Headquartered in Boston, New Balance Athletics Inc., which takes pride in being the world’s leading sports apparel and footwear firm, has broadcasted the news about the launch of its highly anticipated pilot program in collaboration with research and development company, Input Output Hong Kong or IOHK, as it is popularly addressed as.
The project will be aimed to check the genuineness of its newly launched basketball shoe via a reliable blockchain network to render trust and proof of origin to every customer. The sports firm has relied upon IOHK platform for the preparation of the blockchain network named as the “New Balance Realchain.” The blockchain platform will be developed atop IOHK’s leading network, the Cardano Blockchain.
According to the latest information, the New Balance Realchain network will be launched in alignment with the unveiling of OMN1S shoes on Friday. The project will help the new clients to record their shoes’ ownership on the decentralized chain. The purchasers of the OMN1S shoes will be given a Realchain card, which will be studded with an identity and security chip. After receiving their pair of basketball shoes, the owner can scroll through the New Balance app for scanning a QR code imprinted on the Realchain card. Also, one needs to scan the chip embedded within the card to get their shoe pair authenticated on the IOHK Cardano blockchain network.
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The customers need to enter a code given on the tongue of the shoes into the app for claiming their ownership. By doing this, the particular person will be entitled to secured ownership of the shoes recorded on the New Balance Realchain platform.
“We are using blockchain technology to innovate at multiple points of the customer lifecycle,” stated Ian Fitzpatrick, who serves as the chief of global content and digital marketing at New Balance Inc. The spearhead further added that,
We’re also helping customers feel confident that the footwear they are purchasing fulfill the quality promise that is central to the New Balance brand.
Charles Hoskinson, CEO of IOHK, stated that,
We’re looking forward to seeing what New Balance customers make of the opportunity to protect their investment by verifying the authenticity of their new purchase forever, on the Cardano blockchain. We believe that the New Balance OMN1S will be just the first of many products authenticated as genuine in this way, doing away with the need for paper receipts or certificates of authenticity forever.
This is not for the first time that a sports firm has entered into a partnership for exploring the blockchain arena. Earlier, a popular vintage sneaker company, Chronicled Inc., raised $3.4 million to launch a similar authentication product in 2016.
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IOHK aims to team up with other industry leaders in different corners of the world to channelize authentication platforms for goods, which can plunge down fraudulent activities and increase the trust in customers at large.
