The offer from a company working for Trump that Barça has stopped

BarcelonaBarça has been exploring ways to do business with the club's digital assets in recent months, and one of these, ARA has learned, has led to talks with Jupiter, a company that works for Donald Trump. On the table was the possibility of creating a Barça memecoin (a digital currency associated with prominent figures that serves to create a sense of community without receiving anything in return beyond the memecoin itself). This type of cryptocurrency is so volatile that most experts claim it's not suitable for investment and has already been the subject of alleged scams.

The most controversial memecoin was the one promoted by the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, which is called $Libra. The venture involved dozens of complaints of alleged fraud against Milei after promoting the cryptocurrency on X, where he even said that $Libra would help "incentivize the growth of the Argentine economy." Milei ended up disassociating himself from the initiative. On the other hand, Donald and Melania Trump also launched their respective memecoins, which bear their names and are leading to an increase in the Trumps' fortune. According to Gauntlet, a crypto risk modeling company, the US president has already earned $150 million (€129 million) in profits.

Donald Trump encouraged buyers to use the Moonshot app to acquire his memecoin, and this app made the US president's cryptocurrency viral. Moonshot has come under the control of Jupiter, a California-based company that now holds a majority stake. Jupiter owns a launch pad of tokens called LFG (acronym for Let's Fucking Go). The company LFG-B is linked to Jupiter and in recent months has submitted an offer to Barça to work on the creation of the Blaugrana memecoin, which was discussed in the offices of Aristides Maillol. "But now the project is on hold. It didn't make any economic sense, and Socios.com is blocking it," sources close to the negotiations told ARA.

Socios.com, a company linked to Chiliz, has a global sponsorship agreement with Barça and 18.96% of Barça Produccions (the club's digital and audiovisual business), which Alexandre Dreyfus, CEO of Socios.com, joined as a director this June. It is also the broadcaster of the fan token (a type of cryptocurrency linked to fans enjoying experiences from a sports entity) of Barça. As the ARA recently explained, the value of this Barça cryptocurrency has fallen significantly in recent times. From a peak of $51.50 (€43.90) on August 4, 2021, to the current $1.13 (€0.97).

More news in Barça's audiovisual and digital business

There's one constant in Barça's audiovisual and digital business: change. Following the close of the acquisition of Bridgeburg Invest (the club's digital arm) by Barça Productions (the audiovisual arm), there have been new developments. Bryan Bachner, CEO of the digital branch since 2023, according to ARA, has stepped down from this position and will now focus on managing Barça's offices in New York and Hong Kong. Bachner has maintained a personal and professional relationship with Joan Laporta for years and was the director of CSSB Limited (2016-2021), the company led by Barça's CEO during Laporta's first term, Joan Oliver, which led to the demise of CF Reus Deportiu. CSSB Limited, along with the Barça president, appears in several complaints of alleged fraud, which are in the courts.

For very different reasons, unfortunately, Barça's audiovisual project has also lost the person who led it. due to the death of Toni Cruz last weekThe club has not announced whether Bachner and Cruz will have replacements soon. However, it has launched the Barça Media 360 project, which will be led by Paloma Mikadze, until now director of Barça Identity (the area in charge of unifying the club's identity) and daughter of Manana Giorgadze, Laporta's right-hand woman in the presidential cabinetMikadze has scored a point this year as the driving force behind the CAT mascot, which has accompanied Hansi Flick's team's successes, both on the pitch and in the celebration parade. She even appeared at Aitana's concert on Saturday at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys.

Official Barça sources clarify to this newspaper that Barça Media 360 is not a project that involves the industrial merger of the digital and audiovisual sectors. "Barça Media 360 seeks to share synergies and collaborative approaches between the various platforms that speak to the club: social media, Barça One, fan engagement"We want there to be a single way for Barça to communicate through its content. We don't want content that doesn't follow the same line on these platforms," the Catalan club explains. Meanwhile, Barça is waiting for the club's auditor, Crowe, to prepare his report on the club's figures for the 2024-2025 financial year, in which the valuation of its audiovisual and digital assets will be key.