🇧🇷 What If We Ran Nubank’s Crypto Team

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🐘 The Elephant in the Room

With 123M customers and $3.7B in quarterly revenue (2Q25), Nubank is the most dominant fintech in Latin America (and probably the world). It’s trusted, profitable, and basically everywhere, reaching over 60% of Brazil’s adult population.

But in a world where Stripe is launching Tempo, Coinbase runs Base, and Robinhood is building their own chain, one question begins impossible to ignore:

Why isn't Nubank going onchain?

I don’t know why they haven’t, but I do know they should, and exactly how to make it happen.

This essay lays out the plan we’d execute if we at Frontera ran Nubank’s crypto team. 

👨‍🔬 Running the Crypto Team at Nubank

I took this piece as an exercise in what it would look like if Ab and I ran the crypto team at Nubank. 

Ab has 10 years of experience in crypto, was head of crypto at Bitso, and is now CEO of Bando. I’m a crypto-native degen that's been trading, building, living, and dying by the trenches for the past 5 years…. 

So I could say we're an A++ duo, deeply rooted in both crypto and LatAm.

First off, it'd be a lot of fun. If anyone at Nubank is reading, hit us up, our DMs are always open.

Second, let's remind ourselves that Nubank isn't starting from zero. In 2023, they launched Nucoin, a Polygon-based, non-tradeable, loyalty token for premium experiences, and added in-app crypto trading for millions of users.

More recently they've picked up the pace. In 2025 alone they:

• Applied for a U.S. banking license aiming to offer deposits, loans, and digital asset custody services in the U.S.

• Teased beginning to test stablecoin payments for credit card transactions.

• And hired Michael Rihani, an ex Coinbase executive, as their new head of crypto.

All of these are definitely steps in the right direction, but now is the time to take more than just steps.

Third, this report will lay out how.

We started by compiling Nubank’s current crypto initiatives (which you just read), then you'll see a comparison to Stripe, Coinbase, and Robinhood.

From there, we'll define the core product assumptions Nubank must preserve, ending with the changes to bring Nubank fully onchain.

🔬 What We Learn From Competitors

What does “going onchain” even look like at scale?

Honestly that's a pretty valid question, and to answer it, we studied how three of Nubank's competitors are approaching the shift from web2 finance to onchain infrastructure.

Here's how they compare:

Everyone's building a chain.

• Stripe co-created a dedicated blockchain for stablecoin payments (Tempo) to serve enterprise payments at scale. And let's not forget that they recently acquired Bridge and Privy to build out their stack.

• Coinbase built Base, its own network to streamline dApp development and user activity onchain.

• Robinhood is rolling an Arbitrum-based L2 to enable 24/7 trading and settlement of tokenized stocks, even pledging to bring its “entire ecosystem onchain” in CEO Vlad Tenev’s words.

Sure, they're not neobanks like Nubank. But they’re each at the top of their game, and they’re all heading in the same direction.

The future of finance is onchain. Fintechs will become finchains. 

If every major is getting crypto-pilled, Nubank has every reason, and advantage, to do the same. 

What’s missing isn’t the technical ability or regulatory clarity.

What’s missing is the plan. So let’s build it.

🧬 Non-Negotiables

Any onchain push from Nubank must stay true to its DNA. We identified three non-negotiable principles:

1. Simplicity First

Nubank won Latin America by making banking feel less like banking. From ordering your first credit card to using the Cajitas Nu, everything is designed to be intuitive, clean, and simple.

Just as Nubank’s app today abstracts complexity, an onchain Nubank must hide its blockchain rails.

In practice this means no seed phrases, no gas fees, no new accounts, and definitely no confusing crypto jargon. 

2. Nu = Naked

Any crypto product must enhance trust, not jeopardize it. Nubank’s mission statement explicitly emphasizes “transparency” and customer empowerment. “Nu” in Portuguese literally means naked.

This implies rigorous compliance and risk management, but also leveraging blockchain’s transparent nature as a feature. 

Whether it’s real-time proof of reserves or clear onchain sources of yield, the user should always know where their money is and why it’s growing.

3. Drive Value

Crypto initiatives must either increase revenue per user or boost user engagement (ideally both).

Nubank’s business is driven by monetization of customer activity, therefore, infrastructure changes should contribute to that growth engine.

We will focus on cases that either unlock new revenue streams, or increase user activity. Every product must answer: How does this make Nubank more valuable? If it doesn’t, we won’t build it.

🧪 Bringing Nubank Onchain

With its U.S. banking license application and stablecoin payments integration in motion, Nubank is taking firm steps toward a crypto-native future.

But to fully capitalize on the opportunity, we propose three strategic moves, two product upgrades built on existing successes in Brazil, and one final infrastructure leap that transforms Nubank from a fintech 2.0 into a fintech 3.0.

I'd like to mention that there are thousands of things we could suggest, but chose these three because they’re concrete, high-impact, and ready to build today.

1. Onchain Yield for Premium Users (Ultravioleta)

Let’s start with Ultravioleta, Nubank’s premium experience for high-income clients in Brazil. This product already includes a sleek metal card, cashback, investment options, and additional perks like airport lounge access. 

These are customers who already spend more, save more, and expect more. So let's give them more.

Our first proposal is to offer onchain yield as a feature within Ultravioleta. Directly within the app, customers could choose to allocate funds into tokenized U.S. Treasuries offering 4-5% APY, or into higher-yield stablecoin strategies (with blue-chip DeFi lending pools), with potential returns of 7-10% APY.

This move delivers two wins: it upgrades the Ultravioleta value proposition for high-income clients, and it opens a new monetization channel for Nubank by capturing spread on yield products.

2. Stablecoin Accounts for Businesses (Nu Empresas)

Then there’s Nu Empresas, Nubank’s fast-growing business account product. In under five years, it’s onboarded over 5.3M Brazilian SMEs.

By integrating stablecoin accounts directly into the Nu Empresas experience, Nubank can offer these clients dollar exposure to hedge against BRL volatility, instant global transfers without intermediaries, and access to the safe, dollar-based crypto-powered investment options that we mentioned above.

Businesses already love Nu for its speed and simplicity, especially with instant Pix transfers. Stablecoins would extend that same seamless experience to international money movement, preserving the zero-fee feel that made Nu successful in the first place, while making these businesses global.

In return, Nubank captures new B2B flows beyond Pix (now open to other countries), adds new revenue streams through FX spreads and yield-sharing, and boosts product stickiness by offering a complete treasury toolkit.

3. NuChain

Then comes the final step: NuChain. 

As we saw a while ago, every major fintech is building its own chain. Stripe has Tempo. Coinbase has Base. Robinhood is building theirs.

Nubank has every reason to follow suit. Whether they want to compete at that level or simply stay ahead of the curve, this is how they do it.

Owning a chain means owning the rails. 

Nubank would stop depending on legacy payment rails to move money, settle transactions, or sync across borders. Internal transfers between Brazil and Mexico could happen instantly, with lower costs, and faster speed. They could automate liquidity between subsidiaries, streamline audits, and give regulators real-time transparency.

But more importantly, NuChain opens doors. 

It becomes the backbone for new services built by Nubank (or selected partners), powered by what the tech allows: embedded finance, global payouts, tokenized deposits, you name it.

All integrated into the Nubank experience you know and love. All within the rails they fully control.

NuChain unlocks new revenue while becoming the foundation for what comes next. The world will go onchain, whether you like it or not. 

This is how Nubank wins.

🧫 And Now What?

The strategy is just the beginning. Execution is where it gets real.

How do they pull it off? What are the concrete steps? Which partners make sense? That’s a story for another Frontera essay.

For now, we’ll say this: the hardest part will be moving fast without relying on infra built by competitors like Bridge, Privy, or Bitso.

It won’t be easy, but it's exactly the kind of challenge we like at Bando.

We help fintechs go from 2.0 to 3.0. Let's build.