Does Volkswagen Use Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, NFTs or Web3?

Volkswagen uses blockchain to trace raw materials and NFTs to sell digital collectibles, while tokenised Volkswagen shares come from a third-party exchange rather than from the carmaker. In my experience people lump all three under one “crypto” label, and keeping them apart is the quickest way to avoid confusion.

On the industrial side, the Volkswagen Group announced a pilot that follows lead from the mine or recycling source to the factory, with a public blockchain holding the records. No currency is involved; the chain works purely as a shared record.

On the consumer side, a non-fungible token platform sells collectible cards. It was built with a startup described as a blockchain leader in Latin America, and its first release reserved 600 packs holding 63 digital cards.

The third thread is the share price. A tokenised trading platform such as Dzengi.com offers derivatives that track Volkswagen’s preferred share, so traders can speculate on price moves without owning the stock.

What Kind of Company Is Volkswagen AG?

Volkswagen AG is a German automaker headquartered in Wolfsburg that operates internationally as the Volkswagen Group. The Group treats responsible sourcing as part of sustainable mobility, which means holding suppliers to social and ecological standards well before parts reach a factory.

That outlook shows up in unexpected places. Volkswagen counts its hackathon series, which continues in 2019, as one element of its corporate citizenship, using the events to crowd-source digital fixes for supply chain problems.

The stock market side is older than most people assume. Shares began trading in August 1961 on the Frankfurt Exchange at 350 Deutsche Marks per 100 shares. Volkswagen is now also listed in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hanover, Munich, Hamburg and Stuttgart.

When I profile a corporate group, I start with where its shares trade and who supplies its parts, because those two facts shape later technology choices.

How Is Volkswagen Using Blockchain to Trace Lead?

Volkswagen Group announced a pilot with Minespider, a blockchain specialist whose system attaches digital certificates to a raw material so it can be followed back to its point of origin. The collaboration was announced in a press release dated 04/23/2019.

That release calls blockchain the technology behind various cryptocurrencies, yet the project treats it only as a tamper-resistant record. Marco Philippi, who heads strategy for group procurement, said digitalization allows minerals and raw materials to be tracked in ever greater detail.

Minespider’s solution is a proprietary protocol with a multi-layer architecture built on an open chain. Its three layers work like this:

• A generally accessible layer carries information that anyone in the chain may read.
• Private data blocks hold sensitive records that cannot subsequently be changed.
• An encryption layer protects the sensitive supply chain data.

The Group’s brands run from Škoda and Scania to Bugatti, MOIA and Traton, and its segments include power engineering. The pilot is therefore framed at Group level rather than around one model line. As the Group shifts toward electric vehicles, battery materials may draw more attention, though that is my own reading rather than a statement from the release.

What Makes Minespider’s Blockchain Protocol Secure Enough for Volkswagen?

Minespider’s system earns trust because data stays immutable once written, which supports the authenticity of every certificate attached to a raw material. Volkswagen did not pick the idea off a shelf, though.

It surfaced at the Hackathon for Supply Chain Transparency in 2018, where Minespider came out on top. Some 100 experts from various disciplines worked on innovative digital solutions during that event.

Scale was the real test. The pilot involves suppliers and sub-suppliers delivering more than two thirds of the Group’s lead starter battery requirements. The aim is to follow minerals through cross-border supply chains in ever greater detail.

For readers new to the concept, a shared ledger is a record that every participant can read and add to under agreed rules. It is the same distributed ledger technology that records crypto tokens, only pointed at logistics instead of payments.

Why Did Volkswagen Run a Hackathon for Supply Chain Transparency?

Volkswagen turned to a hackathon because due diligence is an enormous challenge for a company with production sites and sales in over 150 countries.

The Group operates 125 production plants in 20 European countries, plus 11 outside Europe, employs more than 670,000 employees, and sells in 153 countries. Any sourcing check must therefore work across very different settings.

History adds pressure. The emissions scandal that erupted in 2015 tarnished the company’s image as an environmental steward, and the Group has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2050. Transparent sourcing is one way to back that pledge, in my reading.

The pilot targets responsible raw material procurement and fewer sources of error. Starting in April, it also sets the framework for broader collaboration. Nathan Williams, Minespider’s CEO, said blockchain finally gives companies the tools to prove suppliers act responsibly.

Compared with a private blockchain, an open source approach lets everyone from miners to recyclers work in one system. That forms a common digital infrastructure even when several supply chains are involved.

What Is Volkswagen’s Digital Garage VW NFT Platform?

Digital Garage VW is Volkswagen’s NFT platform, launched on 11 April 2022 together with One Percent, a Brazilian startup that built the platform and the process that turns items into tokens. The platform stores, trades and sells digital items and carries content about Volkswagen cars.

Buyers can pay by credit card, pix or crypto. Ciro Possobom, Volkswagen Brasil’s COO and vice president of finance and IT, said the two launch collections add up to more than 60 digital cards. Volkswagen chose a low-carbon NFT solution and neutralizes it by buying carbon credits. The first items are 100% digital, with physical items and experiences planned for later collections.

Each token pairs a digital file, such as an image, video or music track, with a smart contract on the blockchain. Buyers receive original ownership of a unique work. The platform treats exclusivity as the heart of an NFT, much like a digital artwork.

What Are NFTs, and What Do Buyers Actually Get?

An NFT is a digital item linked to a blockchain record that makes it one of a kind, and buyers of Volkswagen’s cards receive that record along with the card. Volkswagen’s version shows how the idea is packaged in practice.

The cards come from the VW Design Studio and are sold in packs of three random options, with a special pack of five cards that raises the odds of rarer items. The suggested price is R$ 50 per pack of three.

The launch collections were the GT Collection, built around 23 GT Series models, and Pen&Paper, a set of freehand sketches by Volkswagen do Brasil’s designers. Later, the first auction offered an animated first-generation Gol GTI in a retrofuturistic scene, and a collection called Blackout followed.

Fausto Vanin, cofounder of the startup, said the partnership helps people and companies enter web3. The startup also handles minting, the step that creates the token.

How Has the Volkswagen Share Price Performed Over Time?

Volkswagen’s shares reached the public market in 1960, when the German government floated its stake, and the latest quote shown on Dzengi.com for the preferred share is 69.40.

The company began in 1937 under the German Labour Front, tasked with mass-producing an affordable vehicle. It then joined the German war effort of the Second World War. When postwar sale efforts failed, it survived by building vehicles for the British army.

Today the stock is a constituent of the DAX, CDAX and S&P Global 100. The quote page shows a sell price of 68.90, a day range from 68.4 to 69.45, and a trader sentiment split of 96% and 4%. These figures are a snapshot, and the page’s price-history rows are dated 2022-09-30, so treat them as illustrative.

How Can You Invest in Volkswagen Stock?

You can invest in Volkswagen stock by buying shares through a broker or, as an alternative, by trading a tokenised version on Dzengi.com in five steps. The sequence below follows the platform’s own guide.

1. Register an account with Dzengi.com.
2. Deposit funds in crypto or conventional currency.
3. Choose your position size and decide whether you expect the price to rise or fall.
4. Buy the tokenised share derivative. The platform matches client orders and hedges the unmatched orders through LMAX Digital or exchanges such as Binance, Bitstamp, Kraken, NASDAQ, NYSE and Gain Capital.
5. Close the trade, optionally using a take-profit or stop-loss setting so you need not watch the price constantly. The funds return to your account, and you can withdraw them or open a new trade.

For context, more than 501 million shares are outstanding after two splits: 2:1 on March 17, 1969 and 1:10 on July 6, 1998. I always read the hedging step twice, because it tells you who actually stands behind the trade.

What Should You Know Before Trading Tokenised Volkswagen Shares?

A tokenised Volkswagen share is a digital representation of the stock’s price, so traders gain or lose on price moves without owning the share. That differs from the usual routes of buying shares, buying an index, or using CFDs (contracts for difference) or options.

The token is recorded in the same way as crypto, so traders can fund trades with crypto and avoid converting to fiat currency, which saves exchange fees. The platform lists a minimum traded quantity of 1.

Direction comes from judgment. A long position suits a view that the stock is undervalued, a short position a view that it is overvalued, and the price chart is the usual starting point. With leverage up to 1:100, both outcomes are magnified.

Volatility is the reason to respect that. The share price reached €187.74 on December 13, 2019, then fell to €79.38 on March 19, 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic crash. Dzengi.com lists negative balance protection among its safeguards. Outside Germany, the stock is also listed on international exchanges in Basle, Geneva and Zürich.

Why Trade Tokenised Volkswagen Shares With Dzengi.com?

The main attraction Dzengi.com lists is that VOW3.ls lets traders follow Volkswagen’s preferred share while keeping their funds in crypto. Traders can fund with Bitcoin or Ethereum, and the platform calls itself a one-stop crypto trading platform.

It cites tight spreads, maker rebates and competitive taker fees. It also claims instant order execution from a system able to handle 50 million trades per second, and says it operates under Belarusian regulation with AML and KYC rules. These are the platform’s own claims, not independently verified here.

A fair contrarian question is why anyone would tokenise when the shares already trade in Luxembourg, London and New York. The answer is the product itself: a token tracks price through a derivative, not share ownership. Listed terms include margin 1:1 and a funding fee for held trades, shown below as listed on the quote page, with hours in UTC.