Company Announcements

WISeKey’s Semiconductor NFC CapSeal Patented Technology Securely Connects High-End Wines and Liquors Brands to Their Digital Twin NFTs

Geneva, Switzerland – August 4, 2021: WISeKey International Holding Ltd (NASDAQ: WKEY; SIX: WIHN), a leading cyber security, IoT, and AI platform company, today announced that its CapSeal NFC smart tag with opening detection technology permits objects, such as wine & spirits bottles, to create digital twins of their exclusive wines and liquors, which are required to mint NFTs. The combination of the physical product and its digital twin significantly boost the authentication and value of the NFT auctions. Various wine and liquors brands have recently become interested in NFTs. The biggest name to get involved recently was Yao Family Wines of Napa, a premium winery owned by former NBA star Yao Ming, which auctioned a bottle of The Chop Cabernet Sauvignon in April alongside a “limited-edition NFT”.

Other wineries from France to Georgia are using NFTs as novel ways of marketing and promoting their wines. Flavien Darius Pommier, who owns Chateau Darius in St Emilion, is selling four NFTs for each vintage for around €100. For each NFT you get a piece of artwork, the opportunity to store your wine, and two physical bottles. This is all made possible by WISeKey’s patent-pending CapSeal smart tags which are fully compatible with NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF) standard. These tags are based on the company’s CapSeal VaultIC154 NFC secure element. When placed on a bottle of spirit or a bottle of lubricant oil, for instance, and tapped by an NFC phone, the chip is able to securely authenticate and track the bottle like an ePassport does. It offers the same certified security level. It also allows the brand to broadcast personalized messages to the phone-holder detecting whether the bottle has been opened or not.

WISeKey has been a pioneer in this NFT field by taking advantage of this digital identity authentication technology and microchips, which provide objects with a strong identity. WISeKey’s unique Digital Identification NFT platform technology delivers the most secure and scalable blockchain backend for creating real digital twins for valuable objects such exclusive bottles of wines and liquors. This unique approach will make it possible to mint provenance and a digital version into an NFT that contains smart contracts on how the digital twin may be used, removing any uncertainty of what an NFT actually means to a collector by delivering authenticated digital twins to the art and luxury market.

WISeKey’s expertise in the design of NFC secure chips allied with its WISeAuthentic original platform for the identification, authentication, tracking and direct marketing of goods, provides customer-fit solutions for brand protection. Nevertheless, the historic lack of support of NFC tags by iPhones has limited the use of the application by WISeKey’s clients and their end-customers. Apple is now supporting NFC Forum NDEF tags, making WISeKey’s solutions instantly available to millions of users, who can now benefit from advanced security and protection against counterfeiting.  

Through the WISeKey’s NFT platform, available for both Apple iOS11 and Android phones, the brands have the capability to directly reach the vast majority of their end-customers and enhance the efficiency of their marketing communication, while the intuitive functioning of the application enables users to secure their data with ease.

The run on NFTs saw a huge spike in 2021 and is continuing to grow especially on the high-end segment that is the focus of the WISekey NFT Platform. NFTs sales have shot through the roof in the last six months. From digital art selling at a classic auction house for tens of millions of dollars… to historical documents being auctioned off with NFTs attached to digital collectibles, the industry has been on an upward trajectory. 

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.

Press and investor contacts:

WISeKey International Holding Ltd Company Contact:  Carlos Moreira Chairman & CEO Tel: +41 22 594 3000 info@wisekey.com

WISeKey Investor Relations (US) Contact:  Lena Cati The Equity Group Inc. Tel: +1 212 836-9611 lcati@equityny.com

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.