LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton), the French multinational luxury goods conglomerate is about to launch a blockchain to track luxury goods in order to prove their authenticity, according to CoinDesk.
This might sound quite surprising for some, but the potential applications of blockchain are limitless and every day new projects such as this one demonstrate it. Similarly, the independent, family-owned Scottish whisky company established in 1887 by William Grant, William Grant & Sons, has also announced that one of their brands would release whisky on the blockchain to confirm its origin. So blockchain applications to prove authenticity and origin are on the increase.
LVMH will work with ConsenSys and Microsoft Azure to develop a blockchain platform based on JPMorgan’s Quorum. The crypto provenance platform with the code AURA is scheduled to go live in May or June with Louis Vuitton and Parfums Christian Dior. AURA has been built on Quorum, a permissioned version of the Ethereum blockchain which is focused on data privacy.
According to CoinDesk’s sources close to the team working with ConsenSys and Microsoft told CoinDesk:
“To begin with AURA will provide proof of authenticity of luxury items and trace their origins from raw materials to point of sale and beyond to used-goods markets. The next phase of the platform will explore protection of creative intellectual property, exclusive offers and events for each brands’ customers, as well as anti-ad fraud.”
White Label
LVMH is planning to offer the service as a white-label product to be used by its competitors. In order to avoid any issues, LVMH will “donate all intellectual property (IP) to a separate entity and that entity, in turn, will be owned by the participating brands.” CoinDesk’s source explained: “So Gucci, for example, could decide to join the platform and be a shareholder – in which case their claim to the IP would be as great as Louis Vuitton’s claim to the IP. That is the main difference between this project and the IBM Maersk project, which hopefully makes it much more comparable to Komgo, the trade finance consortium.”
LVMH is a family-run group, home to 70 distinguished Houses from six different sectors, including wines and spirits, fashion and leather, perfumes and cosmetics, watches and jewelry, selective retailing and other activities. As one of the world’s leading luxury products group with 46.8 billion euros revenue in 2018, LVMH’s choice to use blockchain for its products is a significant decision which underlines the group’s fundamental values: innovation, creativity, excellence, and entrepreneurial spirit. With the Group’s strategic priority being sustainable development, the choice to launch a blockchain is not a light decision but cements the brand’s innovative spirit.