Blockchain Tech Ltd and Chronicled apply blockchain to bring more transparency to the luxury products market. However, the expansion of new technologies can complicate the process of combating counterfeit.

Luxury commerce has always been overflown with fake goods, watches, handbags and sunglasses being the most popular items to be counterfeited. The distributed ledger technology offers a solution to the problem since data kept in it cannot be changed or removed. At the moment, two blockchain companies provide services for clients concerned with goods’ authenticity: Blockchain Tech and Chronicled.

Blockchain Tech Ltd offers a secure registry that help customers track the entire production process from creation of the product to the moment it gets to the counter.

“By linking digital certificates to purchased goods, we are able to provide a much higher degree of confidence to buyers, especially when purchasing from online or second-hand retailers,” says Guy Halford-Thompson, the founder of Blockchain Tech Ltd.

Chronicled, the second company in the list, employs the same mechanism allowing customers to scan the smart tag of the product via Chronicled mobile app and get all information about the desired item.

“By combining blockchain technology and smart tags, undetectable forgery becomes impossible, and wearing fakes becomes socially risky,” says Chronicled CEO Ryan Orr. “In five years, encrypted chips will be in all of your luxury consumer goods.” At the same time, he warns that with the introduction of new technologies (especially 3D printing), counterfeits will probably become more difficult to detect.

Blockchain technology is already integrated in retail companies’ activity. CoinFox reported earlier on startups facilitating the work of supply chains (Wave), as well as on companies that guarantee authenticity of certain types of goods (Provenance and Everledger).

Anna Lavinskaya