Digby Design Authenticator connects furniture with NFTs to combat counterfeiting
Technology company Digby has partnered with American furniture brand Heller to launch a tool to establish the authenticity of physical design products using the blockchain.
Called the Digby Design Authenticator (DDA), the system allows designers and brands to link each of their products to a non-fungible token (NFT), effectively acting as a digital certificate of authenticity.
Registered on a blockchain, this provides an immutable, decentralized log of product origin and ownership to prevent counterfeiting.
The first product to use DDA is Heller’s Vignelli Rocker, a plastic rocking chair designed by husband-and-wife duo Lella and Massimo Vignelli in 2014.
Heller links blockchain authentication to recycling programs
Beyond proving the chair’s authenticity and making its history fully traceable, Heller hopes the tool will also strengthen its recycling program by helping the brand keep track of its products.
“The company has created a full-circle program that breeds both longevity and active reuse,” said Heller President and CEO John Edelman. “To this end, Heller will take back all of its products – and even pay for shipping – at any point in its lifecycle.”
“Digby Design Authenticator is the ideal product to complement our process by allowing us to create an irrefutable bridge on the blockchain between us and our customers,” continued Edelman.
These efforts will be aided by NFT-backed loyalty programs and opportunities for digital interaction to maintain the relationship between the brand and the customer.
Authentication works by linking the product to the digital token
NFTs first became popular in early 2021 as a way to allow digital assets such as jpegs, gifs and videos to be bought and sold.
Their underlying blockchain systems are hailed as a reliable means of authentication because they are decentralized and immutable, while centralized certificate authorities can be vulnerable to hacking and fraud.
With DDA, Digby now hopes to use this system to authenticate physical products such as designer furniture, home accessories and lighting.
The tool works by linking an NFT to a unique identifier embedded in each product, such as a chip or serial number.
At the time of the object’s digital registration, the NFT will be “stamped” on the blockchain as a unique digital asset, after which it can be bought, sold or traded.
At this point, a confirmation certificate will be emailed to the customer – which they can add to a digital wallet, save as a digital file or print – and the manufacturer will also receive a record of the creation of the NFT through a backend system.
New blockchain technology promises a break from the energy-consuming past
DDA is built on the Polygon blockchain, which uses an energy-efficient mechanism called proof-of-stake to validate its transactions. According to Edelman, this avoids a large part of the emissions that have given NFT’s poor environmental results.
“Rather chose DDA in part because it uses Polygon as their blockchain of choice,” Edelman told Dezeen. “Blockchain has come a long way in terms of energy efficiency in the last year.”
By adopting proof-of-stake, Edelman claims that Polygon was able to reduce energy consumption by 99.95 percent.
That means the energy required to create an NFT on the network is now equivalent to that required to watch 40 seconds of Netflix or send a single email, according to Digby.
Other companies that have started using the blockchain to authenticate physical goods include Louis Vuitton’s parent company LVMH, Prada Group and Cartier, which joined in a consortium to launch the “luxury blockchain” Aura in 2021 and has since been joined by German carmaker Mercedes- Benz.
A recent concept design from IKEA’s Space10 research lab also explores the idea of linking furniture to the blockchain, this time with the goal of encouraging care and maintenance through the cultivation of a virtual NFT tree.
