Nuri is back

From Bitwala to Nuri

In 2015 a small team in Berlin had a simple idea. Make Bitcoin spendable. They called it Bitwala. Over the next six years the company grew to 500,000 users in 32 European countries, raised €42 million in venture capital and became one of the best known crypto brands in Germany.

In 2021 Bitwala rebranded to Nuri, short for "new reality", and pushed into mainstream banking with savings plans, investment pots and a partnership with Solarisbank.

Then everything collapsed

Then everything collapsed.

The crypto winter of 2022 hit Nuri at exactly the wrong time. Terra Luna went down, Three Arrows Capital went down and, most of all, Celsius Network went down, and that chain reaction starved the company of liquidity. Celsius was a key partner behind the interest products of Nuri.

When Celsius froze withdrawals, the business model of Nuri broke overnight. And on top of that there was the pressure of trying to get a banking licence in Germany.

On August 9, 2022 Nuri filed for insolvency in Berlin. Three months of restructuring followed. No buyer was found and no new investors came in. On October 18, 2022 CEO Kristina Walcker-Mayer asked all customers to withdraw their funds by December 18. Nuri shut down.

The 500,000 users had to take their money out of their wallets and bank accounts. The original founders relaunched under the old Bitwala name with a stripped down app focused on Bitcoin. The Nuri brand and the nuri.com domain were sold to new owners, and that's where this story picks up.

Why we bought the brand

We are a group of Bitcoin builders from Berlin and early users of Bitwala, and we bought the Nuri brand because we believe the original vision was right, but a few things went wrong. Bringing Bitcoin together with everyday spending is more relevant today than it was in 2021.

What killed the old Nuri wasn't the product idea. It was counterparty risk, custodial infrastructure and a partner that went bankrupt and took the business down with it.

There is no bank

So the new Nuri is built from scratch. Old code, old architecture and old risk all stay behind. And there is one big difference. There is no bank.

When you open Nuri you create a passkey. Through a cryptographic process called PRF that passkey derives your private key right on your device. There is no account on a server, there is no database with your credentials and there is no company that holds your money.

The passkey is the wallet. From that moment you can send and receive Bitcoin, Euro and Dollar stablecoins. You don't need to verify your ID, you don't fill in forms and you don't wait. You touch your fingerprint and you have a wallet.

If you want to verify your identity, you get more. A free Visa debit card, an IBAN for bank transfers and a way to move money between crypto and the normal banking system. But the wallet works without any of that. You get in without permission and you still get the full thing.

Nobody holds your money

The old Nuri failed because it trusted a third party with user funds. We don't. Your Bitcoin sits in a self-custodial wallet secured by MuSig2 Taproot multisig. Your stablecoins live in a Safe Smart Account on Gnosis Chain. Your Visa card runs on Gnosis Pay, and your IBAN and bank transfers run on the e-money infrastructure of Monerium.

Every partner gives a service, but none of them hold your money. If one partner disappears tomorrow, your funds are still yours, onchain, and you get to them with your passkey. That's the difference between a neobank and a neobank without the bank.

Bitcoin as money

Nuri is not a trading app. It's not an exchange and it's not a place to speculate on altcoins. Nuri is a wallet that treats Bitcoin as money and not as an asset to flip. You save in Bitcoin because it's the hardest money ever made.

You spend with your Visa card because the world still runs on Euro and Dollar. The conversion happens in the background and you don't have to think about it. We support USDT, USDC, EURe and more stablecoins in local currencies. But the native global cash of the internet isn't a stablecoin, it's Bitcoin.

Stablecoins are the bridge, the Visa card is the interface and Bitcoin is the base. Save in Bitcoin and spend it like cash.

Magic Internet Money

Magic Internet Money is the oldest Bitcoin meme, an old reddit ad, and it's still the most honest way to say what this is. Money that lives on the internet. Money that doesn't need a bank, a government or anyone's permission to work. Money you can send to anyone, anywhere, right away.

The old financial system asks who you are, where you live, how much you earn and if it may see your documents. Nuri asks if you would like to create a passkey. That's the product and that's the vision. Money for everyone.

Live now

Nuri is live now on iOS and Android in 32 European countries, and we are expanding to another 40 within the next 3 months. Download the app, create a passkey and start sending and receiving Bitcoin, Euro and Dollar in seconds. The wallet is free, the Visa card is free and the IBAN is free, and you don't pay a minimum balance or monthly fees.

Your money, freed.

Get the app at nuri.com