Now You Can Spot the Fake: Prada, Cartier, and Louis Vuitton Set to Verify Goods With Blockchain

Another feather will be added to the cap of Blockchain-based technological innovation as three rival giant luxury brands – Prada, Cartier, and Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) –agree to lay aside competition, to set the stage for the novel adoption of secure Blockchain technology in the luxury industry, to fight fake products and verify product authenticity.

The announcement which was also made two days ago on LVMH’s official website would see all three brands come together to leverage the innovation of Aura Blockchain Consortium (ABC) – a private flexible multi-nodal blockchain with an immutable structure that promises to afford consumers direct access to a database of product information including proof of ownership, authenticity, warranty and a record of service and maintenance, directly from the brands.

Aura is also seeking to woo other luxury brands, regardless of their size, to its platform with the offers of an espionage-proof secure network that would ensure the data of a brand is not porous and accessible to a rival. 

The new possibility comes as a huge step forward for fashion brands all over the world towards fighting the ever-growing online counterfeit market stemming from local counterfeit traders on high traffic e-commerce platforms like Taobao, Alipay, and others, from which many online brands have counted their losses to the tune over $320 billion since 2017.

Already, the largely disruptive innovation has been greeted with high fists and raised brows, with many wondering the extent to which the role of middlemen will be eliminated given the direct access consumers now have with brand manufacturers.