LOS ANGELES, CA., January 5th 2022 – VinFast, the global electric vehicle (EV) brand owned by Vingroup – the largest private conglomerate in Vietnam with a total capitalization of 34.9 billion USD from three publicly traded companies (as of Nov 3, 2021) – has announced a world-first in the use of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as part of the EV reservation process. This is the first time NFTs have been utilized in this way for the automotive industry, highlighting how blockchain technology is increasingly being used in real-world use cases.
To accelerate the development process, VinFast partnered with AAG Ventures, a pioneering company in the metaverse space, to develop a decentralized application on the Harmony blockchain. Thanks to the ultra-fast and ultra-economical Harmony blockchain, the interaction is seamless. It becomes part of the overall experience that customers can look forward to as Vingroup further explores more use cases within its ecosystem.
This initiative also has an extensive focus on preserving privacy, as NFTs allow personally identifiable information (PII) to be kept private while enabling customers to enjoy a tailored experience.
The announcement follows shortly after the EV brand debuted two all-electric SUVs at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November 2021 and opened its US headquarters, reflecting the next step in its journey to becoming a globally leading smart EV producer.
The NFT process
The NFT deployment works like this: Customers who deposit for their VinFast EV reservation will receive a VinFirst NFT, a certificate on the blockchain using Harmony, a widely used cross-chain sharding protocol. This serves as a certificate of priority membership for super-early adopters that support the brand -whom VinFast calls “VinFirst” members. Following the VinFirst NFT, VinFast will airdrop various rewards and perks to its VinFirst members from time to time. For example, customers reserving a specific VinFast EV for delivery in the US…
