Farfetch, an online luxury fashion retail platform is joining Facebook’s independent blockchain-based platform known as the Libra Association, and shall soon launch its own cryptocurrency called Libra. This technology can be used to authenticate products and will be of great use to the retailer as it sells not only new but also pre-owned luxury fashion products. The Libra Association will begin in the first half of 2020 and will help its customers in dealing with secure, reliable, and scalable cross border payments.
Libra’s mission is to enable a global currency and financial infrastructure, which can empower billions of people across the globe. It will likewise demonstrate to be helpful to users in the third world and developing nations, and to the ones too who right now rely upon services like Western Union to send settlements and payments. This Blockchain-based platform has long been of interest to Farfetch, and the company has been researching its potential applications for the entire luxury industry.
According to José Neves, the CEO of the luxury fashion e-commerce giant Farfetch, such blockchain endeavors will offer a solution to a wide range of fashion industry issues by improving Intellectual Property (IP) and its protection and providing complete transparency in the product lifecycle. He stated that this blockchain-based platform will help in increasing the customers’ expectations for visibility in the origin of the product and its authenticity. He strongly believes that though blockchain is still in its relative fancy, it will very soon assist the fashion industry in scaling solutions to the customer requirements, and shall also deal with the issue of counterfeit goods and services.
This Farfetch, Facebook tie-up, is announced just a month after LVMH, a French luxury goods conglomerate came up with AURA, which is a platform aiming to offer the entire luxury industry with a powerful product tracing and tracking service to verify the authenticity of luxury goods by partnering up with blockchain company ConsenSys and Microsoft. In short, the blockchain-based platform will safeguard the integrity and interests of all brands and shall help the customers in checking the product history and proof of authenticity of luxury goods.
Libra will be managed by Facebook’s Libra Association and being a part of this tie-up, Farfetch will have an equal say in managing the new cryptocurrency