Crypto & DeFi (2025)

1. Interview: Joao Alves, cofounder and CEO, Bleap

   Ex-Revolut employee Joao Alves is cofounder and CEO of London-based Bleap, a “bank account on the blockchain” app enabling debit card stablecoins spending. It raised a $2.3m pre-seed round led by Ethereal Ventures alongside Maven11, Alliance DAO and Robot Ventures in November 2024.

   On competitors and traditional fintechs

   Bleap aims to convince users that building on a different ledger, or blockchain, can allow companies to ship superior products without the constraints of legacy systems.

   “If we’re right, we will share markets with incumbents — both traditional and neobanks — but they’ll have to catch up with the technology we’re building here. On the B2C side, traditional banks are still playing catchup with fintechs,” he says, suggesting there will be an extra hurdle for traditional players that want to conquer crypto.

   On customer adoption and trust

   Right now, Bleap is looking to onboard early adopters and prove that the product is as secure as a traditional bank’s. “I think we have the same problem faced by neobanks — you’d just put your travel money in one of these accounts and slowly realise it works well, then you start putting your salary and become a potential lifetime customer.”

   “The second problem is trust. Blockchain can be secure, transparent and low-fee. On the other hand, you have meme coins being ‘rug pulled’ by presidents of large countries, or the [huge hacking] of the Bybit [crypto exchange]. This is all in the same place, but it’s a tech with many uses, like the internet. It doesn’t mean that either are inherently bad.”

   On early challenges

   “For customers to adopt new products, you need to build things that are superior to their current provider. Our main challenge was how to build a superior UX from onboarding to instant payments and that’s harder in early-stage crypto. There’s a lot left to be built,” he says in reference to infrastructure and building blocks.

   “Then, we’d have to win the UI market. Like bank accounts, clients are very sticky with their current wallets. The market needs to expand for other wallets to grab shares.”

   On regulation and Europe

   “Back when we were raising, we mostly received objections on market sizing and regulation” — how large the user base is and the odds of being wiped out by regulators the next day. But it seems that European regulation actually helped Bleap’s growth. “The fact that you can build this in Europe with a full licence is incredibly helpful. It was one of the big unknowns then.”

   “It is still harder to be in the EU, it’s factual. It’s expensive, and it’s harder to start things off. But at least you know you’ll be here for the longer haul. There’s more certainty because the regulation has already been decided”.

   On ending of crypto winter

   Funding for crypto startups has increased steadily since early autumn last year, as startups make their way back to pitching. “It’s better than it was when we started (July 2023). Narrative and timing are important in that sense — it feels there’s more appetite out there. We’re at medium temperatures now.”

Who early stage startups are up against