Koenigsegg Is Blurring the Lines Between Cars and Cryptocurrency

You’ve been hearing a lot about cryptocurrency lately. But what exactly is it, and what does it have to do with cars? Not much – yet. Over the summer, Swedish hypercar manufacturer Koenigsegg announced the launch of  the Koenigsegg Regera Honey, a customized Regera with an NFT attached to it. What’s an NFT, you ask? Well, that’s a question that just about everyone has been trying to answer this year, from Pete Davidson on SNL to confused Angelenos who will now be attending Lakers games at the Crypto.com Arena. For the uninitiated, an NFT is a digital asset (usually some kind of art) that you buy using a cryptocurrency blockchain. The name stands for non-fungible token, i.e. something that’s completely unique and derives its value from being one-of-a-kind. In that sense, it’s a bit like a custom car – see where we’re going with this? 

Koenigsegg vehicles don’t really need special custom work to be unique, since they’re already high-performance and extremely pricey. But the new Koenigsegg Regera Honey, introduced in back in June, takes the brand’s exclusivity to a new level. It was billed as the world’s first “split digital and physical NFT,” meaning you can buy both the car itself and an NFT of the vehicle. The car also comes with a scannable badge that has a surprising personal connection to company founder Christian Von Koenigsegg, whose own son was the inspiration.  

When you scan the badge on the Regera Honey using the Berify app, you’ll get a video of Christian Von Koenigsegg and a recording of the song “Honey” by new.ish, which inspired the name of the vehicle. And the choice of this particular song is anything but random, since new.ish is a project of Koenigsegg’s DJ/EDM producer son, Sebastian Von Koenigsegg. Apparently, Sebastian has been mixing beats for quite some time now, so it makes sense that his boundary-pushing father would find a way to incorporate his son’s talents into the family business. 

So, could a vehicle like the Regera Honey be the future of the hypercar industry, or even the car industry in general? While we’re not likely to start seeing NFT versions of the Toyota Camry or Honda Accord, it’s possible that more niche carmakers will join in on the fun, especially in an increasingly crowded field of supercar and hypercar startups. For automakers who haven’t yet gained the name recognition that comes with breaking production speed records, NFTs might be the way to go. Not everyone can be Koenigsegg, but these days, everyone can get in on the cryptocurrency game.  ​

Related: Inside the Mind of Christian von Koenigsegg