William Shatner's Star Trek Merch Has Crypto-Authentication (Whatever That Is)

By Brendan Menapace

An old TV show once said that space was the final frontier. If you ask me, the final frontier is cryptocurrency. Even a few years in, most of us can’t make heads or tails of it (what in the heck is a blockchain?). And maybe that’s why we’re doomed to never own a boat or a beach house.

But, some people do understand it, and so they’re utilizing the technology for much more than making money off of a decentralized currency (I think that’s what it is).

Now, here’s where you’ll realize how genius my lede in this story was: The official William Shatner store is using a “crypto process” to authenticate its “Star Trek” Shatner action figures.

It turns out, due to the huge merchandise value of “Star Trek,” Shatner had always been keen on finding a way to authenticate products since they were so big in the re-sale game.

Here’s what the official Shatner store says:

Products in this collection have been authenticated using our "Authenticated By Crypto" process, which places a tag on the item and records the item on the blockchain where it will reside forever. The record cannot be altered or counterfeited. The provenance of the item is airtight.

This ensures that the item is certified as a genuine item whether it be autographed, a rare item, a prop and that at any point in the future; its authenticity will be easily determined by querying the blockchain using our app.

In addition the ownership and authenticity can be transferred if the product gets sold in the future ensuring you get top dollar for your item on the secondary market.

So, let’s say you’re buying a product secondhand on something like eBay or at a convention. A quick process can show you that the item is, indeed, legitimate, and also transfer the item to you as sort of a digital “deed,” so you can secure the investment and make sure you sell it for what it’s worth (should you choose to).

It’s so popular of an idea that even the rival fans are thinking about it.