Fintech Focus: Fortress Trust Company

Web3 platform Fortress Trust Company offers a full suite of tools for companies looking to innovate their products and services with blockchain technology. What makes this “BlockTech” startup unique is the breadth of its B2B-focused products, its emphasis on compliance, and the platform’s accessibility for legacy industry businesses.

“We’re a one-stop-shop for NFT and crypto infrastructure. Some other companies do pieces of what we do, but no one does all of it. And some of our compliance and security tools are completely unique,” said Fortress Blockchain Technologies Founder & CEO Scott Purcell.

Banking as a service (BaaS) provider Treasury Prime supports Fortress with account opening, automated clearing house (ACH) transfers, wire transfers, and reconciliation. These tools power Fortress’s white-labeled bank accounts through BankProv, escrow offerings, fiat onramps and offramps, and other financial services. 

In addition to financial products supported by Treasury Prime’s banking API, Fortress offers its customers an embeddable NFT and crypto wallet as well as a tokenization engine for fungible and non-fungible tokens. Clients can use these tools to tokenize rewards programs and mint non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

How Fortress uses Treasury Prime

Bank accounts are a critical piece of the puzzle for Fortress’s suite of products since the company’s mainstream legacy-industry clients require traditional financial infrastructure to conduct transactions. 

“When it comes to anything related to payments, anything related to holding USD accounts, then Treasury Prime is involved,” said Purcell. 

Treasury Prime matched Fortress to BankProv, a blockchain-friendly bank, and its API connects Fortress to BankProv’s core, allowing Fortress to create a payments ecosystem on their platform. 

For example, suppose a customer uses Fortress to manage an individual retirement account (IRA) that includes cryptocurrency and NFT holdings. In that case, Fortress will use Treasury Prime and BankProv to hold fiat currency in a bank account used to purchase those assets. 

To learn more about you can use embedded finance to create a payments ecosystem on your platform, download our white paper.

How Fortress uses fiat on and offramps

Treasury Prime’s tools help Fortress build fiat on and offramps for clients. Using the ramps, customers can buy and sell crypto and NFTs using fiat currency such as U.S. dollars, and pursue other use cases. 

Buying crypto

A Fortress customer could use a fiat on-ramp to buy crypto, either as an asset in itself or as a vehicle for another transaction. For example, if a user wishes to purchase an NFT, they will need to use a fiat on-ramp to convert fiat to crypto both to pay for the NFT itself and to cover “gas fees” for processing the transaction. 

Distributing revenue from NFT sales

“If you’re a musician, and you’re selling your music as an NFT, there are going to be royalties that come in on that. Those royalties are going to come in the form of crypto that has to be liquidated into fiat currency. Fortress opens a royalty escrow account with BankProv through Treasury Prime to hold that fiat currency,” Purcell said. 

Fortress then distributes the income to all the relevant parties such as the musician, agent, publicist, and business manager. 

Why Fortress partnered with Treasury Prime

The top reason Fortress partnered with Treasury Prime? 

“Treasury Prime’s APIs are easy to use. My engineering team liked what they saw,” said Purcell. 

He added that integration was “very easy” and that Treasury Prime quickly resolved any issues that arose. Purcell also said his company valued the direct relationship with BankProv that Treasury Prime facilitates. 

“Having a direct relationship with the right bank gives us comfort and allows us to resolve any concerns they might have because they want to know how we do things as well,” he said.

Fortress’s robust NFT security options

Outside of Fortress, most NFTs are minted on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a decentralized peer-to-peer data storage network. Because IPFS is a peer-to-peer file sharing and data storage network, it can be risky for anyone to use for intellectual property such as music, art, or film. This also applies to those using NFTs for confidential data such as healthcare records, estate documents, real estate titles, and legal documents. 

“If you've got healthcare records, or your real estate title, or your personal will, your family estate documents, do you really want those stored on a database network hosted on countless strangers’ personal computers? Because that's what IPFS is,” said Purcell. 

Fortress avoids these pitfalls by taking a different approach. Instead of using IPFS, the company 

holds all private data associated with NFTs so they are encrypted and hosted on AWS. This approach enables Fortress clients to store tokens in a manner that complies with HIPAA, the Department of Defense, and other high standards for privacy, security, and data integrity. 

The Best Fiat Onramp for Crypto
Treasury Prime has the largest bank network in the industry, giving you the most flexibility and affordability at scale. We work with a growing network of more than 10 banks, including BankProv, which specializes in crypto clientele; as well as other banks interested in working with crypto companies. Once we match you up with a crypto-friendly bank, we will work hand-in-hand with you to build your fiat onramp/offramp.

If you want to be the next unicorn, you need a direct bank relationship and the best Baas company. To discuss how we can help your crypto company scale, contact us here. Want to learn more about our process? View our API reference or play around with our Developer Sandbox.

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