The Metaverse is getting luxury watches.
Brands like Nike and Adidas, as well as fashion houses like Gucci, Versace, and Ralph Lauren, are among those looking at the expanding intersection of the “real” and “virtual” worlds and filing trademark applications for use of their marks in the metaverse.
But, life teaches if you are not there, someone is going to fill up that space at your expense.
In these past months, with the gradual expansion of the NFTs, this is happening more and more. The last brand that suffered a “takeover” in the metaverse was Rolex. But what exactly happened?
First, the precedent
If you are familiar with the NFT and crypto world, you might already know about the previous case of “stealing” that occurred in the Metaverse. We are talking about the MetaBirkin case (if you’d like to know more about this specific case, we wrote an extensive article on it that you can find here). Last December, Mason Rothschild, a digital developer based in Los Angeles, debuted the MetaBirkins, a digital version of the iconic bag, at Art Basel Miami. The metaverse accessory had the same shape as the 37-year-old Birkin, but it was fur-lined and included vivid designs (something Hermès often avoids to keep the line simple and clean).
Hermès declared the MetaBirkins NFT a fake in the Metaverse of its bag and brand and took swift action. It sent a warning letter to the NFTs’ developer and the marketplace OpenSea, requesting that they stop marketing the NFTs in question.
Now the story is repeating itself with another luxury brand in the crosshairs of digital replicas: Rolex.
The BETMAN Club project
To better understand how the whole affair developed, we will take a step back and analyze the main actor.
The BETMAN Club is a project born in late 2021 to realize every watch enthusiast’s dream: to possess the NFT replica of their favorite watch.
BETMAN is dedicated to bringing world-famous watches to the online world and creating an exclusive international watch community. Moreover, they “hope that in the future, through the release of different parts, collectors who pursue scarcity will be able to modify their watches.”
Currently, 500 watches, including two GMT models, have been minted at a retail price of 0.05 eth, or roughly 123 euros — 350 in a Submariner variant, 150 in a GMT version. In addition to their distinct serial numbers, the timepieces differ in color.
The second-hand market is organized on the brand’s Opensea page once the sale is over.
Each watch model and part will only be sold once, to reflect the uniqueness of luxury timepieces, and will not be republished in the future. Collectors will be able to combine four parts with the same serial number from a total of 1,120 components to construct a Prime Watch, of which only 280 are available, providing them the opportunity to improve their virtual timepiece.
Generative Watches
Jesus Calderon is a 29-year-old motion graphics designer from Chicago who is also a watch and crypto enthusiast. Calderon has brought these two worlds together to create a flourishing horological NFT market called Generative Watches, where he makes and sells virtual watches.
A generative watch is a collection of watches created by an algorithm. It is built on a Google Sheets algorithm that includes many characteristics like colors, materials, images, arms, and so on. Humans, aliens, zombies, apes, and robots are all represented by model arms. Ceramic, metal, and glass are among the materials available. Iridescent timepieces will be available, as well as brushed or polished metals such as gold, bronze, or steel.
All of his generative watches are a knock-off of real brands.
Calderon stated that he is concentrating on large pieces to gain greater attention since the more eyes on the project, the better it will be for the community’s capacity to trade and have liquidity.
The Rodex Daitona — formed from the name Rolex Daytona — is being auctioned for 20 Ethereum, which is roughly $76,500, according to Bloomberg. On the company’s official website, the cheapest Rolex Daytona costs around $18,000. Calderon is also selling a Rødex Bitmariner (Rolex Submariner) for 20 Ethereum.
What is the response of the named plaintiff?
Despite its cultural clout, the Swiss watch business is notoriously conservative, and many manufacturers are anticipated to stay away from the metaverse. “The Swiss companies will be worried about perception and will be very late to the party,” said William Rohr, founder of watch company Massena LAB and former managing director of watch forum TimeZone.
It remains to be seen how Rolex reacts to founder Jesus Calderon’s “Rødex Bitmariner,” a spoof of the superbrand’s famous Submariner design.
In the meanwhile, Hèrmes is pursuing his battle against Mason Rothschild over the creation of the MetaBirkins. In the end, Hermès believes that Rothschild is “trying to create the same kind of illusion that the Birkin has in real life as a digital commodity”, and has achieved “great financial success in a matter of weeks” as a result of his “confusing and dilutive use of the BIRKIN wordmark.
Digital ownership to embrace the metaverse
As the battle continues, we can’t help but think about why brands are afraid to leap into NFTs and the digital world. Digital ownership is being used to show people what we believe in, what we love, and to acknowledge the communities we belong to.
We’re seeing a change in digital content from freely available to limited digital content that may be reused as a status symbol. Brands have the opportunity to investigate how their products and services may be converted into virtual environments.
As MyLime, we think that continuity between the two worlds can be reached through a deep physical and digital integration, meaning that each asset that exists in the real world should exist as well in the Metaverse and vice versa. How is that achievable? Thanks to 1:1 NFTs correlated to their physical counterpart.
This is to enhance customers’ digital ownership and experience in every sector, perpetuating the value of the assets over time. In this way, brands would have the possibility to simply cover both the physical and the digital marketplace without having to fight over some fake digital replica.
