Why Is This Crypto Company's T-shirt Over $2,000?

It's OK if you still don't fully understand crypto by now. It's complicated, and despite our best efforts we still cannot fully explain what the blockchain is.

We also can't fully understand why a crypto company is selling items like hats and shirts for upwards of $1,200.

La misión de @discoxyz es ayudar a las personas a comprender y decidir qué datos deben y no deben estar en cadena antes de que se tomen esas decisiones sobre nuestras identidades digitales por nosotros.

Por @megdematteo. https://t.co/4lz3Czs6Vy

— CoinDesk en Español (@CoinDeskES) June 12, 2023

Actually, we sort of can.

Disco, a Web3 company that "wants to encourage individual consumers to take back control of their data by incentivizing them to move it from siloed, company-owned platforms to user-owned digital wallets," is selling hats and T-shirts for the price of one and two Ethereum coins (ETH). Basically, the hats are "free" to those who sign up for Disco and get a credential, and "prohibitively expensive" for those who don't, according to CoinDesk.

Also, people who own NFT's from certain partner communities can get certain promotional items.

The whole thing is a stunt to get people to start using the Disco service.

It would be very easy to start wagging our fingers at the crypto world and say that they're gatekeeping promotional products or making things more complicated than they have to be. But, the idea of reserving promotional or branded items for certain people who qualify is not new.

This creates that sweet manufactured exclusivity that we've talked about before, which you see in things like streetwear drops or limited edition products.

It's just that this one requires a bit more tech knowledge. But, is it any more different than luxury car companies only offering products to certain people? Not really.