Chronicled, a Silicon Valley based start-up, has unveiled a new method to verify the authenticity of high-end sneakers. Instead of using labels which can often be copied to a point where it is difficult to easily verify, a smart tag containing a PKI chip hosts an encrypted private key with the public key stored on Ethereum’s blockchain.
So since you are trusting the 3rd party sneaker authenticator, how does linking the authentication to ethereum provide any value? Why not just refer to the authenticator's website ?