Non-fungible tokens or NFTs are irreproducible, unique tokens that exist on a blockchain and can represent things from artwork to video clips and more. They’ve recently become extremely popular for a number of sales in auction of these tokens representing different items both physical and digital. Despite their recent success, however, the impression given to many that these tokens are somehow a new technology is a false one. In reality they’ve existed since 2014 and arguably in other forms since earlier. NFTs are pretty straightforward, the owner of the irreproducible token would have the rights to whatever it is meant to represent as the token exists on a blockchain. As far as the watch industry goes, and where collectors may be concerned, these tokens are being used to represent both real and digital versions of watches. Thus our question is not related to the short-term longevity of NFTs in the watch industry, given their recent surge in popularity, but rather pertains to how long they’re going to last.
The history of non-fungible tokens goes back to the earlier history of Bitcoin and the recent rise of fintech since the late 2000s. Whoever is behind the pseudonym of ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’, published the Bitcoin manifesto in 2008 and is accredited with inventing Bitcoin. Since then, the industry around cryptocurrency has obviously grown exponentially, NFTs being part of that. The first NFT ever made was almost a decade ago, in 2014 and called ‘Quantum’. In fact, that piece of digital artwork was on sale recently in March for $7 million. Apart from Quantum, many consider ‘Colored Coins’ to be early versions of NFTs. While the first NFT and subsequent NFTs largely focused on different forms of art, the watch market has taken 7 years to join the party.
So far there have been two major sales related to the watch industry, and another related more so to NASA.
Hublot Bigger Bang Tourbillon Chronograph / Credit: OpenSea
One is the Hublot Bigger Bang Tourbillon Chronograph sold by Jean-Claude Biver on Opensea. The NFT for this watch had a bid of about $63,000 at the time of writing, although the auction has been extended as that is below the reserve price, so it’s not yet over.
How exactly does this auction work? Well, Biver isn’t actually giving up his watch, a company called WISeKey created the token for his Hublot and is the company selling it on Opensea, which is a marketplace for NFTs. The winner of the auction (if the reserve price is met) will be paying for a digital, not physical, version of Biver’s massive Hublot Tourbillon.
Jacob & Co. is another company that cashed in on this recent trend, selling an NFT of a Jacob & Co. SF24 for about 41 ETH (Ethereum) or $100,000 USD on ArtGrails, another new NFT marketplace. Now, while both of these sales claim to have been ‘the first’, the truth of the matter is that the Hublot was put up for sale on April 6th and remains unsold and below reserve price, while the Jacob & Co.’s sale started on the 7th was sold in 24 hours in a day-long auction. One put up for sale first, and the other sold first.
Finally, perhaps most intriguing, a company called Anicorn Watches, in collaboration with designer Richard Danne, have released a NASA-themed digital art token that will be sold in auction and can be used to redeem a real and physical limited edition ‘space watch’ designed by Danne. This one is interesting as by connecting the token to the physical timepiece they are in a way breaking the ‘third wall’. In theory, the token would effectively be worthless once the watch is taken into possession, if not for the artwork aspect of it. As such, the token functions more as promotion than anything else - and will likely be sold with the original watch in the future as it is going to feature a host of multimedia content and information related to the watch.
Jacob & Co. SF24 / Credit: Jacob & Co.
So, having understood some of the most recent developments around this relatively old technology, what exactly does it mean for the watch industry? It is obviously hard to say with such a small sample size and little data. You can expect watch NFTs to continue in the short-term especially considering the attention they’ve already been given. I’m sure many of you can already imagine the host of familiar companies lining up to get on the bandwagon. The question is, however, for how long? Will selling digital tokens of pictures of real-life watches really become a thing for watch collectors? There are certainly some brands like Hublot and Jacob & Co. that are predisposed to this sort of trend, with customers that generally gravitate towards them for things like brand recognition. However, I’d say that it is hard to see something like this really lasting long in the watch industry. Although, to my great dismay, I’m not so confident in that thought as in our current world it is quite easy to observe that so many things are being driven by ‘hype’ over quality and speculation over calculation. I just hope we don’t go all the way and become as hype-driven as the art market, the same that previously drove the growth that we see today in the NFT world.
By: Andres Ibarguen
Read more:
Nakamoto, Satoshi. “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” Bitcoin, 2008, https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf.
Salmon, Felix. “Exclusive: The first-ever NFT from 2014 is on sale for $7 million plus.” Yahoo, March 25th, 2021, https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-first-ever-nft-2014-163940646.html.
Rosenfeld, Meni. “Overview of Colored Coins.”Bitcoil, December 4th, 2021, https://bitcoil.co.il/BitcoinX.pdf.
“Jean-Claude Biver Hublot Bigger Bang All Black Tourbillon Chronograph "Special piece".” Opensea, April 6th, 2021, https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/46278206053616762088099727979929024745946993553888345078461487400588605915137.
“JACOB & CO SF24 NFT WATCH.” ArtGrails, April 7th, 2021, https://www.artgrails.com/auctions/jacob-and-co-sf24-nft-watch.
Parkes, James. “Richard Danne designs Space Watch as first NASA-branded NFT.” Dezeen, April 13th, 2021. https://www.dezeen.com/2021/04/13/nasa-anicorn-watches-nft-space-watch/.
Editor’s note (20/04/2021): We’d like to thank Gerald Donavon for noting that he is auctioning two watch NFTs on Mintable, both of which were listed before the two mentioned above, on March 26th.