The Weekend Edition is pulled from the daily Stansberry Digest. A Blockchain-Powered Future Starts With 'Fingerprints' on Wine Bottles By Eric Wade, editor, Crypto Capital We all laughed at my programmer friend's off-the-wall – yet 100% accurate – icebreaker... "I want to introduce you to Eric Wade... We were almost on a TV show together." In December 2020, the lead developer of a revolutionary, blockchain-focused company wanted me to meet a startup's CEO, Jacob Ner-David. And even if his approach to introducing us was more unusual than a simple hello, it was completely true... My friend and I were involved with a TV project last year. It documented a billionaire's attempts to help struggling farmers by integrating blockchain into their businesses. At that point, the efficiency that blockchain offers had turned even TV producers into believers. But like many things in show business, the farmers-using-blockchain package featuring me and this developer didn't make the final cut. As it turns out, though, my friend did have a bit of an informational edge over me at the time. Going into the TV project, he knew that Ner-David, a serial technology-focused entrepreneur, had already built a blockchain-powered solution for a specific kind of farmer... A wine farmer. Yes, I know you don't really farm wine – well, at least not the final product. It does start with farming grapes. After that, it's a delicate process of combining other ingredients and following steps that my colleague Dr. David "Doc" Eifrig, a noted winemaker, knows all too well. I bring this all up because Ner-David's company is revolutionizing the wine industry. In today's essay, I'll share all the details about this company and the major problem it's solving in this industry... I'll explain how some of my Crypto Capital subscribers booked a gain of about 32% in just 91 days with this technology... And finally, I'll show you why I believe the wine industry is just the start when it comes to using blockchain in this way. Let's begin at the top with the major problem in the wine industry... I'm talking about counterfeit wine – and more specifically in this example, counterfeit wine in China... Le Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux ("CIVB") is the official wine bureau for the Bordeaux region of France. If you don't know, Bordeaux is arguably the most important wine region in the world... It produces more than 100,000 bottles of wine per hour. Back in 2017, CIVB claimed that 30,000 bottles of fake imported wine were being sold in China every hour. Counterfeit products had become such a huge problem that many reputable Chinese vendors no longer stocked some popular wines because customers assumed it was more likely to be fake than real. Louis De Surrel, the CEO of Hong Kong-based Loyal Wines, told Forbes magazine at the time that cheaper, less-desirable South American wine often gets swapped in place of the better-quality, old-world product. From the article... Adulteration of wine and the relabeling of inferior wines to more expensive brands are the most common types of wine fraud. While CIVB later noted to Forbes that it's difficult to find reliable data on how much wine is counterfeited worldwide, the organization called it an "industry-hampering scourge"... And CIVB noted that it works with "the relevant authorities to eradicate" this massive problem. The long-running quest to "eradicate" counterfeit wine leads us back to Ner-David's company... We all buy things online or from mobile apps... That's nothing new. And we all know that as long as we buy the goods from reputable dealers, we'll likely get exactly what we paid for. But with some items – including wine – it's hard to tell if we're getting the real thing... After all, wine is usually sealed in a dark-colored glass bottle. Sometimes it's packaged with other bottles in a sealed case, too. So if you're buying online, it's nearly impossible to spot a fake. Or maybe the wine is genuine... But it has been poorly handled. Storing or transporting a fine wine at the wrong temperature can taint the flavor and make it worthless as well. That's where Ner-David's company – Vinsent – comes in... Vinsent is aiming to solve these problems with a combination of mobile-app and blockchain technology. Through its marketplace, the company sells verifiably authentic wines. Vinsent uses the blockchain as an easy way to launch new tokens. These tokens are used for everything from land governance to tracking the ownership of fine wines and facilitating the handover from the winemaker to the final customer. Every wine merchant that uses the platform gets to control their own tokens... That means you can always tell if your token is genuine by visiting a simple website to see everything that has ever happened on the blockchain. Wine merchants can even use Vinsent's system to assign each vintage its own identifier... That way, you can know for sure that a limited quantity is just that. If the winemaker is offering 91 cases, for example, only 91 tokens will be available. That means each bottle of wine can be provably shown to be authentic. In short, it's a great example of the blockchain and the real world connecting... It's sort of like an Etsy for all of the world's finest wines, except it's also leveraging blockchain to make sure you don't get a fake NFL jersey or knockoff Louis Vuitton purse. You'll always know the bottle of wine you receive is actually the one you paid for. Vinsent is a brilliant combination of everything my subscribers and I love at Crypto Capital – scarce assets, verifiability, and the blockchain being used as a solution to a problem. Blockchain technology also eliminates middlemen and allows you to buy before winemakers even ship the products... You see, under the current distribution model, no communication exists between the consumer and the winery. Most wine goes through transporters, importers, distributors, and retailers. And this "old guard" has a big incentive to keep things how they are... Two out of every three dollars in the wine industry go to folks along the supply chain. With $300 billion in annual revenue in the wine industry, that's a $200 billion problem... and a clear flaw in the current distribution model. Essentially, consumers are paying $200 billion that winemakers aren't receiving. And even worse, the current distribution model brings another cost... third parties like shippers and distributors. But with Vinsent's blockchain technology, you can purchase your wine the day the winemaker puts it up for sale – even if that is months or years before it's released. You're also paying the winemaker directly... and at a lower price than you'd pay to get the same product at a store. And in time, you'll be able to turn that lower price into a profit by using the blockchain to sell your early stake to another buyer. Or you can simply build up your own cellar by buying products directly from various winemakers. This is important because wine has earned a reputation as an asset that appreciates in value – as long as you buy the right one at the right time. Think of it like this... Vinsent gives you the ability to transact directly with some of the highest-class winemakers in the world – such as Château Cheval Blanc and Château Angélus. And it's a clear example of the advantages and efficiencies that blockchain technology offers users. Earlier this year, my Crypto Capital subscribers found out the power and promise of this concept... Back in January, I recommended buying a wine-backed blockchain asset... We selected the Blason d'Issan 2018 wine. At the time of the recommendation, a case of 12 bottles cost about $372 on the Vinsent app. The company always includes the total costs of shipping the wine directly from the maker to the buyer so you know what you're in for. Our wine was ultimately scheduled for shipment on April 20. So for our official track record, we closed out the position by allowing delivery of the wine and selling it for a profit... Our $372 case of 12 Blason d'Issan 2018 bottles worked out to $31 per bottle. At the time of the shipment, online merchant Wine-Searcher showed an average price of $41 per bottle. That worked out to a 32.3% gain in roughly three months... And because the wine-backed token wasn't yet tradable, there was no volatility to this investment. Now, Ner-David's team is working with vineyards to push the technology even further... In short, Vinsent can now verify physical wine bottles. The company recently teamed up with Australian digital-traceability authenticator Laava to create custom tracking codes tied to individual bottles of wine. Here's one example... Once a bottle is certified, customers can scan the "fingerprint" with their iOS or Android phones. You'll receive proof of authentication instantly... And then you can check the blockchain to make sure the certificate itself is the real deal. In other words, there's now even more wine activity happening on the blockchain today. Since many of the wines in the Vinsent app haven't been released (or physically shipped) yet, it could morph into a tradeable futures market for wine... You could potentially buy a case of wine as a digital asset, and then sell it to another buyer at a different price before ever taking delivery – all while the case is safely stored inside the winemaker's cellar. Vinsent is a small bet on the big future of wine... The crypto token gives you full ownership over a provably scarce, provably authentic asset. And you don't even need to hold it in your hands. Looking at the bigger picture, this is where all industries are likely headed... Think about when you collected baseball cards and comic books at a younger age... You discovered the rating agencies that "grade" cards and collectibles at some point in your life. After that, you could either choose to buy an ungraded card that might be counterfeit, or you could buy one that was verified as authentic with a specific grade on its quality. Now, extend that thought to lumber, oil, or the chips needed for the computers that our cars can't run without. Vinsent's wine-verification tools are just scratching the surface... Consumers will soon live in a world where they're faced with a choice on every purchase they make... They can either buy something that's fully trackable and fully verifiable, or they can just buy something cheap from a guy standing on the nearest street corner. It's obvious to me that the trackable version is much more desirable. That's especially true if your job, your money, or your company's bottom line is at stake... From fire extinguishers to replacement parts for airplane engines to car airbags, we could probably think of a million different examples for which only the authentic piece will do. We're looking directly into the future right now... A time will soon come when this technology is everywhere. It will do much more than help us verify the authenticity of wine or other goods that are essential to our daily lives. And it all starts with the blockchain. Good investing, Eric Wade Editor's note: We are headed for an unprecedented event in the crypto market... And this has led Crypto Capital editor Eric Wade to share what he considers the most critical prediction of his career. During "The 10 Million Bitcoin Boom" event this past Wednesday, he revealed how six "altcoins" are positioned to skyrocket as everything unfolds. If you missed Eric's event, tune in to the replay right here for free. Tell us what you think of this content
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