- In order to create a self-custodial stablecoin payments app, Bleap has raised $2.3 million in a pre-seed fundraising round led by Ethereal Ventures.
- With a token launch anticipated in 2026 and a complete public deployment planned for Q1 2025, Bleap is presently in beta testing with a limited number of EU customers.
In order to create Bleap, a “bank account on the blockchain,” former Revolut workers Joao Alves and Guilherme Gomes have acquired $2.3 million in pre-seed funding, which is being led by Joe Lubin’s Ethereal Ventures, the founder of Consensys.
Key executives from Revolut, Phantom, OKX, EigenLayer, and Consensys were among the angel investors who took part in the round, along with Maven11, Alliance DAO, Robot Ventures, and Credibly Neutral.
With the promise of no conversion or exchange fees and up to 2% reward on purchases, the funds will be utilized to support the development of the self-custodial payments software, which allows users to spend stablecoins in the real world using a linked Mastercard debit card.
The Bleap concept started to take shape in July 2023, and the former Revolut employees think blockchain technology is the cornerstone of the financial industry’s future. We were looking for an app that combined the best features of banking with the potential of blockchain. An app for banking that would be far superior to everything else on the market right now.
We can create experiences with blockchain technology that are just not possible with conventional financial rails.
According to the team, the neobank also offers multi-currency accounts with savings rates five times higher than those of traditional banks, made possible by stablecoins and decentralized financing. Users can also send money anywhere in the world immediately and without incurring costs.
How Bleap operates
Bleap, which is based on the Ethereum Layer 2 network Arbitrum, uses PortalHQ’s Multi-Party Computation technology to enable quick, gasless transactions and substitute cloud storage and social logins for conventional seed words. By enhancing current multi-sig techniques, MPC is a cryptographic solution that enables wallet keys to be divided between PortalHQ and the user.
According to Alves, when a user signs a transaction, the app retrieves a backup share from PortalHQ and the user’s device utilizes their key share. The application creates and encrypts the user’s share using a password that is derived using AES and SHA256, saves it on Bleap’s server, and sends the password to the user while storing it in their cloud. This securely backs up the user’s share. He asserted that this keeps the seed encrypted and safe by removing the need for a seed phrase because only the user can access the password. The user can export their complete key at any time for offline storage, however they can only regain their account by authenticating with 2FA and decrypting their share using the backup password if they misplace their phone.
The researchers noted that a smart wallet powered by account abstraction (ERC-4337) is deployed when users create a Bleap account, providing a safe and intuitive web2-like experience for managing web3 assets. Bleap’s fee-free crypto on-and-off-ramping service allows users to buy stablecoins with fiat or add them from external wallets.
The USDC, USDT, USDA, and EURA stablecoins are supported by Bleap’s smart wallet. According to Alves, it is currently exclusively deployed on Arbitrum and there are no plans to expand to other networks.
But according to him, Bleap’s off-ramp and bridging services now handle Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, BNB, Solana, and Arbitrum. According to its website, users can also purchase different cryptocurrencies on the networks that allow them and have them delivered straight to their external, non-custodial wallet.
The team’s largest obstacle was figuring out how to quickly and affordably connect a public blockchain to a centralized system, such as Mastercard, while preserving self-custody.
We are collaborating with suppliers who are accustomed to working with cryptocurrency for the card portion, but because we are doing something new, some processes take longer than they typically would in the finance industry. Overall, though, I believe that everyone in the payments industry is really motivated to see cryptocurrency payments succeed.
Alves used the example of a consumer paying $5 at Starbucks to illustrate the flow. After receiving the Mastercard request, Bleap confirms that the user has a similar amount, like $5 USDC, in their wallet. After confirmation, Bleap charges the user’s wallet with stablecoins and authorizes the transaction while concurrently recreating it onchain. Bleap settles with Mastercard after converting the stablecoins to their currency equivalent.
The reason this method works is that when the card is created, the user gives permission to Bleap’s card signer to take money out of their wallet. They can remove this authority at any moment by canceling the card or setting custom limitations. Bleap eliminates the need to first convert cryptocurrency to fiat, which saves money on conversion and exchange fees and facilitates seamless spending.
The available cashback is derived from a number of incentives that Bleap receives from its partners, such as subscription plans and interchange fees from retailers. The infrastructure of the Bleap wallet covers all blockchain transaction expenses.
According to Alves, Bleap offers savings rates in stablecoins denominated in USD and EUR through the usage of DeFi protocols. With just one click, users may engage with Bleap-integrated DeFi items right within their wallet. Alves made it clear that Bleap just seeks to make the user experience easier and never takes possession of consumers’ money. With intentions to add more alternatives in the future, Bleap now uses Angle Protocol, which gives rates of 13.2% APY and 5.3% APY on USD and EUR stablecoins, respectively.
The “killer use case” for crypto
According to researchers at crypto asset manager Bitwise, stablecoins have clearly established product market fit, with a circulating supply of about $200 billion and over $5.1 trillion in global transactions in the first half of this year alone. In the same time frame, Visa generated $6.5 trillion, while in the third quarter, stablecoin transactions generated an additional $3.1 trillion.
Crypto is on the verge of discovering its game-changing application, as we frequently repeat. Ari Bookman and Juan Leon of Bitwise wrote a report in October.
According to Alves, Bleap is registered as a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) in Poland and incorporated in the UK to service EU clients. Europe is becoming a major hub for stablecoin adoption thanks to MiCA legislation.
MiCA regulation is really beneficial. The European regulatory situation, in which each nation regulated cryptocurrency separately, was essentially disrupting the one market mechanism that we are meant to have. I thought that was the worst outcome.. MiCA resolves this and returns regulation to the EU level, allowing businesses in any EU nation to service the EU as a whole. It’s a wonderful item from that angle.
He admitted that the restrictions raise the hurdles to entry from an operational standpoint, making it challenging for entrepreneurs to get beyond them. But having a license also makes many things easier. For example, opening a business account to serve customers is quite simple for Europe if you have one, but it can be difficult for other currencies like USD and GBP if you don’t.
A limited number of European users are presently participating in Bleap’s beta testing. In Q1 2025, a comprehensive public rollout bringing cryptocurrency payments throughout Europe is scheduled. Next year, Bleap hopes to enter the Latin American market.
Bleap also intends to introduce its own token in 2026, though Alves was unable to provide any other information at this time.
Alumni of Revolut have a track record of developing cryptocurrency companies.In April, former Revolut Head of Crypto Operations Ruslan Fakhrutdinov raised $6.5 million to launch X10, a hybrid cryptocurrency exchange powered by the StarkEx Layer 2 engine. While some former Revolut employees collected money for a web3 energy startup and cryptocurrency investment software in 2022, others introduced a new cryptocurrency wallet called Zeal in 2023.
Disclaimer : This article was created for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. An asset’s past performance does not predict its future returns. Before making an investment, please conduct your own research, as digital assets like cryptocurrencies are highly risky and volatile financial instruments.
