Understanding Digital Twins: Answering the Top FAQs
Digital twins, non-fungible tokens, digital certificates and papers — a degree of confusion sometimes exists as to what these terms really mean, how they differ and why they deliver benefits to the luxury sector. One thing is certain, a host of intelligent technologies typically drive the creation and management of these digital artifacts.
At ORIGYN Luxury, we mint digital twins. In fact, we’re all about them. They sit at the core of our technology offering, the seed from which all other services and capabilities grow.
Read below to discover the answers to the most recurring inquiries we receive about ORIGYN’s digital twins.
Q. What is ORIGYN Luxury?
A: ORIGYN Luxury is a powerful pan-industry platform designed for top luxury brands and resellers to certify the authenticity and ownership of physical objects leveraging tamper-proof digital twins. As the first industry vertical formed in the foundation ecosystem, ORIGYN Luxury’s key objective is to make the link between a digital twin and a real-world physical asset irrefutable based on the natural characteristics of an object alone.
Q. What are digital twins?
A: Digital twins are unique digital counterparts to real-world physical objects. For example, with luxury watches, they may contain high-resolution images captured using an ORIGYN device in manufacturing settings and service centers, as well as sound files, weight data and other watch-specific information. These details can also include biometric features used for authentication and to bind owners to their watches.
Beyond these attributes, ORIGYN “twins”may also contain insurance and warranty data, financial agreements, authorized service records, loss/theft registration and alerts, bequeathal instructions, heritage records and more. ORIGYN backs the creation of every minted digital twin with a guarantee of authenticity, which is reinforced by this array of watch-specific data embedded in every twin.
Q. What is a pan-industry solution and how does this apply to digital twins?
A: ORIGYN Luxury is a pan-industry solution, which means its interests extend beyond any single manufacturer or market sector. Instead, the goal is to provide a universal solution for all industry players to address tradeability, traceability and counterfeiting, as well as open up new opportunities for consumers to fully enjoy the benefits of their luxury assets. Digital twins can be minted in controlled settings by any manufacturer or reseller around the world.
Q. Are digital twins also NFTs?
A: Yes, in short, but our luxury NFTs include high-quality data that ties them to items you can touch, wear, feel and experience. NFT stands for non-fungible token, which is a unique digital token that represents another asset or an entirely distinct digital collectible. These tokens are created with (also powered by) blockchain technology.
NFTs can be easily bought and sold digitally. In the case of ORIGYN Luxury, digital twins represent highly valuable physical objects. These NFTs can then be used to certify the authenticity of an item and enable its transfer between parties.
Q. What items can be minted as a digital twin?
A: Digital twins can be minted for a wide variety of luxury items, including watches, jewelry, handbags, rare collectibles and others.
Q. What else can a digital twin be used for?
A: In addition to certifying the origin of the product by replicating the item digitally, ORIGYN digital twins have the potential to include valuable post-sales service information. Digital twins may be used to identify lost and stolen items. They can also enhance tradeability by enabling better insurance options to protect items during transit. Additional services provide a deeper layer of protection and greater value for manufacturers, resellers and consumers, and they are an important differentiator for digital twins over simpler virtual papers.
Q. What technology is used to create digital twins?
A: ORIGYN Luxury leverages DFINITY’s Internet Computer (IC), which is a decentralized, seamless and unified public computing platform used to mint, maintain and transfer digital twins. On top of this platform infrastructure, artificial intelligence is an important driver in the ORIGYN detection and authentication framework. Using industrial-grade and on-device recognition and identification created by leading experts in neural networks, deep learning, computer vision and artificial intelligence, ORIGYN is able to uniquely identify physical objects even if they are of the same make or model.
Q. Can digital twins help consumers authenticate an item?
A: Along with enabling manufacturers and resellers to mint and guarantee a digital twin, ORIGYN can help consumers to validate the authenticity of their luxury items. Once launched to market, anyone wanting to authenticate his or her luxury watch, for example, can bring the item to a participating service center. If an ORIGYN digital twin exists, the watch can be scanned and matched via biometric features to prove its authenticity. In the future, ORIGYN plans to deliver consumer self-service identification and authentication solutions via cell phone-resident technology
Q. How can digital twins impact the luxury industry?
A: Digital twins establish unprecedented levels of trust between manufacturers, resellers and consumers. They will also decrease counterfeiting. Considering that billions of dollars in counterfeit goods are bought and sold each year around the world, counterfeiting and brand erosion are considerable issues. Additionally, secondary services such as insurance, warranties and lost and stolen item recovery create immense value for manufacturers, resellers and owners alike.
Q. What is the next phase for ORIGYN Luxury?
A: ORIGYN’s global research and development team is currently working on an app that will allow people to validate the authenticity of luxury products with a simple smartphone photo. The matching capabilities already possible in a service center or manufacturing setting will then extend to a global consumer audience. ORIGYN has already established its minting capabilities and is extending its matching services to manufacturers and resellers next year, with consumer solutions expected in 2022.
ORIGYN aims to transform the luxury goods industry by certifying ownership, reducing counterfeiting and streamlining the process of transferring ownership of luxury goods from person to person. It will achieve all of these things through its revolutionary digital twin technology powered by DFINITY’s ICP.
ORIGYN protects the assets that define the human experience. Continue to follow us on this important journey here and at origyn.ch/luxury!
