Behind Nike'S Involvement In Encryption Shoes, The Fashion Industry Is Actively Embracing The Block Chain.

Not long ago, news came out about Nike, a sports brand giant, who began to get involved in block chain business.

Quoted from Holland's authoritative website TNW (The Next Web), United States Patent and Trademark Office, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, has issued a patent entitled "Office" to Nike.

Forbes has listed block chain technology as one of the trends of luxury industry that needs to be focused in 2018. So why does Nike, which mainly serve footwear and sports products, begin to involve complex block chain businesses? What kind of changes can we bring to the world's block chains to the Nike footwear industry and even the whole fashion industry?

Application of block chain in fashion art and footwear industry

1.Nike "Cryptokicks"

The "Cryptokicks" patent applied by Nike is actually a system that users can attach to the physical products such as sports shoes by encrypting the digital assets through the system. Nike and users can track product ownership and verify its authenticity by using block chain technology. When the user buys a pair of Nike sneakers, the sole digital asset (ERC-721 token) matching the shoes will be received, that is to say, at the same time, shoes and tokens will be acquired. The combination of the two will be called CryptoKicks, which means "Encrypt shoes". Then the system will generate a "CryptoKick ID", which records information about shoes, materials, series and specific models, and will be stored in an encrypted currency purse type APP called "Digital Locker". Like sports shoes, the digital assets corresponding to shoes are transferred to their buyers. Only by transferring digital evidence, will the corresponding ownership information be transferred and tampered with.

2.LVMH block chain authentication platform Aura

In May 2019, the French luxury group LVMH launched its first global block chain certification platform Aura. The platform can help consumers trace their source and other identity information to products of Louis Vuitton and Parfums Christian Dior. This information contains every link of raw material manufacturing process, production and transportation used by products, so that all these links can be transparent to consumers. At the same time, the information will only reveal to the consumer of this product, so as to achieve secrecy. The emergence of Aura aims at tracking every product "raw material" from the beginning of every stage of technology to solve the problem of counterfeit goods in luxury and fashion industries. On this basis, customers can freely control their data and prevent data leakage.

3. online art trading platform MakersPlace

MakersPlace's main founder, Dannie Chu and Yash Nelapati, were all engineers of Pinterest. The platform also encouraged the artists to sell their products on the platform based on the block chaining technology, and the platform gained profits by commissions from them. MakersPlace will generate an ERC-20 token for each artist who sells works on the platform to trade their artworks. Artists can save these currencies in their own digital encryption "wallet" or choose the wallet provided by MakersPlace. At the same time, MakersPlace will create block chain fingerprints for each piece of work of artists and creators, prove the identity and source of the work, and make this fingerprint a symbol of the limit of artwork. At present, the outside world is very optimistic about this platform, MakersPlace also completed in April this year, $2 million seed financing.

4.1017 ALYX 9SM cooperation with German block chain foundation Iota

In addition to Nike and LVMH, powerful fashion consortia began to pay attention to the application of block chains. Some independent designer brands have also begun to use block chaining technology as breakthrough points to achieve their own brand personalization and enhance their sense of experience. The brand 1017 ALYX 9SM, headed by Matthew M. Williams, is also working with the block chain foundation Iota from Germany this year to try to create a transparent supply chain for brand consumers. 1017 ALYX 9SM plans to provide customers with full knowledge of their supply chain through block chaining technology. The customer will be able to scan the two-dimensional code to access and acquire all the data from the first pin to the retail terminal. The 1017 ALYX 9SM brand will create and deliver the design concept and production process to consumers who buy products every season. This way can ease the doubts that brand products bring to consumers in all links.

How can complex technology be developed?

In recent years, the term "block chain" has emerged as a relatively technical term. Although it is linked to finance and Internet industry, its complex theoretical and operational structure is still hard to be understood by ordinary people. How to visualize this abstract concept in front of consumers and ordinary people to serve them has become a trend in fashion and footwear industry. However, from the operation of Nike giants and LVMH giants, we can initially observe the application prospect of block chain technology in this industry.

1. help consumers to "monitor" brand sustainability.

In 2019, "environmental protection" and "sustainability" have almost become "politically correct" in the footwear industry. Not only the old fashions and designers from Europe have begun to attach importance to "sustainability" as their selling point, but also sports products giants such as Nike and Adidas have launched more environmentally friendly products through technology research and development. It can be seen that this "green" craze will not only quickly disperse in the short term, but also may become a long-term responsibility of the major brands.

From the perspective of consumers, they welcome brands to take responsibility for environmental protection and sustainability. A survey conducted by Mintel, the world's leading independent market research firm, showed that only 58% of respondents in mainland China said they were willing to spend more money on moral brands. The application of block chain technology can help a large number of brand consumers feel and even witness the action of brand in the field of environmental protection.

Currently, the French luxury giant Kering group, the European fashion business platform Zalando, the American fashion retail group PVH Corp, Holland fast fashion retail group C&A, many fashion, luxury and retail giants participate in the cooperation Organic Cotton Traceability Pilot project is a use of block chain and DNA spray marking technology to trace the source of organic cotton. In the future, this technology may be applied to all kinds of shoes and clothing products. And if Adidas can release the FUTURECRAFT.LOOP one hundred percent cycle again this year, if it can post the block chain technology to enable consumers to completely track all the links from their birth to the rebirth of their sneakers, then the 100% environmental protection concept that the brand hopes to pass will be presented more directly to users. In this way, consumers can clearly understand whether their brands are really working on environmental protection and sustainable development, so that they can choose whether to pay for them.

2., provide help for brand rights protection and anti-counterfeiting.

One of the problems that the current street fashion and fashion luxury industry is deeply troubled is no doubt that its own interests are damaged due to the rampage of counterfeit goods. The survey report of "Global Brand Counterfeiting Report, 2018" released by market research firm Research and Markets showed that the global counterfeit market had lost 1 trillion and 200 billion dollars to the brand as early as 2017, and it is expected to reach 1 trillion and 820 billion US dollars by 2020. Among them, the total loss of fake products sold online is 323 billion dollars. And the existence of fake goods will also trouble consumers. And block chain technology can help solve this problem from a certain level.

Taking Nike Cryptokicks as an example, the only digital asset (ERC-721 token) produced by it is actually Token, which often appears in the field of block chain, meaning "tokens", which also contains integrals, assets, certificates, etc. If it is further expanded, it can also represent honor marks, identity and confirmation tools, system assets quantitative indicators, system passes and system protection, that is to say, it can become a representation of the rights or values of anything.

By enabling consumers to obtain a unique exclusive Token, the authenticity of products can be verified from all angles and levels. Because of the complex algorithm and encryption technology in the block chain field, it is almost impossible to copy Token, and this imitation and fraud are completely different from the physical imitation of the real world, and the cost is far beyond the scope that the counterfeiting industry can withstand. It can be said that as long as the brand official itself does not have any technical loopholes, it is almost impossible to break through the methods of forgery which "give the product exclusive Token and give users tracking".

3. enhance safety for consumers in the two tier market

In 2018, the global luxury goods grade two market reached an annual sales volume of US $25 billion. In 2019, the global secondary market (including the sale of new sneakers for new shoes) had already reached US $6 billion. Thus, consumers in the two tier market are also a group that can not be ignored. Compared with the first tier market, how to enhance the safety of consumers in the two tier market is also a difficult problem facing the market and brand.