Key Highlights
Blockrise CEO Jos Lazet describes the next frontier for bitcoin as a wave of anti-establishment neobanks that combine genuine self-custody with the full suite of everyday financial services, structured more like Revolut than a traditional exchange or custodial wallet.
Blockrise has launched bitcoin-friendly bank accounts with IBANs and on June 10 cut its custody fee to 0% across all accounts, as it competes for users who want both bitcoin exposure and practical banking functionality without sacrificing ownership of their assets.
The company has partnered with European online bank bunq, integrating bitcoin alongside classic banking features and deposit protection of up to 100,000 euros under the Dutch Deposit Guarantee Scheme.
Jos Lazet, chief executive of Blockrise, outlined his vision for bitcoin's next adoption phase as one driven not by exchanges or ETFs but by a new category of financial platform: self-custody-first neobanks that offer users real ownership of their bitcoin alongside the everyday banking features they already use. Lazet frames these platforms as anti-establishment by design, built around the principle that users should control their own assets rather than trust a custodian, while still accessing the full range of services, from payments and IBANs to bitcoin trading and collateralized loans, that make a platform genuinely useful in daily life.
Blockrise has been building this model in practice. The company recently launched bitcoin-friendly bank accounts with International Bank Account Numbers, enabling users to hold and move euros alongside their bitcoin without routing through a traditional bank. On June 10, Blockrise announced a reduction in its custody fee to 0% across all account tiers, removing one of the most common friction points in bitcoin custody products and positioning itself as a subscription-based service similar to neobanks like Revolut rather than a fee-on-assets model.
The company has also formalized a deeper partnership with bunq, a European online bank, using bunq's Banking as a Service infrastructure to underpin its account offering. The integration connects Blockrise's bitcoin features directly to a regulated banking layer, with user balances protected up to 100,000 euros under the Dutch Deposit Guarantee Scheme. The partnership gives Blockrise access to bunq's payments infrastructure while maintaining the self-custody architecture that distinguishes it from custodial competitors.
Lazet's argument is that the current landscape of crypto products still forces users to choose between genuine ownership and practical usability. Exchanges and custodial wallets make bitcoin easy to access but hold the keys on the user's behalf. Pure self-custody solutions offer full ownership but lack the banking features that most users need day to day. The neobank model Lazet describes is designed to close that gap: giving users control of their keys while wrapping that foundation in a full-service financial interface that competes directly with traditional consumer banking.
