WISeKey NFT Technology Helping Brands Mint their Luxury Watches on the Metaverse
WISeKey NFT Technology Helping Brands Mint their Luxury Watches on the Metaverse
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The merger between NFTs and metaverse continues to take shape, attracting investors and creating new ways to own luxury assets.
Geneva, Switzerland – April 4, 2022 – WISeKey International Holding Ltd (SIX: WIHN, NASDAQ: WKEY), a Swiss based cyber security, IoT, AI platform company, today announced that it is supporting luxury brands’ efforts to NFT their watched as unique, digital assets, unalterably registered on a blockchain, that can be bought and sold like any other product or commodity.
The technology also allows brands to acquire NFTs of digital representations of watches without the need to acquire the physical one as millennial consumer freely admit that they prefer a metaverse watch versus a physical mechanical watch. Strong demand for luxury metaverse is expected to grow. Morgan Stanley is predicting a virtual luxury goods market would be worth $50 billion by 2030.
This development comes a year after the successful launch of two world premieres on which WISeKey auctioned the NFT of the digital twin of a physical watch, the Hublot Bigger Bang All Black Tourbillon Chronograph Special Piece by Jean-Claude Biver, and simultaneously the Jacob & Co NFT a 3-D animation produced by the brand and inspired by its Epic SF24 travel watch with two added features to make it a bespoke digital creation, a tourbillon and a split-flap system displaying the names of 10 cryptocurrencies. See New York Times article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/12/fashion/watches-nft-auction-jean-claude-biver.html.
A WISeKey NFT is a unit of data on the blockchain, where each NFT represents a unique digital item, such as an artwork, audio, video, an item in video games or other forms of creative work. While digital files themselves are infinitely reproducible, NFTs representing them are traced on their underlying blockchains and provide buyers with proof of ownership. Blockchains such as Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Flow, each have their own token standards to define their use of NFTs.
WISeKey, the first company in the world to use dual factor authentication combined with blockchain technology to secure luxury mechanical watches, that currently protects over 2.5 million luxury watches. Since 2010, WISeKey has collaborated with manufactures of luxury watches deploying this unique technology to integrate semiconductors tags powered with its VaultIC154 NFC secure element and provide brands with the ability of:
- issuing a storage device comprising of a digital certificate of authenticity
- checking, when required, the validity of the digital certificate of authenticity
- modifying, when required, the status of validity of the digital certificate of authenticity.
- Dematerialization and creation of a Digital Twin with its corresponded Non–Fungible Token
These tags, when placed on any product and tapped by an NFC phone, securely authenticate, and track the product much like an embedded ePassport and confirm the identity of the product on the blockchain ledger. This technology has received a patent in the USA http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=8&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=wisekey&OS=wisekey&RS=wisekey
Furthermore, WISeKey’s technology creates Watch Birth Certificates, digital identities which are analogous to birth certificates and can be converted into NFTs. The Watch Birth Certificate is signed, or “certified” by a trusted authority and contains basic information such as date & time of manufacture (birth), company (parents), and type of product. This digital identity, used throughout the watch lifetime, allows the watch to become a “Trusted Object” of the Internet, prove its identity and provide verifiable data.
The Watch Birth Certificate is based on a cryptographic public-private key pair that is unique to each IoT device. The public key for this key pair is part of the certificate and can be freely distributed, while the private key is used whenever the IoT device needs to verify its identity or to sign data to ensure cryptographic integrity. It is the private key that represents the essence of the identity of the IoT device.
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 1.6 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.
