Dutch neobank bunq and Blockrise have started a partnership to offer Bitcoin-related services with bank accounts.
Netherlands-based bunq, that operates as a licensed bank in Europe and provides digital banking services, announced a partnership with Blockrise as part of its Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) offering. Blockrise is the first company to use this platform.
The service allows businesses to use bunq’s banking infrastructure through an API. This includes account features and compliance functions. The partnership starts in the Netherlands.
Blockrise provides Bitcoin-related services, including trading, asset management, and loans backed by Bitcoin. The crypto company users can now access Bitcoin services together with integrated bank accounts. Fiat deposits are covered up to €100,000 under the Dutch Deposit Guarantee Scheme through bunq’s banking license.
“Up to now, Dutch Bitcoin users had to choose between security and convenience. With bunq’s infrastructure, they get both — a bank account that works seamlessly with Bitcoin, protected by the Dutch Deposit Guarantee Scheme,” said Jos Lazet, Founder and CEO of Blockrise. “We are proud to be the first-ever Bitcoin platform that is able to offer full bank accounts to our clients.”
bunq has been continuously involved with crypto services. It has recently crossed €100 million in crypto trading volume, spread across roughly half a million trades over a year (since the April 2025 launch of bunq Crypto).
“For over a decade, bunq’s mission has been to make life easy for our users. Now, we’re taking that mission even broader,” said Joe Wilson, Chief Evangelist at bunq. “By partnering with innovators like Blockrise, we empower them to build products that match their users’ wants and needs in a trusted and secure platform. This is how we help more people across Europe: by working with an exclusive group of like minded fintechs to create incredible user experiences.”
Blockrise is based in Rotterdam and was founded in 2017. It operates under supervision of the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) under MiCAR for its regulated activities. Bitcoin-backed loans are offered by Blockrise Lending B.V. and are not regulated under MiCAR.
Approximately 2 million people in the Netherlands own cryptocurrency (10% of total population). Bitcoin remains the most popular cryptocurrency among Dutch citizens. Together, all investor sectors in the Netherlands (Dutch companies, institutions and households) owned only around €81 million in indirect crypto investments such as crypto-linked securities, ETFs, ETNs, etc., at the end of 2020, but by October 2025 this amount had risen to €1.2 billion.
