Crypto Is Coming for Your Mushroom Chocolate Bar
And It’s a Beautiful Thing!
One of the biggest challenges for the commercial sale of magic mushroom chocolate bars is product counterfeiting. As the market and industry for psychedelic medicine has grown, so has counterfeiting. Counterfeiters will purchase look-alike, copycat packaging resembling commercially available products, insert their own product, and sell it as the commercially branded product. So, beware, and make your purchase carefully!
Why this is a problem:
1 — [Obviously] It rips off the commercial manufacturers, but there are more important reasons.
2 — You don’t know what’s in the bar. What you purchase might be harmful and contain synthetics or [more likely] substitutes like THC or even no active ingredient at all.
3 — It erodes your trust in the brand and the market for psychedelic medicine.
There’s a way to fix this:
Counterfeiting has been a particular challenge for the largest commercial distributor, PolkaDot, whose products are as close to ubiquitous in the market as it gets. How have PolkaDot and other commercial manufacturers solved this problem? They’ve turned to blockchain technology.
Crypto to the rescue!
PolkaDot and other brands, including Mr. Mushies and New Age Drip, have turned to a blockchain-powered solution (pioneered by Berify.io) that verifies the authenticity of their tagged products on the blockchain. The system works like this:
* Each product is tagged with a custom holographic sticker from Berify.io that contains an embedded NFC (near field communication) microchip. [NFC technology is what powers ‘tap-to-pay’ technology like Apple Pay and Google Pay on your mobile phone.]
* When a customer is interested in purchasing a tagged product, the customer taps the custom tag with his or her phone. The first tap opens the Berify.io app on your phone (once installed), and a second scan verifies the authenticity of the product.
* The second scan verifies that the product identification information embedded in the tag mirrors the corresponding product identification information that has been stored and protected cryptographically on the blockchain.
This solutions works because:
1 — You can’t easily duplicate the tag.
2 — If the tag is removed, its embedded circuits will tear, rendering the tag useless.
3 — The product identification information contained in the tag is mirrored on the blockchain, and the information on the blockchain is encrypted and can’t be counterfeited.
4 — This creates a chain of authentication — if the info embedded in your tag matches the info on the blockchain, your product is authentic.
The outcome:
The end-result is that you’re able to purchase a product that you know is genuine, authentic, and safe and purchased from a brand that you trust.
Today there are three magic mushroom product manufacturers that are using the technology:
1 — PolkaDot
PolkaDot
2 — Mr. Mushies
Mr. Mushies
3 — New Age Drip
New Age Drip
TL;DR
Next time you’re looking to purchase a mushroom chocolate bar or similar product, make sure that it’s clearly labeled with a crypto-protected NFC product tag from a trusted manufacturer, that you, yourself, can authenticate!
