Luxury Watch Maker Breitling Puts Timepieces On Ethereum
- Starting 13 October, all watches created by Brietling will come with a digital passport that certifies their origin through the use of blockchain technology.
- The company already trialed its digital passport in March, when it first partnered with Arianee to release a limited edition “Top Time” chronograph.
Close up of an expensive Swiss-made Breitling chronograph wristwatch, photographed on April 27, 2013 in York, England. Steve Allen/Shutterstock
Swiss luxury watchmaker Breitling is partnering with digital identity consortium Arianee to issue an Ethereum-based digital passport for all of its new watches, the firm said on Twitter on Tuesday.
According to the announcement, all new Breitling timepieces will come with a unique digital passport that certifies their origin through the use of blockchain technology. The need for a digital passport, that lets you transparently track the service history and repairs the watch has undergone, was driven by the growing pre-owned watch market that is now worth around $20 billion, about half the size of the new luxury watch market.
The Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Breitling, Antonio Carriero, said in a statement:
“So when you want to buy a watch from a luxury pre-owned watch platform, a key element is the full traceability of the product you are going to buy, the full transparency about the history of the product. Today there is no system that is unifying those capabilities.”
In order to create such a solution Breitling decided to partner with Arianee, which behind the scene will use non-fungible tokens compliant with the ERC-712 standard, the one used to create popular dapp CryptoKitties, to ensure that the digital passport remains unaltered. The technology will also allow Breitling to add information over time, creating a timeline of repairs with timestamps that can be used to track the entire history of the timepiece.
All newly-produced Breitling watches will now come with a guarantee card that could be scanned, enabling its owner to add the watch to his Arianee digital wallet, and view the serial number of the timepiece and activation date of the digital warranty. The firm has also thought about privacy, and as such its digital certificates do not record the name, email address or other personal information, and are simply connected to the wallet address of its owner. That way, the certificate can be transferred between owners.
This is not the first time the two companies have worked together. Back in March the luxury watch maker partnered with Arianee to release a limited edition “Top Time” chronograph, which used the same digital passport as the one announced today. The “pilot” must have been a success, considering Breitling decided to incorporate the digital wallet into every time piece it produces after 13 October.
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