JPMorgan may be the first bank to open in a virtual world, but Quontic Bank won’t be far behind.

The $1 billion Quontic is building a presence in the metaverse after going fully digital following the shutdown of its New York City brick-and-mortar presence in August 2021. The metaverse, which refers to a network of 3D worlds focused on social connection, represents a new frontier, Quontic Chief Marketing Officer Aaron Wollner said last week at the Bank Automation Summit.

“We’re in the middle of building Quontic in the metaverse,” Wollner said. “We’re mostly doing it because we see something’s there, right? This is the new frontier and we wanted to personally experience it by building on it and going through it.”

It’s not exactly a shot in the proverbial dark, though. Grayscale Research estimated the metaverse could be a $1 trillion yearly opportunity — a figure cited by JPMorgan in its recent “Opportunities in the Metaverse” report. The $3.7 trillion JPMorgan also announced in February its own plans to build in the metaverse.

Quontic is also pioneering a wearable smart ring, currently in beta, that will support payments, Wollner said, a project that was almost stymied by the idea that “men don’t wear rings.”

“Well, that’s not totally true. I think you get thrown off track by preconceived notions,” Wollner said. “A bunch of us have beta rings and every time we use it, it’s a conversation — literally the people behind the counter are talking to us about payment.”

Wollner spoke as part of a panel on “Iterating and Experimenting at Maximum Efficiency.” Besides being one of the first fully digital banks, Quontic was also the first FDIC-insured financial institution to launch a Bitcoin reward checking program.

Wollner was joined on the panel by Hemal Nagarsheth, a partner with global consultancy Kearney, and David Ritter, Financial Services Strategist at information technology and software engineering company CI&T.