ORIGYN, a Swiss foundation that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify and authenticate valuable objects, has joined forces with the luxury watch marketplace WatchBox.
The two companies will collaborate to create certificates of authenticity in the form of NFTs, which will allow customers to trade the digital ownership of a watch.
ORIGYN is The DFINITY Foundation blockchain’s largest project based on the Internet Computer Protocol, or ICP. Individuals who purchase a collector quality timepiece through WatchBox can expect ORIGYN’s biometric technology to certify the authenticated object.
Each watch is assigned a unique biometric fingerprint, and an NFT containing all of this data is minted.
Daniel Haudenschild, CEO of ORIGYN Enterprise, the for-profit arm of the ORIGYN Foundation, told Cointelegraph that authentication NFTs will make secondary market trading faster and safer for both buyers and sellers. According to him, the secondary market for luxury watches is expected to reach $32 billion by 2025.
“By combining blockchain, unique luxury goods biometrics technology, and our utility NFTs, we aim to authenticate luxury goods and ensure their ‘unfalsifiability’ traceability throughout their use, from sale to second hand, and allow customers to make luxury purchases in complete security.”
Tracking provenance is one of the oldest use cases for blockchain, according to Haudenschild, but using authentication NFTs provides a “direct route to your consumer in a way that brands and manufacturers have never had before.”
He used the watchmaker Omega as an example, claiming that if Omega had a customer database of all its watch owners, including those who bought them on the secondary market, it could offer them free tickets to the next James Bond film.
The Swiss watch industry alone loses $2 billion per year to counterfeits, according to ORIGYN, and over 40 million counterfeit luxury watches are produced and sold each year. More than 37% of luxury end-users in France have unknowingly purchased a counterfeit product.
According to Haudenschild, many would-be buyers are wary of being duped and are tired of the second-hand market. He went on to say that this creates an illiquid market while also eroding consumer loyalty and brand equity.
ORIGYN recently collaborated with the UEFA Foundation for Children on an “NFTs for Good” initiative of historic collectibles, which will debut on ORIGYN’s soon-to-be-launched NFT marketplace, Impossible Things.
To read our blog on “Coinbase released a version of their Web 3.0 social marketplace for NFTs” click here.
