New in lux horology – Bitcoin Watches

The luxury retail segment is always on the lookout for the new wealthy. And the lux horology seems to have locked their sights on the crypto rich.

Crypto has seen a multi-year bear market since its 2017 highs, but are now looking to ride a new bull wave in 2020. But, in the decade since Bitcoin burst onto the scene, it has turned quite a number of people into millionaires, and the luxury brands are keen to make an impression.

So here are a few luxury watch brands that have made special limited edition bitcoin watches, some of them even having the ability to hold a cold wallet.

Hublot Big Bang Meca10-P2P

Hublot, no stranger to collaborations and limited edition releases, announced in 2018 the Big Bang Meca10-P2P, an ode to both the Big Bang series as well as Blockchain technology.

It is also a beauty to look at.

There’s a limited release of 210 pieces (in line with the hard supply of 21 million bitcoin), and unsurprisingly oversubscribed a long time ago. The price of the watch is USD25,000, or the bitcoin equivalent. You can only pay with crypto, and the transaction ID will be etched on the bezel’s edge for authenticity, which adds to the exclusivity factor.

Given they are all sold out, the only way to purchase them would be via the secondary resale market, and in slightly under 2 years, this particular model has appreciated. A lot.

The current asking price is now sitting at almost 4X the retail price at USD96,000. The other listing for the same price is a cool $100,000.

Vanguard Encrypto by Franck Muller

Billed as the “world’s first functional bitcoin watch”, this limited edition watch serves as your bitcoin wallet, with a laser etched QR code on the watch face that acts as the public ledger address to deposit Bitcoin, accompanied with a USB stick that holds the private key.

However, this almost means that the original buyer will not be able to re-sell this piece, since the private key will be made known and no new buyer will want to deposit any bitcoin onto this particular wallet.

As of today, the watches are still available on the official Franck Muller ecommerce site, although certain models have been sold out. Prices start from around USD11,000.

The popularity of these models have also prompted Franck Muller to announce the release of the King Tourbillon, a limited edition 10-piece release. What makes this model even more special and exclusive, is that they are only available to customers who have bought the Vanguard Encrypto series.

Chronoswiss Blockchain Series

Swiss brand Chronoswiss has launched a limited series of watches based on a few blockchains and cryptocurrencies. Each model will have a limited release of 101 pieces. They are:

• Bitcoin – The Currency
• Ethereum – The Contract
• NEM – The Harvest
• Zaif – The Exchange
• COMSA – The Token

I actually don’t care much for the rest except for Bitcoin and Ethereum, so let’s just look at those two.

The Currency

As of the writing of this article, The Currency is still available and retails at around USD9,150.

The Contract

This model pays tribute to Ethereum, the undisputed number 2 in terms of market cap in the crypto industry. With ETH2.0 very close to launching, this will no doubt spur greater interest in time to come from new ETH rich folks.

A Favre & Fils – The one that failed

A Favre & Fils, a luxury swiss maker based on Geneva, last January announced their version of the crypto watch, which will feature a cold wallet. In the announcement, they mentioned that the prototype will be revealed in Q2 of 2019, and the watch itself will retail for between 100K to 150K in Q3 or Q4 of 2019.

And then… nothing.

We’re heading into 2021, and so far, no prototype, no updates, no nothing.

If anyone knows what happened….. please let me know in the comments!

So… what do you think of the watches? Love it? Hate it? Think it’s a beacon for kidnapping? I personally love the Hublot and Chronoswiss ones. Would you get one?