banking app Cogni unveils Web3 ‘Passport’ at NFT.NYC

NFT.NYC, the leading NFT event held April 12-14 in New York City, gathered over 100 partners, 500 brands, 1,500 speakers, 2,000 artists, and 6,000 attendees to celebrate and expand the world of non-fungible tokens.

Cogni, the NY-based Fintech Company that provides easy access to Web2 and Web3 services across traditional finance, crypto, NFT’s, gaming and the metaverse, was there at the conference and booked an exclusive rooftop party during NFT.NYC.

FinanceFeeds had its first encounter with Cogni by welcoming the firm’s Head of Web3 Simon Grunfeld on the FF Podcast. This led us to follow Cogni to the rooftop event, where the firm was hosting a panel about the future of digital banking and crypto as well as showcasing its non-custodial wallet with new features like Cogni passport.

The downfall of FTX was probably the last straw that led crypto holders towards non-custodial wallets. Cogni was already at the right place at the right time with its FDIC-insured checking account available on iOS and Android, offering a non-custodial wallet for users to store digital assets, including NFTs, across multiple blockchains.

The private NFT NYC network gathered influencers and change makers, including Fred Kim, Archie Ravishankar, Nabyl Charania, and Carlota, where they discussed the future of the NFT space and how to get consumers back on board after last year’s bubble burst.

That’s where Cogni’s non-custodial app comes as a strong addition to empower the NFT space, especially now with the launch of the ‘Passport’ – a KYC standard that “bridges the finesse of Web2 KYC with the portability of Web3”.

With ‘Passport’, Cogni launches an innovative way of verifying users that will prove useful for the emerging NFT space as it simplifies user interaction by only having to do the KYC process one time, with Cogni. “So, instead of web3 platforms launching their independent services, I decided to launch a non-custodial wallet that’s web2 kyc approved and can be verified with others. So when you do a KYC, you get a checking account, and a verified non-custodial wallet,”, Cogni’s Simon Grunfeld told the audience.

This new feature addresses firms’ need of knowing who they are catering to within the complex world of Web3 and in a compliant way.

Cogni’s ‘Passport’ helps solve many of the trust issues in blockchain transactions as the value lost to crypto crime reportedly climbed to $20bn in 2022.

Simon Grunfeld further explained that signing up with Cogni is effectively opening a checking account. The ‘Passport’ allows the user to prove their wallet’s identity, through a

non-transferable token – also known as soulbound token – which can’t be removed from the wallet.

This soulbound token provides the ability for Web3 platforms to confirm that a certain wallet is approved by Cogni. Firms are also able to pull encrypted and on-chain user information through the Cogni KYC standard for further verification purposes. Information is encrypted and put on the chain, instead of being kept on a centralized database, precisely to ensure protection in the event of a security breach.

Backing up a little bit, it’s worth noting that Cogni offers a checking account app for deposits up to $150,000. “No crypto offering on the planet can make this claim”, Simon Grunfeld exclaimed as he reiterated that only Cogni can rest assure users that their deposits are safe even if Cogni goes bust. “God forbid!”

To clarify, wallet funds and digital tokens are not held at any bank, and like all cryptocurrencies, they are not FDIC-insured.

The NFT-friendly banking app provides a 100% non-custodial web3 wallet, which means users have sole control of their private keys and digital assets at all times.

At a time of great uncertainty, with the collapse of some of the biggest names in the digital asset space in 2022, Cogni is looking to ride the potential crypto and NFT wave.