Cardano is partnering with the University of Wyoming. They want to fight counterfeiting in luxury goods using blockchain tech.
Cardano and UW to fight counterfeiting using blockchain. According to the OECD, “Imports of counterfeit and pirated goods are worth nearly half a trillion dollars a year, or around 2.5% of global imports, with US, Italian, and French brands the hardest hit and many of the proceeds going to organized crime, according to a new report by the OECD and the EU’s Intellectual Property Office.”
Luxury brands and companies tried to fight illegal activities using serial codes, holograms, and RFID tags with moderate success. The luxury goods industry suffers when its authenticity is questioned as brands become weaker in the buyer’s heads. Not to talk about financial losses.
The University of Wyoming (UW) is working on a solution against counterfeiting based on the Cardano Blockchain. IOHK (The company behind the research and development of the Cardano ecosystem) provided $ 500,000 in ADA to UW to develop chips capable of holding what is essentially proof of ownership of luxury goods.
Hoskindson Explanations
According to Charles Hoskinson, IOHK CEO, this project goes beyond the scope of 2020. If they execute the project adequately, its possibilities are endless and could lead to a total revolution in the luxury goods industry.
In a YouTube video, Hoskinson explains how the solution works, assessing the current industry supply chain system and its problems from component integration to the final retail step.
UW solution will use software and hardware to address the issue. They hide an inexpensive chip storing private keys in the desired product (in a shoe sole, for example). Manufacturers harden this chip against information extraction. They equip the chips with RFC, RFID, or a similar standard and are extremely cheap, costing an estimated 1 to 10 cents. And it would be easy to implant the chips in luxury bags, shoes, watches, etc.
WU plans to issue tokens using the Cardano blockchain representing a luxury good’s authenticity or ownership. Thus, once they flash the private key in that asset, you can never alter or erase it since you can not remove it. And since the private key is locked in the chip forever, so is the authentication token.
Hoskinson expects these chips to get better over time. He said that it would be possible to add extra metadata. You can store the item’s history, its manufacturing location, and selling points.