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Manufact & AC Cigars

Manufact & AC Cigars

Counterfeit luxury goods undermine brands, endanger consumers, and fund illegal activities. The cigar industry, especially premium brands like AC Cigars, faces growing threats from fake products made with substandard materials. To combat this, AC Cigars partnered with Manufact, using the BSV blockchain to create a secure, transparent traceability solution, ensuring authenticity and consumer trust.

Challenge

Counterfeit goods drive $4.5 trillion in global trade, with luxury items accounting for 70%. Fake cigars often contain low-quality tobacco and harmful additives, posing health risks and damaging brand reputation. These counterfeits evade taxes, cause financial losses, and fund organized crime, making enforcement difficult and highlighting the need for a secure, transparent solution.

Solution

To combat counterfeiting, AC Cigars partnered with Manufact to implement a BSV blockchain-powered traceability system, ensuring authenticity, security, and transparency across the supply chain.
Smart Seals & Digital Twins:
Each cigar is tagged with and linked to a digital twin on the BSV blockchain, allowing real-time tracking and verification.
Advanced Security Features:
Rolling codes, tamper-evident seals, and temperature logging protect cigars from fraud and environmental damage.
Immutable Record-Keeping:
The BSV blockchain ensures a tamper-proof history, allowing retailers and consumers to verify product authenticity.
Custom Branding & Consumer Engagement:
Brands can personalise smart seals with artwork and holograms, while consumers gain direct access to a cigar’s verified history.

Conclusion

With Manufact’s blockchain-based solution, AC Cigars has strengthened its defense against counterfeiting while enhancing brand integrity and consumer trust. By giving customers direct access to a product’s verified history, AC Cigars has set a new standard for authenticity in the luxury cigar market. Faster & More Secure Verification: Consumers and retailers can instantly confirm authenticity via tamper-proof blockchain records. Stronger Brand Protection: Counterfeit cigars can be flagged and invalidated, much like a stolen credit card. Enhanced Consumer Trust: Transparency builds lasting relationships, ensuring customers receive genuine, high-quality products. Industry Model for Anti-Counterfeiting: This partnership sets a precedent for luxury brands seeking to protect their products and reputation. “Manufact’s platform has been essential in safeguarding our brand and understanding our clients,” said Alejandro Gonzalez Arias of AC Cigars. By combining physical security with blockchain transparency, AC Cigars is leading the fight against counterfeits, proving that traceability is the future of luxury goods protection.

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FAQs about....

What is blockchain?

Blockchain is a distributed digital ledger that securely records transactions across multiple computers. This ensures transparency and prevents fraud. Once verified, data cannot be altered, making it ideal for sectors like finance, healthcare, and manufacturing. The BSV blockchain further builds on this by offering fast, scalable transactions while enabling smart contracts, secure transfers and immutable records – all with a low environmental footprint.

A blockchain works by storing data in blocks that are linked in a chronological chain. Once data is recorded, it cannot be altered without agreement from the rest of the network, ensuring security and trust.

Blockchain is the underlying technology, while Web3 builds on top of the blockchain to create decentralised applications (dApps) and enable user-owned internet experiences.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are unique digital assets that represent ownership or proof of authenticity of a specific item on the blockchain. This can include anything from artwork to music to collectables. Unlike crypto assets, NFTs are not interchangeable because each one is distinct and cannot be replaced with another.

Web3 is a term used to describe the next version of the Internet, known as the Metanet, powered by blockchain. The Metanet enables a more efficient, transparent and monetisable data ecosystem than the current Web2 Internet.

Blockchain offers benefits like enhanced security, transparency, efficiency, and the elimination of third parties. It can be used for everything from financial transactions to supply chain management and voting systems.

A smart contract is a self-executing program on a blockchain which automatically enforces agreements when predefined conditions are met without needing third parties.

Digital assets are anything of value that exists in digital form, such as crypto assets, tokens, or digital records, which are stored and managed on a blockchain. Blockchain provides a secure, transparent, and distributed platform for creating, transferring, and verifying the ownership and integrity of these digital assets.

Decentralised applications (dApps) are applications that run on a blockchain rather than a centralised database. They typically operate using smart contracts, offering greater transparency, security, and user control while removing the need for third parties.

The risks for most blockchains include scalability challenges, high energy consumption, and the potential for hacking or exploitation in poorly designed smart contracts. However, the BSV blockchain is capable of massively scaling to handle millions of transactions per second, which means the CO2 produced per transaction is significantly lower than other competing blockchains.

Need help getting to grips with the blockchain? BSV Association is here.