Luxury Watch-Maker Breitling Issues Ethereum-based Digital Passports for Its New Timepieces

Luxury watch market Breitling has recently announced its partnership with Arianee to issue Ethereum-based digital passports or certificates for its new timepieces.

This is an interesting development of using the blockchain potential to its full potential and taking a step to end the distribution of any counterfeit products in the market. Instead of physical certificates, Breitling owners will have secured and tamper-proof digital passports authenticating the origin of the watch.

Apart from the international warranty, users will also be able to track the watch’s service history or any other repairs during its entire lifetime. Breitling’s chief digital and technology officer, Antonio Carriero said that blockchain application is driven by the rapidly growing pre-owned watch market.

In the last few years, the pre-owned watch market size has grown to a whopping $20 billion and is now half the size of luxury watch market. Carriero added: “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.”

As said, Breitling will be working along with Arianee that offers a track-and-trace blockchain service. Previously, Arianee has worked with several other Swiss luxury brands like Dunhill, Richemont, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and others.

Arianee blockchain uses Ethereum ERC721 standard non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that allows users to watermark an individual object thereby giving individual authenticity to the object. Breitling watch owners just need to download the Arianee wallet app on their smartphone and add the watch to their digital wallet.

Besides, they can also see the serial number and the activation date of warranty. These details are useful at the time of selling the watch and providing a Proof-of-Authenticity. Also, the digital certificate offers absolute privacy since it isn’t tied to the owners name, email ID or any other personal information. The wallet address is the only unique identifier.

Carriero has asked the entire watch industry to come together and establish a global standard for digital certificates and APIs. “Everything Breitling has developed to integrate Arianee with its e-warranty system is available for free to anyone who wants to use it,” he added.