WISeKey Davos 2023 Event:
Surviving the Tech/Crypto Winter

WISeKey announces composition of 2023 Davos Roundtables

Date & Time:    January 18, 2023 / 19.00 to 20.00 CET
Location:   Piano Bar Hotel Europe
Promenade 63, 7270 Davos
Registration: davos.wisekey.com

Geneva – December 15, 2022 – WISeKey International Holding Ltd (“WISeKey”, SIX: WIHN, NASDAQ: WKEY), a leading global cybersecurity and IoT company, today announced its WISeKey Davos 2023 event: Surviving the Tech/Crypto Winter. The event will take place on January 18, 2023 at the Piano Bar Hotel of Europe (Promenade 63, 7270, Davos Platz, Switzerland) starting at 19:00 CET. This event will mark the company’s 18th participation at Davos since WISeKey was nominated by the WEF as one of the founding members of the Global Growth Company community.

WISeKey’s CEO Carlos Moreira noted “We are very excited to welcome you to join us at the WISeKey Davos 2023 Event, taking place at the Piano Bar Hotel on January 18, 2023. Friendly reminder to please review the roundtables you would like to attend and confirm your attendance.”

To register for this event and engage in discussions with our international experts, you can visit http://davos.wisekey.com/.

The 2023 event will focus on Surviving the Tech/Crypto Winter. Industry experts, investors, entrepreneurs, and politicians presenting at the roundtables, many of whom have experienced previous downturns in the industry, have a message for those facing the current one: decisions we are making now will determine who survives—and lay the groundwork for the next tech boom.

Surviving this Tech/Crypto Winter, and building for the next boom, requires strategies that are often the opposite of those popular only a year ago. It also requires a change in mindset. Tech leaders generally are told to keep their eyes fixed on the horizon. But to navigate the current economic downturn, looking back at what worked and didn’t will be essential.

The term " Tech/Crypto Winter" is often used to refer to a period of economic downturn or stagnation in the technology industry. This can be caused by a variety of factors, such as a decrease in demand for technology products and services, competition from newer technologies, or economic factors that affect the industry as a whole. During a Tech/Crypto Winter, companies in the technology industry may struggle to maintain profitability and growth, and some may even go out of business. This can lead to job losses and other negative effects on the economy.

During economic downturns, there can be opportunities for startup companies to succeed. This is because established companies may be struggling and unable to compete as effectively. As a result, there may be more room for new, innovative companies to enter the market and gain a foothold. Additionally, economic downturns can lead to lower costs for operational necessities such as labor and materials, which can make it easier for startups to get started and operate. Finally, during a downturn, customers may be more willing to try new products and services, so startups may have a better chance of gaining traction and building a customer base.

During the event, discussions will also cover the crypto market and review recommendations of industry experts who have been warning of a Tech/Crypto Winter. Since late 2021, a combination of rising interest rates, weakening investor confidence in the profitability of the sector, and a series of high-profile scandals have dampened optimism that Web3 might provide a template for the future of the internet – and, perhaps, society itself.

Experts on Trust and Security for the Web 3.0 of everything will discuss recent developments to secure the state of the world through Blockchain, AI, NFTs, Satellites, cybersecurity, post-quantum, cryptoroots, and IoT technology. All of these items need to be implemented due to the emergence of smart machines, which are able to identify and learn from each other and evolve in their decision-making capabilities and stay ahead of threats.

Additionally, there will be discussions on how we can ensure that digital identity and privacy become a basic, fundamental human right, as it is an endangered right. The digital economy considers every click, search, or like as an asset to be monetized. Our lives, reflected in cyberspace, are plundered for behavioral data for the sake of a system that converts our freedom into profit. We are quietly being domesticated into accepting that decision rights vanish before we even know there is a decision to be made, as normal.

Furthermore, discussions will also focus on recent NFT trends. Despite the demise of the Crypto Currency market, collectors are spending more, not less, on NFT art, according to the Art Market Report. ‘It can become addictive,’ some admit to author Brian Boucher of ArtNet News for ArtBasel.
Crypto winter (or ice age, whichever it turns out to be) hasn’t cooled collectors’ appetite for digital artworks, according to “A Survey of Global Collecting” in 2022, co-published by Art Basel and UBS, prepared by Dr. Clare McAndrew, Founder of Arts Economics. On the contrary, just in the first half of 2022, high-net-worth collectors spent an average of $46,000 on art-based NFTs, more than all of 2021 ($44,000) and 2020 ($35,000). A robust 17% of their spending was on digital art, including 10% linked to an NFT.

About WISe.ART

WISe.ART is a fully-fledged marketplace. It can connect all actors of the arts industry. Our white-labeling options and special NFT designs ensure that besides an authenticated and signed version of the actual digital asset, creating an irreversible link to the physical object, providing proof of ownership, provenance, and a set of smart contracts describing future use and monetization streams.

The WISe.ART NFT platform is fully secured by WISeKey’s innovative security technologies enabling the authentication of digital assets, in a safe end-to-end process based on our experience and proven expertise in this domain.

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 Secures 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:

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.