There was a moment when Dmitry Saksonov's story looked finished—a forced ending written by people who expected him to disappear. Instead, that moment became the starting point of a global movement now known as Blockchain Sports, a $250 million ecosystem redefining how talent is discovered, evaluated, and supported.
This is not a tale of redemption or luck. It is the evolution of a founder whose future was interrupted, rewritten, and then rebuilt by his own hands.
The Attempt to Erase Him
In 2018, Saksonov was leading a technology operation that had finally reached stability. Years of work were beginning to show results. The business was scaling, the model was proven, and the future looked predictable.
That stability was short-lived.
People he relied on engineered a legal assault that froze assets, dismantled his operations, and introduced a series of accusations without factual grounding. The goal was simple: remove him entirely.
He was placed into pre-trial detention for more than two years. He was not convicted of any crime.
"You learn who you are when everything familiar is taken away," he later said. That period was meant to silence him. Instead, it reshaped him.
A Restart No One Expected
When he was released in 2020, he didn't walk back into a company. There was nothing left: no capital, no colleagues, no infrastructure. The slate was wiped clean.
He began from the only place available: the beginning.
He returned to technology, operating with discipline honed by confinement—long hours, careful decisions, constant reinvestment. Slowly, stability returned. But financial recovery was no longer enough to define his direction.
His perspective had shifted. He wanted to build something meaningful, something that extended beyond his personal comeback.
That clarity arrived far from his home.
A New Purpose Formed in Brazil
During a trip to Rio de Janeiro, he visited communities near the favelas and saw something that stayed with him: extraordinary football talent trapped within circumstances that offered almost no room for advancement.
Children who should have been on structured training grounds were instead practicing in improvised spaces. A local leader explained that talent wasn't missing—infrastructure was.
Saksonov promised to build real fields. The condition was firm: "If you commit, you follow through."
He honored that commitment.
Those fields became more than facilities. They became the emotional blueprint for what would eventually become Blockchain Sports.
The Movement Takes Shape
Blockchain Sports emerged from a clear idea—that opportunity in sport should not depend on geography, wealth, or connections.
The company grew rapidly. Too rapidly. What began with roughly 100 employees expanded to more than 1,500 in a short window. Rapid growth exposed internal weaknesses, inefficiencies, and misalignment.
Saksonov made structural changes. After a comprehensive reset, 270 committed builders remained—individuals aligned with the mission rather than the momentum.
From that point, the real movement began.
Two professional training academies in Brazil were established, equipped with IoT systems that track athlete metrics in real time.
Atleta Network, a proprietary Layer-1 blockchain, was created to support transparent and scalable sports data.
An AI-driven evaluation engine was developed to help identify young talent objectively, removing the barriers that had prevented so many from being seen.
In February 2024, Blockchain Sports presented its achievements at Dubai's Coca-Cola Arena in front of 16,000 attendees and over 120 legendary football icons. It was the moment the world realized this was more than a company—it was an ecosystem built on a founder's lived experience.
A Future That Was Never Part of the Plan
Saksonov never intended to become the center of a global sports-tech movement. He simply refused to let external forces dictate the end of his story.
He knows instability. He knows loss. He knows how it feels to be written off. And that is exactly why Blockchain Sports carries a sense of purpose beyond commercial ambition.
"My story wasn't supposed to continue," he says. "So I built something that didn't depend on anyone else's permission."
What was supposed to be an ending instead became the foundation of a movement—one that continues to expand across continents, communities, and generations of athletes.
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