Building a Fan Token Platform for a US Sports League

Traditional self-custodial wallets introduce concepts such as private keys, seed phrases, wallet addresses, and crypto-specific onboarding.

That experience would create unnecessary friction for a sports audience.
The league needed a product where fans could access and own digital assets without first learning how crypto infrastructure works.

At the same time, the solution had to preserve self-custody and support a broader fan engagement experience around token ownership.

The product therefore needed to bring together several layers:

– self-custodial wallet infrastructure;
– simple account and wallet creation;
– fan token ownership;
– card payments for purchasing tokens;
– digital fan identity;
– engagement and referral mechanics;
– mobile and web applications;
– operational tools for the league.

The wallet had to work as infrastructure behind the experience rather than become the experience itself.

One of the key technical challenges was making self-custodial wallets accessible to fans without requiring them to manage seed phrases or understand private keys.

ND Labs implemented passkey-based authentication, allowing users to create and access their wallets through familiar device authentication, including Face ID, Touch ID, and Android biometrics.

To support secure authentication across mobile platforms, we developed native modules for iOS and Android:

– iOS: Swift and AuthenticationServices, with Face ID or Touch ID and passkey synchronization through iCloud Keychain.
– Android: Kotlin and Credential Manager API, supporting biometric authentication or device screen locks, with synchronization through Google Password Manager.

These native components are integrated into the Flutter application through platform channels, allowing the rest of the application logic to remain shared across platforms.

Transaction signing is designed to keep private keys outside the WebView layer, preserving the security boundaries of the self-custodial architecture.

Users can also recover access through passkeys, encrypted backups, and an offline recovery key.

The result is a wallet experience that feels like a familiar mobile application while maintaining self-custodial digital asset ownership.

The wallet infrastructure was designed to operate behind the fan experience rather than function as a standalone crypto application.

Built on Solana, the platform connects digital asset ownership with fan engagement features.

Fan Tokens

Team tokens are issued using Solana’s Token-2022 standard. Fans can hold, manage, and swap their tokens through integrated decentralized exchange functionality.

Digital Fan Passport

Each fan receives a digital identity represented by an NFT built with Metaplex. The fan passport connects digital ownership with the broader engagement experience.

Engagement and Referrals

The platform includes XP-based engagement mechanics and QR-code referrals, allowing the league to build additional interactions around its digital assets.

Token Information

Dedicated league and team pages provide token information, including price charts, trading volume, and total value locked (TVL).

Together, these features create a digital asset experience where blockchain infrastructure supports the product without becoming its primary interface.

Another important part of the experience was fiat onboarding.

Fans should not have to purchase cryptocurrency elsewhere, transfer it to a wallet, and then use it to acquire a team token.

The product therefore integrates a fiat on-ramp, allowing users to purchase tokens using a payment card.

This creates a much shorter path:

Card – Fan token – Digital fan experience

The underlying blockchain transaction remains part of the infrastructure, while the user interacts with a payment flow that is already familiar.

ND Labs developed an administrative platform that allows league operators to launch and manage fan tokens from a single interface.

The system combines token issuance, liquidity management, and operational workflows.

Its core capabilities include:

– Token Launchpad: Creating and listing team tokens through a centralized administrative interface.
– Bulk Token Issuance: Supporting token launches for 30 or more teams within a league.
– Token Supply Management: Scheduling token issuance and tracking token distribution.
– Liquidity Management: Managing token liquidity through Meteora integrations.
– Fee Distribution: Configuring and managing transaction fee distribution.
– Operational Notifications: Keeping administrators informed about important platform activities.

The platform also integrates Meteora and Jupiter to support decentralized token swaps.

For the league, this creates a unified operational environment for managing digital assets across multiple teams without handling each token launch separately.