Tiffany launches its new “NFTiffs” pendants directly inspired by CryptoPunks

 “Shall we custom make  @TiffanyAndCo CryptoPunk pendants available for CryptoPunk owners to order for 1 week?” This tweet by Alexandre Arnault, Executive Vice President of Product and Communications, which received an 80.3% in favour response back in April, has now been put into action. Indeed, on Sunday the 31st of July, the brand announced it will be launching a series of 250 “NFTiffs”, which the company describes as digital passes redeemed by CryptoPunks holders for the creation of a custom, hand-crafted pendant, designed by Tiffany’s artisans, and inspired by the CryptoPunk owner’s NFT. An additional NFT resembling the final jewellery design is also included.

This commercialisation of specific punks is only legally possible since the sale of the CryptoPunk NFT franchise by its creator Larva Labs, to Yuga labs, a blockchain technology company that develops NFTs and digital collectibles founded in 2021. Yuga Labs “relaxed” NFT intellectual property (IP) rights by specifying the transfer of commercial, exclusive licensing, and IP rights to individual NFT Holders. Therefore, individual Punk owners can leverage their IP rights. Thus, this does not represent a collaboration with the CryptoPunks or Yuga Labs, but an action undertaken by the jeweller, independent of the NFT collection. Before the sale to Yura Labs, such an action by Tiffany & Co. would have represented a legal grey area.

This is not Tiffany & Co.’s first entry into the Web3.0. The brand entered the NFT space in March of this year by purchasing a Tom Sachs Rocket Factory NFT for 380’000$, Tom Sachs being one of the brand’s long-term artistic partners. Tiffany went on to promote a gold “TiffCoin” on its social media channels claiming the launch of a new cryptocurrency, which quickly turned out to be an April’s fool. However, the company used this as a base to mint 499 physical versions of the TiffCoin in 18k gold, costing 9’999$ and available on its website for 24 hours.

Alexandre Arnault owns his own CryptoPunk, which he bought at the end of January of this year for approximately 419’000$ and he uses as a profile picture for his social media accounts since then. He utilised his Punk as a basis for the communication of the NFTiffs, showing off how the pendant will look like.

The pendants, which will be composed of 18-Karat rose or yellow gold, based on the colour palette of the NFT, will come with a certificate of authenticity. Additionally, each custom piece is said to have at least 30 stones (gemstones and/or diamonds), the colour of which will be adapted to the 87 different attributes and 159 colours of the existing 10,000 Punk NFTs. Nevertheless, these luxurious details do not seem to justify the price tag to the grand public. Indeed, whilst the jeweller is demanding 30 Ethereum per Punk, amounting to close to 51’000$, this offer is exclusively reserved to CryptoPunk holders. Keeping in mind that, in the first place, after a big decline of the crypto market the average price of a CryptoPunk in the last 7 days lies at 74’000$, owned by a total of 3564 owners, this new offer by Tiffany & Co. is far from attainable.

The sale of the NFTiffs with the approximately 30mm x 20-30mm pendants will begin on the 5th of August on the company’s dedicated NFT website, and a maximum number of three NFTiffs can be acquired per customer. The delivery of the finished versions is anticipated early 2023, and according to CoinTelegraph, should Tiffany & Co. sell all pieces, it will be making around 7500 Ethereum, or the current equivalent of 12.7 million dollars.