Significant Investment From Financial Institutions is Set to Grow the Blockchain Market

NEW YORK, September 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

According to a market report from Critical Future, the global blockchain market size is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 62.61% to reach USD 10.1 Billion by 2024, up from USD 548.2 Million in 2018. About 44 different industries are set to adopt the blockchain technology, including banking, logistics, charity, education, healthcare, human resources, public sector, music, law enforcement, sports, social media, and gaming. As the number of firms using blockchain technology increase, the report expects that the blockchain will have an economic impact of USD 120 Billion by 2024. Victory Square Technologies Inc. (OTC: VSQTF), Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (NYSE: BBVA), Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE: VG), HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. (OTC: HVBTF), NXT-ID, Inc. (NASDAQ: NXTD).

The financial sector is expected to have significant investment in blockchain. According to a report published by New Greenwich Associate, the financial services industry is spending about USD 1.7 Billion per year on blockchain as more banks and other financial firms start to apply blockchain in their products. The study shows that blockchain budgets increased 67% in 2017. Richard Johnson, Vice President of Greenwich Associates Market Structure and Technology practice, said, "More than half the executives we interviewed told us that implementing DLT was harder than they expected. Nevertheless, more than three-quarters of projects currently under development are expected to be live within two years."

Victory Square Technologies Inc. (OTCQX: VSQTF) is also listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the ticker (CSE: VST). Just this morning, the Company announced breaking news that it, "is providing seed capital to establish Grow Tech Labs as a dynamic business accelerator in the cannabis sector. It will be focused on Canadian and international companies innovating in the medical and recreational cannabis industry.

This marks the latest in a series of cannabis-related investments which Victory Square has made over the past three years. In 2015-16, the Company worked with cannabis pioneers and thought leaders Tantalus Labs, which opened Canada's first closed-system greenhouse and launched a new phase of agricultural medical cannabis production in Canada (http://www.tantaluslabs.com).

Earlier this year, Victory Square announced a strategic partnership with Cannabis Wise to establish a national cannabis certification program for Canada's post-prohibition marketplace (http://www.cannabiswise.com).

"We're closely watching and engaged in what is a fast-moving marketplace for medical and recreational cannabis and appreciative of what innovation in the space will mean to the industry in British Columbia and across Canada," said Shafin Diamond Tejani, CEO of Victory Square Technologies.

Tejani noted the Grow Tech Labs Accelerator will be formally launched next month, in association with the legalization of cannabis in Canada. Additional investments and project partners will be announced over the coming weeks and months.

"Grow Tech Labs will attract a new and diverse generation of cannabis sector leaders to Vancouver through world-class programs that apply innovative technology and deliver education rooted in entrepreneurship, mentorship and social responsibility," said Tejani. "We look forward to seeing Grow Tech Labs push the envelope of best practices in the field, from opportunities for female entrepreneurs and Indigenous companies to collaborative sector-wide partnerships."

To help reaffirm British Columbia's status as a global cannabis capital for excellence and innovation, Grow Tech Labs will:

• Provide direct support, access to capital, mentorship and licensed space to locate innovative startup Canadian companies in BC.

• Attract international investment to BC's cannabis sector.

• Accelerate the participation of small BC producers and processors in the legal marketplace.

• Establish dedicated programming for female-founded and Indigenous-founded/owned companies.

• Establish partnerships with community, business and education organizations.

Victory Square is a technology accelerator that uses its experience, expertise and resources to help grow and scale its 23 portfolio companies who are working on innovative and disruptive projects in every sector of the global economy, including Finance, Health, Cannabis, Real Estate, Insurance, Entertainment and Education.

The Company provides investors with a curated portfolio of emerging technology companies focused on: Artificial Intelligence ("AI"), Blockchain, Esports, Virtual Reality ("VR"), and Augmented Reality ("AR"), with the ability to provide significant upside to shareholders through monetization strategies that include IPO's, RTO's, and M&A activity."

Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (NYSE: BBVA) is a global financial group that operates a customer-focused retail business model, offering clients a comprehensive range of financial and non-financial products and services around the world. BBVA recently announced that it has successfully completed the first global corporate loan transaction using blockchain technology from the negotiation of the deal to its signing, in line with their close collaboration to leverage cutting-edge technologies to streamline business processes. The pilot enabled the closing of an EUR 75 Million loan using a solution developed by BBVA based on distributed ledger technology (DLT). This demonstrates how the BBVA continues to incorporate innovative and disruptive technology into its customer solutions, including those products that up to now have seen limited digital innovation, as is the case with wholesale finance. As for Indra, the project strengthens its blockchain expertise, in this case applied to corporate financing, in line with its successful track record of blockchain implementations in real-life scenarios, and with its leading position as a provider of digital-transformation products and solutions to companies and institutions, through its Minsait business unit.

Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE: VG) is redefining business communications. Upco International Inc. recently announced that it has contracted with Nexmo Inc., a subsidiary of Vonage Holdings Corporation, to provide SMS Authentication services for its mobile platform. Nexmo is a leading cloud Communications Platform as a Service ("CPaaS") provider, offering APIs for SMS, voice, and phone verifications to facilitate communications worldwide, and a range of other solutions to the mobile communications sector. SMS Authentication via Nexmo's Verify API represents a major enhancement to Upco's current mobile phone and payment offerings, and an important foundational step in the staged delivery of a full-featured international invoice/ payment / exchange/ transfer service. The Nexmo solution will provide two-factor authentication of users who have downloaded Upco's application. The phone number plus a token associating that number to the phone will be retained in Upco's blockchain database. Corollary benefits, additional to authentication, will include spam and hack protection, and improved control over phone number association (ensuring that calls reach the intended recipient).

HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. (OTC: HVBTF) is a growth-oriented, TSX.V-listed company building a bridge from the blockchain sector to traditional capital markets. HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. recently announced its results for the first quarter ended June 30^th, 2018. For the period ended June 30^th, 2018, HIVE's gross mining margin was 60%, with income from mining digital currency per average megawatt of USD 485,000. First quarter income from digital currency mining was produced from an average of 21.98 MW of production capacity, with Sweden Phase 3 coming online on April 30^th, 2018, increasing total capacity to 24.2 MW in operation as at June 30^th, 2018. "I remain pleased with the progress made by HIVE on the operational front and in regard to our financial position. We continue to deploy capital and have added an additional 6.8 megawatts of capacity in Sweden as well as closed the acquisition of Kolos in the quarter. Financially, HIVE generated positive cash from operations and took another step forward in growing the business," said Harry Pokrandt, Chief Executive Officer and Director of HIVE. "Our financial position has advanced despite challenging market conditions which have seen major cryptocurrencies come under pressure this year. We remain well capitalized and well positioned to achieve our goals of profitable deployment of capital to maintain our leadership position in the blockchain infrastructure industry."

NXT-ID, Inc. (NASDAQ: NXTD) provides a comprehensive platform of technology products and services that enable the Internet of Things (IoT). Fit Pay, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of NXT-ID, Inc., announced earlier this year that it was accepting pre-orders for Flip™, a new contactless payment device that will enable cryptocurrency holders to use the value of their currency to make purchases at millions of retail locations. The new device, which was announced earlier this month, uses value exchanged from cryptocurrency to make traditional payment transactions. Flip's near field communication (NFC) antenna allows it to transact payments at any retail point of sale location that accepts contactless payments. Flip will store a preloaded amount of U.S. dollars that are exchanged from the user's existing cryptocurrency account. It includes a digital wallet that allows the user to set how much value they would like their Flip to hold and when they would like it to reload. Flip does not need to be charged. Initially, Flip will accept value exchanged from Bitcoin and will potentially expand to other cryptocurrencies in the future. "NXT-ID's expansion into the cryptocurrency space is a natural extension of our leading edge fintech capabilities," said Gino Pereira, Chief Executive Officer of NXT-ID. "In addition to helping make crypto currencies more usable on a daily basis we are also pursuing applications for blockchain technology in our core payment and healthcare businesses."

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