Manufact and Elas have developed a novel approach to establishing trust within the luxury goods industry. In the face of an escalating counterfeit issue across various sectors, the two companies are now providing a comprehensive traceability system, enabling consumers to verify each step of the development process along the entire supply chain.
The tools they’ve developed give consumers and companies the ability to track every product through its entire lifecycle—from manufacturing to distribution to retail shipping and then finally to the end consumer. This new approach was detailed by Mohammed Jaber (Co-Founder and COO of Elas) and Ali Beydoun (Founder and CEO of Manufact) at the recent London Blockchain Conference.
Old technology is of limited value to prevent counterfeits
Jaber began the presentation by noting that most technology used by companies in the supply-chain industry today is heavily outdated – leading to massive global counterfeiting issues. This includes uncertainty around the provenance of the product, unreliable intermediaries and third parties, and questionable data integrity.
‘Blockchain has come along and helped overcome a lot of these limitations as it provides a mechanism for immutable storage. It also acts as a distributable ledger that multiple stakeholders in the supply chain process can agree on that information being there.’ Jaber added that blockchain also provides a timestamp of events, is highly scalable and is most importantly secure.
The provenance of your Bitcoin
However there are questions about the provenance of Bitcoins used to facilitate this amazing utility on the blockchain, Jaber said. To address this issue, Elas offers a fully managed service to allow for impeccable provenance.
‘Elas handles all the purchases and management of Bitcoin so it can be hidden for a seamless user experience while maintaining all the benefits.’ Elas also offers private ledgers on the public blockchain, he said. ‘This includes a compartmentalised ‘private zone’ on the public ledger that is exclusively managed by your business.’
‘We are now taking things a step further and offering Coinbase Output Ledgers. These are formed directly from newly minted coins and that’s what gives us the ability to offer impeccable provenance – because there is no previous history.’
He noted that this is perfect for supply chains and government projects because it removes any doubt about where your Bitcoin is coming from.
Live demonstration of Manufact
As part of the presentation, Beydoun gave a live presentation of how Manufact’s toolset works to help prevent fraud and counterfeiting. Beydoun noted that Manufact has set its sights on the luxury goods market, honing in on high-end brands in particular due to their heightened vulnerability to counterfeiting and fraudulent activities.
As an illustrative case, he mentioned the luxury cigar industry which lost $50 million in the European market alone due to counterfeit products. Beydoun added that he himself was scammed after spending $2,000 on a box of fake cigars – which led to the creation of Manufact.
‘What we have done is capture the data on the blockchain and every signal item or box that comes out of the factory and is sealed with our product then becomes a digital token.’ He showed how the Manufact seal on a cigar box shows not only the factory anime where it is produced, its expected destination, a certificate of authenticity and the box number.