Verisign stock traded in the low hundreds after opening today, an increase of more than 1,250% – after the company’s announcement of a large deal with the newly-formed Republic of Crimea.
The deal was sealed after the effective success of a new campaign by Verisign to promote its dominance in the SSL certificate market.
“The Russian authorities in Crimea approved of this purely business to business convergence, and Verisign will be selling secure certificates in Crimea and Russia,” said Verisign executive for Eastern Europe, Nicolai Romanov.
“We’re adding more than 100 million users to our list of potential customers, and secure transactions over the government-operated Internet is the second most important issue Russian and Crimean users face, after alcoholism,” added Romanov.
The $1.5 trillion dollar deal establishes Verisign as the de facto behemoth, in a market believed to be harder to get into than China, that actually manufactures its own microcode for SSL certificate signatures; Russia’s technological infrastructure is currently limited to natural gas, nuclear warheads and caviar.
“It is great times, tumultuous times, yes, but with every great social revolution comes opportunity to achieve the unthinkable,” said Nikolai Romanov.
Verisign is expected to open its local headquarters in Sevastopol, as soon as the old politburo building is cleared out of the last remaining Ukrainian personnel.
