Swiss Watchmaker Wants to Put a Crypto Wallet on Your Wrist

Luxury Swiss watchmaker A. Favre & Fils has announced a handcrafted mechanical timepiece with a built-in crypto-wallet. The watchmaker with a family history going back three centuries – ten generations – also added that the piece will have “state of the art proprietary security solution.”

As an initiative to connect traditional Swiss watchmaking with the young industry, the announcement comes as proof of the willingness to adopt the technology, adapt to changing times and increase profit, of course.

The first prototype of the watch should be revealed during the second quarter of 2019, and according to CoinDesk, the price will be in the ballpark of CHF 100,000 to CHF 150,000 (USD 102,000 to USD 153,000), depending upon the model and its features and materials. According to the press release, with the launch of this piece, “the company merges 300 years of fine watchmaking ‘savoir-faire’ and innovation bringing together the worlds of fine horology, mechatronics and cryptology in a unique next-generation timepiece.”

Laurent Favre, CEO of A. Favre & Fils, said “We have developed this first timepiece with the idea of offering something useful for the crypto-community, not simply something to spend their money on.”

Under the slogan “What is the missing link?”, the watch is said to incorporate blockchain technology and proprietary state-of-the-art security expertise to guarantee ultimate in-data security and privacy protection. “The base of the device is a very fine watchmaking timepiece, hand-finished and equipped with an in-house manually wound mechanical movement,” the company adds.

A. Favre & Fils are collaborating with people from the cryptocurrency space in the creation of this watch, notably with Francesco Abbate, the co-founder and CEO of advisory firm Swiss Crypto Advisors (SCA), as well as Omar Ulrich, another co-founder and board member of SCA. Aside from SCA, the watch project also features French video game company Ubisoft and non-profit organization for the gold supply chain, Swiss Better Gold Association, as their partners.

They are not the first luxury item manufacturer to dip into the crypto craze: Ancora1919 announced their line of luxury pens with crypto motifs in April 2018, also accepting cryptocurrencies as a payment option for the product. Also, another Swiss luxury watchmaker Hublot announced their foray into the space last September: a special kind of watch, named the Big Bang Blockchain, a 210-piece limited edition that can be bought with bitcoin.