen on this platform, and it's a good warning sign. Let's take a step forward.” Furthermore, let's get to the bottom of everything you know. These are the costs of expenses, and this is why. This is the next push I'd love to see on the platform.

Conclusion

As we've seen, and as you know, IPOs are based on the need for bonuses, and if that goes down or whatever, and the fact that the whole thing is, to some extent, a Ponzi scheme. 

You know, if Nike stopped selling shoes, Nike wouldn't exist anymore, but yeah, just other people's opinions to balance mine. Time to conclude. Should you invest in stocks versus currencies? I'm not going to tell you your answer. It all depends on your financial implications, how much risk you're willing to take, the returns you're looking for, and everything else, but what I will tell you is my opinion on the matter.

Would I invest in stocks versus currencies? Yes. I think I will eventually. I'm a high-risk person, happy to lose everything if things go that way. 

That's the way I live my life. It's fun, and I'm looking for fun. But at the same time, I wouldn't invest huge amounts of money like I did with very rare accounts. I have £6,000, and at the moment, I'd probably invest 10% or 20% of it in Stocks FC because I don't see it being too difficult to handle in the medium term in terms of attracting new users. 

Where will the next demographic come from? It's hard to know. It's not impossible, I'm just struggling to see it. At the same time, when these rewards dry up, how fun is the game? I know the fun is reasonable, and it's not the most enjoyable game. The less money you make, the harder it is to notice. However, you can see some of the massive improvements the team has made after the Football Index collapsed, and some easy wins. 

Of course, in my opinion, easy wins improve the game, diversify its revenue sources, improve it significantly, and ultimately deliver a better product. That's what I think. But at the same time, that doesn't mean I'll play it. I'll only play it if I have the money. 

I've researched as much as I can for this review, so I hope it's helpful. Please share your honest comments about whether you'll play it. Do you think I should play it?