As New Zealand leads Egypt in Vancouver, FIFA’s first official crypto exchange supporter, billions of dollars in prediction-market volume and a sharp Chiliz rally show digital assets have finally taken a seat at football’s biggest table — carrying the same buy-the-rumor risk that burned traders in 2022.

There were two scoreboards running on Monday. One was inside Vancouver’s BC Place, where New Zealand’s Finn Surman rose to meet a curling corner in the 15th minute and headed the All Whites into a 1-0 lead over Egypt in their Group G clash. The other was on-chain, where the World Cup has quietly become one of the largest live-betting and token-speculation events crypto has ever hosted. Halfway through the second half, Egypt evened…