A. Favre & Fils, a historic Swiss watch brand founded in 1718, enters the blockchain world, announcing for 2019 a new luxury timepiece with a built-in crypto storage.
According to reports, the timepiece, provisionally called Crypto Mechanical Watch, will be available no earlier than spring 2019 and will cost between 100,000 – 150,000 CHF (the equivalent of $102,000 – $153,000).
Laurent Favre describes the new watch as the product of a link between the latest blockchain technology and the brand of the oldest generation of watchmakers, so as to maintain the idea of the mechanical watch that is still relevant in today’s world.
“It’s a bit like figuring out the future of steam engines in the age of electric trains. You have to keep adding relevant features that advance the design.“
Already in the past, other luxury companies in the Swiss watch industry, have reinvented themselves in the blockchain world, selling new and limited edition watches that include crypto themes or purchasable directly in bitcoin, an example are the Hublot watches.
Usually, smartwatches can be integrated with crypto-wallet apps, but this time the timepiece has practically no additional apps and is marketed directly with integrated crypto storage.
Favre’s new idea integrates crypto technology during the manufacturing stage, staying in the luxury class thanks to the base of the device that remains refined, hand-finished and equipped with internal mechanical movement with manual winding.
According to Favre, in fact, this watch:
“offers something useful to the crypto community, not just something to spend their money on”.
At the moment, the Crypto Mechanical Watch prototype has not yet been built, but it seems that the basic technology has already been developed.
Finally, on the official website of the Swiss brand, Favre briefly talks about the team behind the project:
“I am very excited about this new piece and the vision it creates for the Swiss watchmaking industry. I am particularly proud of the great board of advisors we can count on for this very innovative project we are working on. Our team is composed by luxury watchmaking experts and a world-class board of advisors including Stephen Urquhart, Ex-President and CEO of Omega for 17 years and Oliver Bussmann, former Group CIO of UBS and SAP and one of the most influential blockchain expert”.
