The NFTiff collection went live on August 5 with 250 NFTs priced at 30 Ether each, and this sold out in just 22 minutes – raising $12.5 million. Holders can redeem their non-fungible tokens for a physical pendant and chain.
Tiffany’s luxury NFTs came about when Alexandre Arnault, the executive vice president of product and communications at Tiffany & Co. partnered with Deepak Thapliyal, the CEO of Chain. Thapliyal is said to have paid $23.58 million for his rare Alien Punk #5822. The NFT design concepts were taken care of by Chain. The blockchain firm also developed smart contracts and devised marketing and sales plans.
Mackenzie Valk, Chain’s director of operations says NFTiff is a digital pass, it starts out with a pixelated image of Tiffany & Co.’s signature blue jewelry box. It can be expiated for a physical pendant. Moreover, a placeholder image will be used until the order goes into production. The NFTiff, in its final form, is a certificate of authenticity. It reflects the likeness of its owner’s bespoke pendant. The non-fungible token if not redeemed, remains a digital collectible in a wallet.
Mike Herron, chief marketing officer at Chain, said the firm was very much focused that this needed to be a Tiffany-level experience and it wasn’t going to be for the masses. Herron said the public sale process was controlled and strategic. He revealed that there were two different customer bases – the existing Web3 CryptoPunk consumer and Tiffany’s traditional jewelry client who might not be familiar with CryptoPunks but wanted to participate in the NFTiff project anyway.
It should be noted that buyers had a specific window of time to link the NFTiff passes to a CryptoPunk. Some became CryptoPunk owners after having purchased the NFTiff, while some chose to flip their digital pass on the secondary market.
According to the NFTiff Terms and Services, by purchasing an NFTiff and linking it to the CryptoPunk, the customer grants Tiffany and Company, its affiliates, agents, and others working for it or on its behalf an irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use the CryptoPunk and its underlying intellectual property to design, manufacture and sell the corresponding pendant.
