When Swiss watch industry legend Jean-Claude Biver created an NFT of his personal Hublot Bigger Bang All Black Tourbillon Chronograph and put the digital asset up for auction, it was expected to bring credibility and excitement to the fledgling market.
The auction on the OpenSea platform was set up to raise money for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and launched on March 30, 2021, with a high profile PR and marketing campaign that included a giant image of Mr Biver on a massive digital billboard in New York’s Times Square (pictured top).
A fortnight later, and with the NFT still unsold, the auction was extended.
You can log in today to the OpenSea platform and the listing still appears to be live with no offers recorded.
The Hublot watch is part of Mr Biver’s personal collection, and billed as a historic timepiece because of the major role it played in paving the way for today’s watch trends.
“It is a watch that has made watchmaking history, a symbol of success, a source of inspiration that has made it Jean-Claude Biver’s favourite watch for over a quarter of a century,” a description on OpenSea proclaims.
The NFT was created by WISeKey, which offers digital certificates of authenticity that live forever on the blockchain where they become unchangeable and unchallengeable proof of a buyer’s ownership.
The Hublot watch may have peerless provenance, providing a direct link between the NFT owner and Mr Biver’s personal collection. The owner of the NFT could be 100% certain that the treasure could never be duplicated or corrupted. It could not even be lost or stolen like a physical watch.
So why didn’t it sell?
Most likely because the NFT owner would not secure the right to ever own the watch and the world is not yet at the point where we all wander around in the metaverse showing off our non fungible assets.
The role of NFTs is looking like it will be more as proof of all or part of a physical asset.
Like owning shares in a company, you really do own a minuscule percentage of an actual company.
That last section is incorrect, and contradictory, in part.
An NFT (certifying ownership of a physical object) can be sold, thereby allowing a change of ownership.
It’s actually a fundamental point of the whole process existing beyond merely negating counterfeiting.
A bit more research on your end would be handy, to save misleading statements.
https://ethereum.org/en/nft/
While I don’t know what an NFT is, I greatly respect and admire Mr. Biver…
Think of it as the digital copy of ownership papers and certificate of authenticity.