Chia reference app for luxury goods authentication, ownership, and provenance

Situation

Roughly 10% of all branded goods sold globally may be counterfeit, per reporting cited by The Guardian, and the trust damage is measurable: 52% of consumers say they lost trust in a brand after buying a fake online (Forbes), and “[i]n the luxury sector alone Certilogo shows that one in four products sold today is a fake” (Stefanini (opens in a new tab)). The hologram stickers, printed QR codes, serial numbers, and other tools used by brands today all share the same weakness. They're static. Once a counterfeiter can photograph or copy the mark, the mark stops proving anything.

What we built

The reference implementation is the Chia Luxury Reference App, built on the Chia blockchain. A brand sets up a product with a Digital Product Passport: name, SKU, price, carbon footprint, ESG rating, and custom fields. Optionally, the brand attaches a smart contract to that product, supporting a do-not-sell window, a timed retirement, direct-chat access, and royalty terms. This adds enforceable rules to the product, not just data.

Authentication runs in real time. A buyer uses a QR code, RFID tag, or even computer vision, and the app checks that scan against the actual on-chain record, current owner, transaction ID, authenticity certificate, not a static database entry. If the record doesn't match, the app says so plainly.

To leave a legacy, an owner can set up, in advance, a required number of authorized approvers, a clawback window, and an optional designated recipient, so a transfer can execute even if the owner isn't there to confirm it themselves.

Everything the item carries - ownership, credentials, authenticity - sits behind a verified and immutable identity and credentials view.

How brands adopt it