Luxury Brands Like Gucci Venturing Into NFTs And Crypto

Gucci has become the first major brand to accept in-store payments of ApeCoin, the Bored Ape Yacht Club-affiliated cryptocurrency, but it is by no means the only luxury-focused company to be venturing into theworld of digital assets.

In May, the high-end Italian fashion house also revealed it would be accepting 12 different cryptocurrencies as payment methods across North Americas 111 stores.

Earlier in the year, the retailer, which is owned by France’s Kering, also unveiled various non-fungible token (NFTs) collections.

Gucci’s move this week comes days after Tiffany & Co announced a collaboration featuring NFT trailblazers CryptoPunksin the form of limited-edition, custom pendants designed by its in-house jewellers (read more).

A total of 250 NFTiffs will be available to CryptoPunks holders for 30 Ethereum (approximately US$50,000 at the time of writing) each.

Each gold pendant will use at least 30 gemstones and diamonds to recreate a physical likeness of each NFT, with the series number engraved on the reverse alongside the Tiffany logo.

Last year, Sothebys held itsfirstdigitalartmetaverse auction and it was approximately six months earlier that the British auction house first sold NFTs (read more).

Then in November, Sothebys said it would accept Ethereum bids for works by Banksy, which was the first ever time crypto was used as the standard currency for bidding on physical artworks in real-time during a live auction (read more).

Also last year there were a variety of fashion NFT collaborations.

The iconic Herms Birkin bag was turned by artists Mason Rothschild and Eric Ramirez into an NFT, meaning the ‘pregnant Birkin’ design is exclusive to the virtual bag and means the NFT version, while intangible, is rarer than any physical handbag (though in no way useful for carrying your phone, cards, make-up etc).

In a collaboration with 18-year-old digital artist Fewocious, virtual brand Rtfkt sold just over 600 pairs of sneakers in just seven minutes for $3.1mlnand Burberry PLC dropped a shark-themed NFT collection in partnership with Mythical Games.