Counterfeiting is an endemic problem that luxury brands are seeking to stop at all costs. Take the watch industry for example. It is estimated that around 40,000,000 counterfeit watches are produced each year, contributing to significant undesirable ‘brand’ saturation, and around 1,600,000 ‘super fakes’ are produced per year, resulting in a loss of an estimated $224,000,000 in Primary Market sales. To counter this attack on luxury brands' reputation, the loss of sales, and the compromising of long-term trust between businesses, there is now a serendipitous opportunity for manufacturers to see counterfeits and their producers readily exposed; via ORIGYN, a Swiss non-profit foundation.
For the first time in history, a watch leverages its own biometry and represents its own unique identity. ORIGYN's research focused on a way to authenticate an object directly, without the help of a bar code, microchip, engraving, or other proxies. The result is that anyone can now take a photograph of an object using a smartphone application and identify and authenticate a product, while also understanding its provenance, history, and ownership.
“During the last decade, we have seen companies coming up with Blockchain solutions for luxury brands. But all their solutions have the same problem: the watch still has a separate document —or credit card format certificate— that authenticates the watch. Not ORIGYN. As a customer, you can take a picture of the watch with your smartphone and immediately see if your watch is the original or a fake! It's like Shazam, but for watches instead of music!
Furthermore, our solution is non-intrusive for the luxury industry —meaning no changes need to be made to the watches, leather bags, art, etc— as it is based solely on image recognitionof the product itself” says Vincent Perriard, co-founder of ORIGYN.
ORIGYN’s technological might and outstanding potential is its algorithm, which combines artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to quickly identify and authenticate a watch by analyzing a myriad of points of reference captured via images and/or audio signatures of its movement.
ORIGYN, combines decentralized technologies with Artificial Intelligence —AI— and Machine Learning —ML— resulting in revolutionary changes in the fight against counterfeiting. This digital certification technology authenticates luxury goods instantly by taking a simple snapshot of the object itself via a classic smartphone application. For the first time in history, an object itself constitutes its own unique identity, through its own biometry.
Manufacturers are involved from the birth of a luxury good by ‘minting’ —generating— a tamperproof, non-counterfeitable ‘digital twin’ of the physical object. It will also be possible to mint watches or any luxury objects for the secondary market. The ORIGYN protocol secures each digital twin immutably and chronologically. The protocol’s inherent properties allow for transparent and trustworthy operation, in an open and decentralized ecosystem without a controlling central authority. The protocol’s inspectable business rules —or code— are tamperproof and can only be altered by a consensus of the protocol’s governing stakeholders.
Manufacturers will have the power to strengthen their relationship with end-consumers by proposing additional value-adding services. This additional connection between owners, buyers, manufacturers’ boutiques, and other recognized channels in the market will bring many new growth and revenue opportunities. The multiplicity of services and benefits offered to the end-consumer through this technology will create a digital link to luxury goods’ owners. The industry-wide ORIGYN protocol allows for watches to be bound to their owner and to be registered as stolen or lost. It will also allow for easy ownership transfer and will enable insurance providers to offer cover directly to watch owners. Manufacturers —and one day Certified Pre-Owned companies— will be empowered to take back control of the relationship with their end-consumers by proposing world-class products with irrefutable, notarized proof of pre-purchase of a watch that has not yet been released, or to offer watch servicing.
Allowing secondary market sellers and auction houses to certify the authenticity of their products —Certified Pre-Owned—, will also allow the end customers to prove the identity, authenticity, and ownership of a luxury item at any given time. End consumers who own an older luxury product that has not yet been registered may return to a boutique/retailer/manufacture to mint their watch.
The‘Internet Computer’ is the next generation of public internet and is part of ORIGYN’s technology stack. It enables ORIGYN to scale, perform and support a truly revolutionary and accommodating governance system, where all luxury brands remain independent, with their own strong brand images, while playing a part in governing the ORIGYN industry-wide standard. This 'open-minded' technology and governance, its token economy, and, last but not least, its foundation, is fundamental. As a not-for-profit foundation, ORIGYN remains focused upon building and improving a universal authentication platform. ORIGYN anticipates the launch of this new standard for the luxury goods industry’s true value producers via a smartphone application for the general public in 2021.
About ORIGYN Co-Founders
Vincent Perriard is a brand specialist within the luxury industry with 20+ years of experience. He was CEO of HYT from its beginning until mid-2017 where he managed to raise more than CHF 54,000,000 Swiss Francs during his appointment as CEO. Today, he is a shareholder and still active in key strategic matters. Prior to HYT watches, Vincent held key management and marketing positions in the watch industry, including Director of Communications at Audemars Piguet (1995-2000), Vice President at Swatch Group USA (2000–2001), CEO of Concord Watches (2006-2009), and TechnoMarine Watches (2009–2011). He also founded a company specializing in brand strategies for the most powerful and successful fashion and luxury brands in the world named Brand DNA Paris, Taipei, New York, Geneva from 2002 to 2006.
Mike Schwartz is a pioneer in the creation of pan-industry economies leveraging the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP). Most recently Mike was a founder at 55 Foundry, having led the Boston Consulting Group’s ‘Digital Ventures’ (BCGDV) business in Asia. A decade earlier Mike co-founded Genos, the emotional intelligence company; before serving as CEO of the digital banking, telecoms, and loyalty startup Student Edge. In the 90s, Mike led global data architecture for Goldman Sachs Funds Management in New York. He also led commercial banking regionally for a top 20 global bank; large-scale enterprise network services for a top 20 telco; and is a TED-talker.
Gian Bochsler is a Swiss entrepreneur renowned for having had diverse roles, making him a driving force in the fintech community. He founded Bity.com in 2014 and joined DFINITY in 2016, and sits as a council member, overseeing the foundation’s administration. In 2002, Gian founded Bochsler Finance & Associés, an independent Swiss-based financial boutique. Later, within the emergence of bitcoins and blockchains, he founded the Archery Fund, the first Luxembourg-based hedge fund specialized in digital assets. Gian is also the founder and president of the Decentralized Entities Foundation (DEF), a Geneva-based non-profit foundation opened in 2019 to support the development of decentralized entities.
For more info on ORIGYN click here.
