Nike converts shoe patents to tokens on Ethereum

The footwear giant Nike is marking their patented shoes as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum blockchain, calling them CryptoKicks.

The patent was published on 12/10, describing digital assets for footwear and their use. One implementation of the technology described in the document is using Ethereum ERC721 or ERC1155 tokens to verify and trade physical shoes.

Shoes on the Blockchain

We all know that blockchain is widely used in various products to enable easier tracking and prevent counterfeiting. This time, it is being applied in the shoe industry, aiming to provide a method to ensure the authenticity of goods.

In Nike's approach, a 10-digit shoe identification code is linked to an owner identification code. Consumers can then receive the corresponding NFT when purchasing the physical shoes, ensuring that their shoes are authentic. As described in the patent:

Allowing current owners to buy and sell digital assets through one or more blockchain ledgers running on a distributed computing system. Users can buy a new pair of highly sought-after athletic shoes from a verified supplier, which can provide a verified provenance record for the athletic shoes. Upon receiving the shoebox containing the purchased athletic shoes, the user scans the box UPC with the barcode scanning feature in the athletic shoe application running on the user's smartphone, linking the digital asset to the physical shoes.

Nike also suggests linking the creation of tokens with the sale of shoes to verify the scarcity of shoes in circulation. When a consumer purchases a genuine pair of shoes, a complex digital representation may be generated and associated with the consumer, and an encrypted token is assigned, where the digital shoe and the encrypted token collectively represent a CryptoKick.

Blockchain on Shoes

The first company to consider applying blockchain to shoes was Chronicled, which raised $3.4 million at the time to explore whether blockchain technology could add value for collectors of athletic shoes.

Chronicled's main product involves selling chips on a large scale along with accompanying data and analytics packages so that retailers and brands can view data on products and consumer patterns.

As reported by the New York Times, this market rapidly attracts thousands of dollars in collections from mostly male and teenage buyers. Informal estimates suggest that the secondhand shoe market alone in the United States is worth $1.2 billion.

In the future, we can expect that collectibles will gradually use blockchain to guarantee their value, as seen in this report on sneakers. Whether it's Nike or the blockchain-related technology recently introduced by Chronicled, it confirms that NFTs will make the market more attractive to consumers.

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