The luxury jewelry and watchmaking brand Jacob & Co. is putting its hat into the NFT ring by releasing the first-ever NFT watch — it will go to auction on ArtGrails, starting April 4th.
The watch, known as the NFT SF24 Tourbillon, is one of a kind and will have a starting bid of $1,000. The auction will last for a total of five days.
Like the IRL Epic SF24, from which the watch takes its aesthetic inspiration, the SF Tourbillon will feature a working split flap-system — like the kind of split-flap timetables you usually see in airports. However, instead of displaying city names, this system displays cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Fantom, all in a ten-second animation that appears on the watch’s face. The watch will even come in its own digital box with a matching certificate.
Take a closer look via the video below.
So, why would you need a watch on the internet? Jacob & Co. is hoping to prove that there is a market for High-End Digital Assets (HELDAs) in the NFT space. Up to this point, although there have been blockbuster sales, bigger brands and luxury retailers have largely stayed out of NFTs, waiting to see if it is indeed a fad.
But if Benjamin Arabov, the newly named CEO of Jacob & Co., has anything to do with it, that will be about to change. “My hope is for Jacob & Co. to become the first luxury brand to launch a successful NFT and pave the way for other luxury brands to start launching products & collections through NFT. It’s not a matter of ‘if’ NFTs will have a place in the watches and luxury world, but 'when.' For Jacob & Co., the 'when' is now, and we are prepared to pioneer this shift.”
He continued, "We anticipate that NFTs are here for the long term and there will be a whole generation of people who will only grow up knowing NFTs,” said Arabov, who at 28 years old, is intimately familiar with the digital consumer." Arabov adds that the brand has long found pride in being inspired by the impossible and will always push to innovate.
Now, along with NFT socks, and sneakers, your online avatar can have all the accessories of your real-world self–it's all part of the process of recreating the real world with NFTs, one accessory at a time.