arago, a WISekey company, signs a $5 million placement of TrusteCoin NFT token with iconomy

arago, a WISekey company, signs a $5 million placement of TrusteCoin NFT token with iconomy

This agreement represents the first phase of the pre-sale of TrusteCoin with iconomy. The second round of the pre-sale will close before the platform is launched on July 4, 2021.

Switzerland / Germany – June 1, 2021 - Wisekey International Holding Ltd (NASDAQ: WKEY; SIX: WIHN), a leading cyber security, IoT, and AI platform company, today announced that arago (a company WISekey acquired controlling interest in early 2021), has signed a $5 million placement of its TrusteCoin token with iconomy, a German boutique advisory firm with a tailor-made portfolio to support ventures, corporates, communities and investors in the internet economy. This agreement represents the first round of pre-sales of TrusteCoin with iconomy, while the second round of will be offered before the platform is launched on July 4, 2021.

TrusteCoin provides a way for collectors, owners and experts in the art and luxury goods community to add income streams to their already existing collections and also allows crypto-investors to participate on a solid and well-known market. The objective for TrusteCoin is to become one of the biggest names in the DeFi space, by providing a platform that offers anyone the ability to make a profit by creating trusted NFTs on the WISe.ART Platform.

The WISe.ART platform creates an ecosystem of white-label marketplaces, promotion of special pieces for high value luxury collectibles and artwork. The WISe.ART platform taps into the Etherium ecosystem for liquidity and fast deployment and uses the advanced platforms of CasperLabs and Ocean Protocol to enable permanent storage and a sound market-logic against value fluctuation during auctions of high value pieces.

To enable proper KYC (Know Your Customer) while keeping anonymity and exclusivity of the platform, the technology stack is built around the TrusteCoin. This payment method, which will be used for all transactions in the WISe.ART ecosystem guarantees the necessary processes for KYC while allowing market participants to stay anonymous at their own convenience. Though the unique way of minting NFTs on the WISe.ART platform always including the digital asset itself, proof of integrity and provenance as well as contracts to define the rights of the owner, the WISe.ART platform creates the only marketplace where NFTs are actual usable digital twins and the TrusteCoin is the entry point into this ecosystem.

"The TrusteCoin is a unique approach to solving exclusivity and KYC on an NFT platform, this is why we are highly engaged in this project,” said Simon Schwerin, Partner at iconomy and head of its crypto practice.

The entire ecosystem around WISe.ART and TrusteCoin allows brands, artists, fans, curators, owners, potential customers and liquidity providers investing in digital assets, to interact and grow on a secure, digital and scalable platform. At the same time the platform ensures, thoroughly traceable provenance, authenticity, anti-counterfeiting, anti-money-laundering and can strongly link the digital and physical world by integrating WISeKey’s physical secure-element chip technology into real objects. WISeKey and arago are unique in providing highly secure integration of the physical objects and their digital twins minted into NFTs.

"With the unique assets at WISeKey we were able to put together an end-to-end tech stack that makes NFTs real objects and not just something anyone can make out of anything,” said Chris Boos, CTO of WISeKey. "And with the TrusteToken we are making this part of the crypto-universe is an open and exchangeable way. This is a first and we are very proud of it.”

About iconomy
Founded in mid-2017, iconomy is a Berlin and Munich-based boutique advisory firm with a tailor-made portfolio to support ventures, corporates, communities and investors in the internet economy. iconomy grew out of a leading, Berlin-based think tank and its work on behalf of unique startups and the broader tech ecosystem. That’s why its team always challenges the status quo and is passionate about giving the most innovative tech leaders a chance at claiming their share of the global internet economy. With its hands-on approach, established networks and diverse team, iconomy supports some of the most promising and innovative teams, products and technologies and helps them find their way into the market, tell their story, make the right decisions and find the right partners in their most important and business-critical moments - from fundraising to strategic business development; from policy support to community building. iconomy’s work spans multiple verticals with a special passion for Crypto, Fintech, Health Tech, VR & AR, Privacy and AI.

About arago:
arago GmbH, Frankfurt am Main (AG Frankfurt, HRB 100909), a German technology company, acquired by WISeKey in early 2021, provides Artificial Intelligence services to enterprise customers globally through Knowledge Automation. Founded in 1995, the company develops and uses modern technologies such as inference and machine learning in order to automatically operate any business process.

About WISeKey:
WISeKey (NASDAQ: WKEY; SIX Swiss Exchange: WIHN) is a leading global cybersecurity company currently deploying large scale digital identity ecosystems for people and objects using Blockchain, AI and IoT respecting the Human as the Fulcrum of the Internet. WISeKey microprocessors secure the pervasive computing shaping today’s Internet of Everything. WISeKey IoT has an install base of over 1.5 billion microchips in virtually all IoT sectors (connected cars, smart cities, drones, agricultural sensors, anti-counterfeiting, smart lighting, servers, computers, mobile phones, crypto tokens etc.).  WISeKey is uniquely positioned to be at the edge of IoT as our semiconductors produce a huge amount of Big Data that, when analyzed with Artificial Intelligence (AI), can help industrial applications to predict the failure of their equipment before it happens.

Our technology is Trusted by the OISTE/WISeKey’s Swiss based cryptographic Root of Trust ("RoT”) provides secure authentication and identification, in both physical and virtual environments, for the Internet of Things, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. The WISeKey RoT serves as a common trust anchor to ensure the integrity of online transactions among objects and between objects and people. For more information, visit www.wisekey.com.

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Disclaimer:
This communication expressly or implicitly contains certain forward-looking statements concerning WISeKey International Holding Ltd and its business. Such statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of WISeKey International Holding Ltd to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. WISeKey International Holding Ltd is providing this communication as of this date and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities, and it does not constitute an offering prospectus within the meaning of article 652a or article 1156 of the Swiss Code of Obligations or a listing prospectus within the meaning of the listing rules of the SIX Swiss Exchange. Investors must rely on their own evaluation of WISeKey and its securities, including the merits and risks involved. Nothing contained herein is, or shall be relied on as, a promise or representation as to the future performance of WISeKey.