WKEY WISeKey International Holdings AG

WISeKey Joins Forces with Menthol Protocol to Make its WISe.Art NFT Platform Climate-Positive

Geneva, Switzerland – August 9, 2021 - WISeKey International Holding Ltd (NASDAQ: WKEY; SIX: WIHN), a leading cyber security, IoT, and AI platform company, today announced that is collaborating with Menthol Protocol, the first decentralized automated sustainability protocol that automatically power users of dApp transactions with verified renewable energy and carbon credits, to make WISe.Art NFT platform climate-positive.

WISe.Art is the first NFT platform which due to its proprietary NFT technology, is safe (KYC & Cybersecurity), green (Carbon neutral & Menthol Protocol), smart, and provides a unique “melting pot” for traditional & crypto art, luxury good and collectible lovers.

WISeKey is a pioneer in the area of cybersecurity. For more than two decades, WISeKey has been providing its clients with object authenticity and anticounterfeiting offerings, a technology that has been applied to art, luxury goods, and collectibles, through a holistic approach in collaboration with strategic partners from the decentralized space. The marketplaces for these services will provide a spectrum of premium and standard offerings.

Against this background, WISeKey is launching its own NFT platform for creating, marketing and selling NFTs as digital twins for high end luxury collectibles and artwork. The intention is to take the ‘hot air’ out of NFTs and by linking the NFTs to actual physical art or collectibles and by attaching digital rights and creating true value for collectors, artists and brands.

“However, one major challenge of 2021 remains the climate crisis, which has to be tackled in different spheres, in the physical but also in the digital world, by reaching to the transaction world of the web3, namely the Blockchain, sphere,” said Carlos Moreira, CEO of WISeKey.

Therefore, the collaboration with Menthol Protocol is essential to ensuring WISe.Art’s NFT platform is climate-positive. Mohamed Hassan, CTO of Blok-Z, a green-tech blockchain startup, and Amir Sultan Malik Awan, CEO of Rocket Blockchain, a company focused on tech, industry and sustainability, have been building solutions to make it easy for enterprises and crypto to be climate positive. They are some of the leaders behind Menthol Protocol’s vision and have been advisors to WISeKey.

“We are excited to exchange values, strategies, and business visions with WISeKey’s team and working closely with cyber-security pioneer, Carlos Moreira and eminent AI authority, Chris Boos, while implementing innovative, interdisciplinary solutions in a growing and emerging space,” said Amir Awan.

“WISe.Art team is just as passionate with provenance and sustainability as we are, which makes them an ideal partner for Menthol Protocol. Artists, curators, and users will be able to create and trade NFTs that are provably authentic and have a positive impact on the world. Together, we are planting the seeds of a sustainability-focused ecosystem interested in decarbonizing user activities, dApps and entire blockchains,” said Mohamed Hassan.

In addition to using Menthol Protocol to sustainably power their on-chain operations, WISe.Art will issue the TrustECoin (TEC). Of note, a fixed percentage of revenues generated by each NFT transaction will be allocated and donated to fund impactful sustainability projects. WISeKey believes it is not only important to quickly take action but also to be a leader in reversing climate change and nurturing ecosystems around the world. 

In this vein, also WISe.Art partners with companies such as CO2free.com, which plans to offer and supply CO2 certificates from personal CO2 savings on a Blockchain, benefiting the ecosystem of CO2 on-chain decarbonization. Therefore, WISe.Art is supporting projects, which allow the tokenization of CO2 savings on an individual level targeting human users of digital products, to capture respective CO2 savings and aggregate, measure, incentivize and ultimately monetize positive CO2 behavior.  

“At CO2free, we measure the personal CO2 footprint with the smartphone in a scientifically sound manner by real-time-data. We also reward our app users for their active contribution to climate protection," said CO2free.com Managing Director, Thomas Steins. "With WISe.Art and Menthol Protocol we have the perfect partners for our green blockchain to tokenize the CO2 savings of every user and rewards their global impact,” said CO2free.com founder, Alexander Emming.

Why is WISe.Art using Menthol Protocol?

The climate crisis poses an unprecedented threat to human civilization and the world’s ecosystems and the crypto world is taking notice.

Surging demand for cryptocurrencies and accelerating adoption of blockchain-based solutions have highlighted a critical issue: the technology's growing energy consumption and its impact on our climate. That’s why WISe.Art is working collaboratively with on-chain sustainability partners to make it easy for the WISe.Art users to be 100% renewable.

However, buying on-chain green NFTs is extremely time-consuming, repetitive, and fragmented across different exchanges or networks. It's challenging to curate a high-quality sustainability portfolio. Finding, calculating, and purchasing green tokens regularly is a hassle for users and dApp developers that want to be cool.

Putting the WISe.Art sustainability goals on autopilot with Menthol Protocol

WISe.Art future transactions are by default emission-free. Menthol Protocol automatically tracks the on-chain emissions and energy consumption and sources the highest quality green tokens from different marketplaces. 

In the near future, dApp developers will be able to make their cool projects even cooler in only a few minutes. With our no-code integration process, the only change to their users’ experience will be the warm fuzzy feeling they get from saving the world.

In collaboration WISe.Art and Menthol Protocol aim to bring positive change to the traditional and crypto world with innovative technologies and green tech. This project is a beautiful example of how innovative startups and longstanding, state-of-the-art players such as WISeKey partner to explore innovations in a Blue Market, while inviting their communities to join this exciting path.

About Blok-Z / Menthol ProtocolBlok-Z is an energy sector software provider based in Germany and Turkey. The company was founded in 2018 to help accelerate the digital transformation of the energy industry using blockchain technology. Blok-Z enables anyone to be an energy market player with access to economical, transparent and traceable green electricity. For more information visit https://www.blok-z.com/.

About WISeKeyWISeKey (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.

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