Case study · Sports, fan communities & collectibles
Fan community chat app with second-screen rooms and digital collectibles for a motorsport audience
A motorsport fan community wanted viewers of live races to join the conversation from the TV screen, stay in it after the broadcast, and collect digital memorabilia along the way. Ethora provided the chat engine, wallet and a white-label iOS and Android app, with collectibles sent inside the conversation.
By the numbers
The project at a glance
2
platforms: one fan app for iOS and Android from a single React Native codebase
4
sign-in options: Facebook, Google, Apple and MetaMask, with a wallet created on first sign-in
QR
codes on the broadcast put viewers straight into the event room
183,000
polygons in the 3D model of a one-of-one collectible car exhibited by a state museum
Overview
Racing fans watch on one screen and talk on another
The customer is CyberCars, which set out to unite the automotive community around racing events, the teams and drivers behind them, and digital cars fans can own, customise and race. Its fan app, CyberCars Connect, sat alongside a separate 3D garage and racing game, and the audience was global, mobile-first and used to following motorsport across several screens at once.
The challenge. A broadcast audience disappears when the race ends. The community needed a way to pull viewers from the TV into a conversation in seconds, keep them there between events, and give them something worth coming back for, without asking casual fans to learn crypto wallets or create yet another password.
The approach. The early Ethora engine supplied the whole communication layer as a product: rooms, profiles, social sign-on, push, wallet and transactions, shipped as a branded React Native app on a dedicated server. The custom work was small: branding, deep links into the 3D garage app and automatically created private chats.
Requirements
What the fan community needed, and how Ethora met it
Each requirement is tagged by what came from the Ethora engine and what was built for this project.
From the TV broadcast into the conversation in seconds
Any room could be opened by a QR code shown on the broadcast, a billboard, a printed card or a social post. Fans scanned it with the in-app scanner and landed in that room, which then stayed in their chat list with notifications. Public entry rooms were open to everyone, and private rooms only to people holding the invite code.
Fan rooms for teams, drivers and live events
A racing team or a well-known driver could open a room for their fans: exclusive content, quizzes and entertainment, a second screen during a live race, and collectibles handed out to the people watching. Moderators could remove anyone who broke the rules.
Sign-in casual fans will not abandon
Fans signed in with Facebook, Google, Apple or MetaMask, with name and photo imported. A wallet was created automatically at first sign-in, so collectors had one without ever seeing a seed phrase, and every new fan received a welcome bonus of 100 coins.
Likes that mean something
A long tap on a message sent its author a few coins. The room saw the transfer, the message showed its running coin tally, and the author got a push notification. Coins were an in-app reward with no purchase for money, which kept the app straightforward for the App Store and Google Play.
Collectibles that change hands inside the chat
Collectible items were minted in the app and sent in the conversation: long tap, “Send items”, pick the item. The room saw the hand-over, edition counts updated (5/5 becomes 4/5), and every transfer appeared in the fan’s transaction history.
Minting, drops and trades through chat bots
Minting, transferring and trading collectible tokens ran through the engine’s chat bot framework, so a collectible changed hands in a conversation rather than on a separate marketplace. Bots speak to rooms over XMPP, to the platform over REST and to token contracts, and can hold wallets of their own.
One identity across the chat app and the 3D garage
Deep links connected the fan app with the separate 3D garage and racing game: from a profile, a fan could open their own garage or someone else’s and see the cars they own.
Keep the audience between races
Push notifications for every message in a joined room and for incoming coins or collectibles, with a tap opening the right room. Organisers could also send broadcast pushes to the whole user base from the web admin, and Firebase analytics tracked retention cohorts and time in app.
Inside the collectibles
Collectibles that carry more than a picture
In 2021 most digital collectibles were flat images. CyberCars wanted something a fan could actually use: a car you could look at from every angle, take into a 3D space, modify, and race. That meant the token had to carry real payload, not just a link to a JPEG.
The collectibles built on Ethora carried one or more of the following:
- 3D models and textures, or a ready bundle compatible with common 3D and virtual-world engines.
- Both full-detail and lightweight models, plus video, sound, AR and VR assets, and even a file suitable for 3D printing at home.
- Changeable parameters that reflected how the object had been used: for a digital car, things like mileage or remaining fuel.
- Composable structure, combining interchangeable and unique parts in one collectible. A limited edition car (1 of 1,000), a one-off paint job by a named artist (1 of 1), and a consumable fuel token could all live in the same object.
Recognition
From a chat room to a museum wall
CyberCrack, one of the collectibles produced in the project, was exhibited by the Hermitage State Museum in November and December 2021 as part of a show on digital art and ownership. The same object that fans could receive in a chat room was shown in a 3D exhibition space alongside the museum’s programme.
Deployment
A dedicated server for one fan community
The community ran on its own instance of the engine rather than a shared tenant, with monthly API performance reports on production. Today the same chat stack can be self-hosted on AWS or installed from a marketplace.
Where this stack runs
The outcome
A fan community with the conversation at the centre
The fan app shipped to iOS and Android with QR rooms, social sign-on, coins as likes and collectibles moving between fans inside the conversation, while teams and drivers ran their own rooms. One of its collectibles went on to be exhibited by a state museum.
The pattern carries over to any audience that gathers around live moments: sports clubs, esports, concerts, streamers and brands running loyalty and rewards in a chat app.
FAQ
Can fans reward each other inside the chat?
Yes. Ethora supports in-app points or coins that users send to a message as a reaction, with the transfer visible in the room and a notification to the author.
Can digital collectibles or rewards be sent in a conversation?
Yes. Items can be created in the app or by a bot and sent to another user from the chat, with edition counts and a transaction history in each profile.
Do fans need a crypto wallet to start?
No. A wallet can be created automatically at sign-in, so fans start with Google, Apple or Facebook and never handle keys unless they want to.
Can the app be published under our own brand?
Yes. Ethora’s white-label chat app ships to the App Store and Google Play under your name and colours, built on the React Native chat SDK.
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Build your own community app on Ethora
Fan communities, marketplaces, sports and events: Ethora ships the chat, the mobile client and the AI on top, so you can launch a branded community app in weeks.
