NBA champion Tristan Thompson is working with unlikely CEO Herman Narula and co-founder Hadi Teherany to develop a new Web3 experience designed to reinvent basketball fandom in the digital age.
The project, named Basketball.Fun, debuted in October ahead of the NBA season, and is about to gamify the way fans interact with players and games, Thompson announced.
Developed in Somnia. This is the Layer 1 blockchain that went live earlier this month, already notching billions of dollars worth of trading volumes in the first two weeks.
“This is how we experience the moment together, not just basketball,” Tristan Thompson said in a press release. “We’re creating something for your fans who live beyond your presence, your passion and the games you actually play.”
Tokenized NBA players
Unlike traditional fantasy sports and fan tokens, the platform tokenizes NBA players with fluctuating values in real time based on emotions and performance. Fans can frame rosters, speculate about growing talent, and earn rewards related to forecasting and engagement.
“The way fans value and perceive players should be different from owners and news networks,” Teherany said in an interview with Coindesk. “We’re trying to give fans a power back. Not only do they predict who they think is great, but to actually get an incentive from there. Imagine that fans’ consensus on the potential of newcomers can prove to be more accurate than the team’s front office.”
Teherany emphasizes that apps don’t launch with native tokens, and distances them from projects like Socio, which poses to token prices. Instead, players retain in-app value that reflects fan emotions and game outcomes.
Why is Somnia not Solana?
Teherany was asked why the team chose to build on Somnia instead of more established chains like Solana and Avalanche, pointing out both relationships and philosophy.
“Everything in this industry comes from genuine relationships,” he said. “When we met Herman Narra, it was a vision alignment. He’s not chasing short-term token hype, he’s committed to building sports and entertainment in the long run.
This decision was also made after lessons learned from his previous project, Tracyai. Tracyai said Teherany relied too much on token performance. This time, we will focus on infrastructure, gamification and sustainability.
Somnia’s technical edge
Somnia was released on September 2nd, following a six-month testnet that processed over 10 billion transactions and onboarded 118 million wallets. Backed by UK-based metaverse companies, the network is positioned as the fastest EVM compatible chain, claiming to handle transactions of more than one second per second.
At launch, Somnia onboarded 60 validators, including Google Cloud, and integrated them with protocols such as Layerzero, Sequence, and ThirdWeb. Its native token, SOMI, has been nearly twice as valuable since its launch, already processing billions of billions at daily volumes.
For Terranny, Somnia’s traction adds reliability. “They’ve done billions in daily volumes, bigger than some of the major exchanges, and that’s a testament to what they’re building, and what we’re building on top of that.”
The road to tip-off
The first major release of the project is scheduled for Blockchain Week in Korea, where Thompson will share his vision with Narula and Tehrany. Participants at Somnia House, the network’s flagship side event held in Seoul on September 23rd, will take a quick look at the app and roadmap.
“We want to make this as accessible as possible,” Terrany said. “The blockchain layer should feel invisible. Whether you’re from a crypto or a basketball fan, we can help you define the story of the sport.”
