TrustNFT Develops Age Verification via Token

TrustNFT Creates NFT-Based Identity Solutions. With a Token, You Can Prove Your Age or Identity. The NFTs Target, but Are Not Limited to, Professional Investors.

You can never emphasize enough how far online identity models lag behind their technical potential. Online, you’re either anonymous or pseudonymous, or fully identified. There is nothing in between.

Take age, for example: In real life, you have to prove your age to buy alcohol or cigarettes or to enter a nightclub. Similarly, it should be possible online—when ordering whisky or accessing adult websites. Many parents would probably also appreciate a minimum age for social media.

Yet, technical implementation is lacking. Most “age verifications” ask you only to confirm you’re over 18; in some cases, you also have to enter a date of birth. It’s obvious to everyone involved that these “verifications” are a complete waste of time. The alternative would be a centralized identity provider verifying IDs through video chat—which in most cases would pose a prohibitively high hurdle for business.

The Balancing Act

The problem is a tricky balancing act: How can you prove your age without revealing everything about yourself? How can online shops or social networks demand proof of age without resorting to costly and discouraging full identification procedures? How can you establish verification that isn’t completely ineffective—but also isn’t a privacy catastrophe?

Part of the problem is that identity is bundled as a complete package. Either you remain completely unverified—or you hand over your face, your age, your address, your ID number, and your place of birth.

Yet it could be so simple. The solution has long existed: tokens. We’ve often written about token-based identity solutions that are secure, privacy-preserving, user-sovereign, effective, affordable, and ready for the market. Tokens make it possible to split an identity into individual pieces—a token for age, one for residence, one to prove you are human—and present these parts as needed.

One approach is to use non-fungible tokens (NFTs)—as TrustNFT intends to do.

A “Smart NFT” as Proof of Age

With “TrustNFT — AV,” the startup is launching, according to its press release, a “blockchain-based platform for age and identity verification.”

From what I understand, TrustNFT’s NFT only confirms your name and age. Other information—like address or place of birth—is not part of the process.

TrustNFT advertises the following features: the data involved are minimized, limited to what is necessary to confirm age or name. This data is encrypted and stored as a “Smart NFT” on the blockchain. Other parties can verify them thanks to zero-knowledge proofs (cryptographic methods that allow validation without disclosing underlying data), without the underlying documents being revealed.

According to the press release, the solution is particularly suitable for social media platforms seeking to prevent minors from registering, events or clubs restricted to adults, as well as websites whose content or services require a minimum age.

Few Details

Technically, the product should be feasible. The two key technologies, NFTs and zero-knowledge proofs, are available and already mature; a wide variety of stable, scalable blockchains could serve as the foundation.

However, TrustNFT.io keeps technical details scarce. Which blockchain are the NFTs built on? Can they be used with standard wallets? Are they part of the usual SDKs for Web3 login? What exactly does “Smart NFT” mean? How is trading or multi-party use of the NFTs prevented? Are soulbound tokens used (tokens that are non-transferable and bound to a single identity)?

The website remains worryingly uninformative. It prompts users about a dozen times to join a waitlist but offers absolutely no substantive details.

The website was created in 2025 with a WordPress theme, which is not particularly confidence-inspiring. There is no legal disclosure (Impressum); at least the listed phone number links to New Jersey. TrustNFT’s Twitter account has just six followers and was created in April.

For Accredited Investors

TrustNFT is part of the Silver Scott Blockchain Group, which was also founded in 2025 as an “all-in-one solution for blockchain tokenization.”

Silver Scott offers wealth management for affluent clients and, through “RWA Direct,” tokenizes assets like physical commodities (gold, silver, lithium, water, land) as well as legal rights (usage rights, CO2 credits, and more). This sounds extremely interesting—yet the platform also does not seem to be live.

Within this framework, TrustNFT fulfills a specific function: It is intended to allow accredited investors to seamlessly verify themselves to access “Real World Assets.” According to the website, it offers “a centralized KYC (Know Your Customer) solution that simplifies access to exclusive ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) and RWA (Real World Asset) investment opportunities.”

Hence, the TrustNFT website says little about age and name verification, focusing instead on investors. TrustNFT is described as “a decentralized identity vault specifically designed for accredited investors.”

Age verification seems more of a side product, which TrustNFT might be using to test market response.

More Trustworthy Alternatives

The complete lack of technical details and information makes TrustNFT naturally less trustworthy. Other decentralized identity offerings appear much more mature, transparent, and reputable.

The Human Passport (formerly Gitcoin Passport) from human.tech, for example, already has several million users and partners across the Web3 ecosystem. It is currently likely the most interesting and successful protocol. With more than a million users, Fractral ID also appears to be well-established. The Berlin startup seems to have recovered and learned from a past incident involving the theft of thousands of sensitive data records.

Also promising is the cross-blockchain solution from Trident3. While the website reveals little about the product’s marketplace success, it is quite open about its technical details and plans.

Finally, the ERC3643 token standard is designed to integrate on-chain identity solutions directly into smart contracts and tokens, so that verification can become part of a transaction.

A Tough Business

The issue of decentralized identity is extremely important. Done incorrectly, it can have catastrophic consequences for privacy; done right, it can ensure that the sooner-or-later inevitable online identity protects privacy and strengthens user autonomy.

However, decentralized identity appears to be a tough business to monetize. Whenever possible, internet users avoid verification. No one does it voluntarily, unless forced to.

As a result, many startups that launched with promising solutions—such as KYCT or zkPortal—are now more or less defunct. Strong technical solutions do exist, but there remains only modest interest in the market. This will likely remain the case for the immediate future—which risks opening the door to worse, more centralized solutions.