Striga

Striga (formerly Lastbit) was a regulated crypto and banking infrastructure company headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia, founded in 2018. Operating as Striga Technology OÜ, the company held Estonian Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Virtual Asset Service Provider license FVT000546 — the first such license issued in Estonia. Striga was backed by Y Combinator, Berkeley SkyDeck, Juan Benet (Protocol Labs), Charlie Lee (Litecoin creator), Fulgur Ventures, and Stillmark. In October 2025, Striga was acquired by Lightspark.

Striga's core mission was to remove the complexity and red tape involved in building fintech products in Europe, particularly those blending crypto and traditional banking. The platform was described as an "operating system for financial services" — providing APIs and infrastructure for custody, trading, banking, and card issuing across 30+ EEA countries.

Core Products/Services

Striga offered a modular, API-first platform covering four interconnected product pillars:

Crypto as a Service: Crypto-native solutions enabling fintech companies to embed digital asset functionality, including crypto on-ramp and off-ramp, custodial wallet management, and blended crypto-fiat accounts. Developers could access managed digital asset accounts, dedicated vIBANs, and fully managed compliance under Striga's own regulatory license.

Banking as a Service (BaaS): Full EUR banking functionality via API — including virtual IBANs (vIBANs), SEPA instant payment issuing and receiving, fiat on-ramp and off-ramp, and multi-currency account management. Clients could offer their end users standard bank account functionality without needing their own banking license.

Card Issuing: APIs for launching physical and virtual crypto card programs compatible with Visa/Mastercard networks and supporting Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay. Card types included physical cards, virtual cards, rewards cards, travel cards, gig cards, and cards denominated in BTC, ETH, USDC, and BNB.

Crypto Custody & Trading: Custodial wallet infrastructure supporting BTC, ETH, USDT, USDC, BUSD accounts, with integrated trading/exchange capabilities under Striga's regulatory umbrella.

Key Strengths

• Regulatory coverage: Striga's own Estonian FIU license (FVT000546) meant B2B clients did not need their own virtual asset or banking licenses to build on the platform — compliance was fully managed by Striga.
• Developer-first approach: Free sandbox accounts, public API documentation, Postman collections, and a developer portal (portal.striga.com) enabled rapid integration.
• Bitcoin settlement layer: The underlying settlement infrastructure was built on Bitcoin, enabling multi-currency accounts and cards across geographies with minimal setup.
• Speed to market: Striga claimed it could take a new fintech from concept to live in as little as one week.
• Modular architecture: Companies could pick and combine components — crypto wallets, fiat banking, card programs — without requiring a full platform commitment.

Notable Clients/Projects

• Lympid: Used Striga's APIs to let users interact with smart contracts using Euros, achieved in just 2 API calls.
• Bitwala 2.0: Relaunched their crypto banking product using Striga's infrastructure.
• Zeeves: Built a crypto-banking product bridging crypto and banking worlds.
• DoubleWallet: Integrated Striga's crypto and DeFi infrastructure into their wallet product.

Why Choose Striga

Striga was purpose-built for European fintech companies, neobanks, crypto wallets, marketplaces, and business banking applications that needed to offer both crypto and fiat services without navigating the complex European regulatory landscape themselves. The combination of a real regulatory license, production-ready APIs, low fees, and rapid deployment made it an attractive infrastructure layer for startups and growth-stage fintechs across the EEA.