Whereas some manufacturers moved away from web3 in 2023 throughout an extended crypto winter, Puma stayed the course and its head of rising expertise Ivan Dashkov advised TechCrunch+ it has no intentions of leaving.
After two years working with web3, Puma’s tech revenues stay modest, however the sportswear producer intends to be prepared for a extra crypto-friendly future. “Web3 is a big shift in how people use the internet,” Dashkov mentioned. Such modifications to how the web is used can result in landscape-shifts for manufacturers, one thing that Puma is greater than conscious of.
The corporate “missed the boat” on the massive e-commerce and social media waves that occurred previously few a long time, so it desires to be early on this house, Dashkov defined. “We don’t think the way the space exists today will be what it looks like in four or five years, but we want to be ready.”
In February 2022, Puma registered its first Ethereum Identify Service (ENS) area, as Puma.eth. ENS domains are common amongst Ethereum customers who need to have accessible addresses, normally associated to themselves or a model, as an alternative of copying and pasting a string of randomly generated letters and numbers.
In June 2023, Puma launched, Black Station and Black Station 2, which its website refers to as “experimental 3D spatial playground,” which is lots of phrases to mainly describe a metaverse. I examined out the entry web page and located it to be a bit gradual and complicated (disclaimer: I’m not an enormous gamer, so possibly I’m lacking the purpose, however I think about not all Puma followers are both.) Regardless, its metaverse goals to offer shoppers with a special method to work together with the model, Dashkov mentioned.
