According to reports, it seems that the luxury brand conglomerate LVMH – of which Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior are part – has organised a specialised team and collaborations with ConsenSys and Microsoft Azure to launch, before this summer, its Ethereum-authorised blockchain to track luxury goods.
More specifically, the blockchain called AURA was developed using an authorised version of the Ethereum blockchain called Quorum, focused on data privacy and developed by JPMorgan.
“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”.
The idea is to launch the project with the first two brands Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, and then continue with all the remaining 60 brands, including Bulgari, Sephora, Fendi, Hublot, Marc Jacobs, Le Bon Marché and others.
Not only that, it seems that AURA will also be available to competitors and collaborators of LVMH, in fact, there is talk of white label for other brands, instead of special applications. In essence, AURA will work behind the app of a given brand.
“So if you are a customer of a luxury brand, you are not going to see AURA; you are going to see the Louis Vuitton app or the app of another luxury brand”.
In addition, in order to improve the use of AURA also for competitors, LVMH will donate all intellectual property (IP) to a separate entity, so that if for example Gucci wanted to join the platform and become a shareholder, in that case, its IP claim would be as large as that of Louis Vuitton’s IP.
