A "Digital Guarantee" Embedded in Jewelry: SBI's Authenticity Traceability Heads Toward the Resale Market

What Happened: A "Digital Guarantee" for Natural Turquoise

On June 12, SBI Traceability announced that its traceability service "SHIMENAWA" had been adopted by the jewelry brand "LFC JAPAN." Operated by Rogues of Konan City, Shiga Prefecture, LFC JAPAN uses natural turquoise that differs in character piece by piece. A guarantee card with an embedded NFC tag carries a unique ID, which is linked to product information (origin, production background) recorded on the blockchain. Buyers can simply tap the tag with a smartphone to keep referencing the item's provenance even after purchase.

The Problem Solved: The Limits of Paper Guarantee Cards

Previously, LFC JAPAN issued paper guarantee cards noting each item's origin and designer. But paper had three limits. First, long-term storage is hard—cards are easily lost over moves and time. Second, there is no way to reference information after purchase. Third, and most important, information cannot be handed over at secondary distribution. For high-value physical assets, continuing to prove authenticity and provenance into the future is precisely what underpins asset value. Digitization is not mere convenience; it is a brand-value preservation device.

The Technical Setup: "Authenticity the Instant You Tap," via Corda × NFC

SHIMENAWA is built on Corda, the enterprise blockchain developed by US-based R3 with a consortium of 350+ financial institutions, and it guarantees information authenticity through digital pairing with NFC/RFID. The traceability app was supported by digglue, and the consumer-facing app by IT FORCE. The technical crux is delivering an experience where information appears instantly when a consumer taps—despite using a distributed ledger that excels at tamper resistance but struggles with processing speed. Rates are set according to the target product's sales scale, and adopting companies can adjust the consumer-facing screen to their brand without coding.

The Context: The Global Mainstream of "Digital Product Passports"

This adoption is not a one-off but part of a global current. Under its Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), the EU will phase in mandatory "Digital Product Passports (DPPs)" from 2026, starting with textiles. In luxury, the Aura Blockchain Consortium—founded in 2021 by LVMH, Prada, and Cartier—has recorded over 70 million products via NFC/QR, effectively setting the standard. Prada's "Eternal Gold" jewelry NFC authenticity cards and Louis Vuitton's diamond certificates are emblematic. SHIMENAWA positions itself as a domestic player delivering the same value as these giant brands' proprietary technology to mid-tier, high-value-added brands such as sake and regional jewelry.

The Next Battleground: Secondary Distribution Is the Real Prize

SBI Traceability says it aims to enable handover and verification of product information in secondary distribution. Here lies the greatest value. A study by Bain and eBay estimates that secondhand goods with a DPP could double their lifetime value, in a resale market worth about USD 230 billion. If proof of ownership and provenance is inherited digitally, "the real thing" can be verified even in resale, giving brands a touchpoint in the secondary market too. Authenticity proof is merely the entrance; the real prize is building a cycle in which value and story remain unbroken even as a physical asset is resold.

[Business Development Insights]

1. Reframing "compliance cost" as "revenue opportunity" changes the return on investment. While 90% of companies initially view the Digital Product Passport as a compliance burden, it can also raise resale value, create customer touchpoints, and serve as a source of storytelling. In new businesses, treating an eventually-mandated regulatory change not as a "defensive cost" to minimize but as an "offensive differentiation asset" to invest in early can greatly alter the return obtained from the same outlay.
2. Gain a foothold with the single most pressing problem, then layer on adjacent value. SHIMENAWA entered through the clear pain point of anti-counterfeiting for sake, then expanded into tamper detection, story delivery, NFT badges, and now secondary distribution. Adoption of a new business spreads better not by pitching many features at once, but by reliably solving the one thing the customer struggles with most, building a track record, and then incrementally stacking adjacent value on top.
3. Opportunity lies in extending a leading large-enterprise model "down-market." Luxury authenticity proof is led by Aura (LVMH et al.) for giant brands, but the market for delivering the same NFC × blockchain value to small, regional, high-value-added brands—via no-code and sales-linked pricing—is relatively open. In new businesses, observing the proprietary technology of cutting-edge large enterprises and "democratizing" that value into an accessible form for the middle market is often the realistic path to winning.

[Sources]

• Atarashii Keizai, "SBI Traceability's 'SHIMENAWA' Adopted for LFC JAPAN's Natural Turquoise Jewelry" https://www.neweconomy.jp/posts/583687
• SBI Traceability press release (PR TIMES) https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000042.000100112.html
• SHIMENAWA official site https://service.sbi-shimenawa.com/
• WEB3 Chihou Sousei Net, "How NFC × Blockchain 'SHIMENAWA' Delivers Both Anti-Counterfeiting and Fan-Building" https://www.web3-chihou-sousei.net/interview/shimenawa-1/
• Aura Blockchain Consortium, "What is the Digital Product Passport?" https://auraconsortium.com/insight/the-digital-product-passport-a-new-era-of-luxury-unveiled
• Luxury Daily, "Digital product passport regulation to reshape fashion resale market: Bain, eBay" https://www.luxurydaily.com/digital-product-passport-regulation-to-reshape-fashion-resale-market-bain-ebay/
• Luxury Tribune, "Aura Blockchain tops the 40 million mark for encrypted products" https://www.luxurytribune.com/en/aura-blockchain-tops-the-40-million-mark-for-encrypted-products