SALT LAKE CITY, May 19, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Medici Ventures’ Belgium-based blockchain technology investment, SettleMint, was selected to participate in the inaugural Smart Dubai Office Blockchain Challenge May 29-30 in Dubai. According to the organizers, Smart Dubai Office (SDO) and 1776, the event is designed to identify “game-changing applications of blockchain technology in any industry in support of Dubai’s goal to become the first blockchain-powered city by 2020.
As one of twenty finalists, SettleMint will participate in a two-day program that includes a pitch competition to an audience of investors, experts, private and public institutions. First, second and third-place winners will be named, with each receiving prize money ranging from $10K-$20K along with the opportunity to implement their product or service in Dubai.
“We congratulate SettleMint on being chosen as a finalist for the prestigious SDO Blockchain Challenge,” said Medici Ventures’ President Jonathan Johnson. “As Dubai is showing with its rapid push towards a blockchain infrastructure, this technology has the potential to change the world in a more impactful way than almost any we’ve seen in our lifetime. Through our strategic investments in leading blockchain technologies like SettleMint, Medici Ventures is well-positioned to become a global leader in the blockchain revolution.”
Dubai is focusing on three pillars on which it plans to apply blockchain technologies to achieve the goal of full blockchain integration to the city by 2020; government efficiency, industry creation, and thought leadership. The SDO supports the second pillar, industry creation, with a self-proclaimed goal to “discover the most innovative blockchain startup ideas from around the world.”
About Medici Ventures
Launched in 2014, Medici Ventures is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Overstock.com, Inc., created to manage and oversee the company’s investments in firms building solutions leveraging and servicing blockchain technologies. Medici Ventures seeks to encourage the adoption of distributed ledgers, and in so doing, precipitate a rebirth of efficiency, security and transparency in financial technology. Medici Ventures has a growing portfolio of groundbreaking new companies and tech businesses, including t0.com, Peernova, Bitt, SettleMint, Factom, and IdentityMind. t0.com, Medici Ventures’ majority-owned financial technology company, executed the world’s first blockchain-based stock offering in December 2016.
About SettleMint
SettleMint helps organizations take advantage of blockchain and adjacent technologies, whether they are looking to extend existing products to their customers, create efficiency gains, or completely reinvent an existing business model. SettleMint offers their customers ‘Mint’, a set of modular middleware solutions that take away many of the complexities of blockchain technology. To demonstrate the versatility of this middleware, SettleMint developed several working applications including document management, a know-your-customer solution, a proxy-voting product and a data marketplace.
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements include all statements other than statements of historical fact. Additional information regarding factors that could materially affect results and the accuracy of the forward-looking statements contained herein may be found in the Company's Form 10-K for the quarter ended December 31, 2016, which was filed with the SEC on March 3, 2017, and any subsequent filings with the SEC.