Ultra-flat timepiece, the RM UP-01 Ferrari, is 1.75 millimetres thick watch

we should be able to write MDCCCLXXXVIII as MCXIIM

To me they're the timekeeping equivalent of pole vaulting yourself onto the second floor. A normal person would use stairs, but it's impressive and even cheered on by a bunch of onlookers when someone can do it just by jumping on a long stick.

It would be pretty trivial to flatten a Casio - or equivalent tech - to this degree. The biggest problem would be battery thickness. If you didn't support charging or battery replacement you could fix that with a standard ultra-thin rechargeable battery and solar power.

OLED panels are less than 1mm thick, so the display wouldn't be a problem.

I'd honestly be more interested in that as a product than in a clockwork Veblen toy.

Given the volatility of crypto, a unique watch like this is a pretty good hedging instrument. As an asset, I'd put ~$2m into a watch like this before an NFT, and Richard Mille watches are sufficiently unique that they can be competitive to a similarly priced piece from one of the other makers. I've commented in depth before on the the political economics of ultra luxury items like these watches, and the only question to me is what their liquidity looks like.

It's the same as a Lamborghini. Something you can enjoy, with an acceptable level of depreciation, insurable as collateral on a loan for leverage into other productive assets, with a good and liquid aftermarket. Portability between countries is important as well for other kinds of transactions.

The engineering really is pretty cool, and what an amazing job it would be to design products to become alternative assets. Literally, art. What markets are missing now is assets like these to put rapidly deteriorating cash into, and the timing of the release of this watch is impeccable as people rush to get out of cash and look for alternative assets. Engineering like this also cuts out the curators and gatekeepers who appraise art (paintings were the original NFTs, imo), and sets a very high bar for entry for any imitators. One of the problems of wealth after a certain point is finding ways to appreciate and enjoy it instead of the drag of just managing it all. Something like this, you put a couple million into, get some enjoyment out of it, then when you want out, you get more than inflation adjusted remainder out of it, or take a small loss that isn't as bad as what you lost in another asset bubble popping had you put the money there.

Realistically, if there is something people love, with some engineering and craft you can make a million dollar+ version of it. They are beautiful examples of what they are, and the business of many of these things is the financial engineering around them.