My bank account has $6 in it. Sometimes less. Once it dipped to $0.47 and I made a meme about it. An AI-generated photo of me wearing a medal with the text: “Me if they gave out awards for having 47c in your bank account.” I posted it to Instagram.
I don’t keep money in banks anymore. Not out of principle or paranoia about the financial system, just pragmatism. For daily life—rent, food, flights, salary—I live entirely on stablecoins via a crypto card. The banks exist. I just don’t need them.
I even paid rent with it. When I lived in Singapore, I used ipaymy.com to pay several thousand dollars a month directly from the card. The cashback was 8 percent at the time. Two hundred and forty dollars back every month for paying rent with stablecoins instead of a bank transfer. It felt almost absurd.
The Reality
Technically, I have two bank accounts.
Singapore. The $6 one. A legacy from living there. I took out the maximum unsecured loan they’d give me when Bitcoin was around $35k. Seemed like free money at the time. Still does. That account now exists solely to manually pay the loan back each month. Occasionally someone PayNows me to split a bill. Otherwise it just sits there with single-digit dollars in it.
Isle of Man. An offshore account. Book royalties arrive monthly. More importantly, some visa applications require bank statements showing proof of funds. You can’t submit crypto wallet screenshots. Immigration officers want traditional bank statements with your name on them. The Isle of Man account solves this problem while keeping things offshore. The money accumulates. I check the balance occasionally. Mostly ignore it.
For everything else, I’m bankless.
How This Happened
Back in 2019, I was one of the first users to get a Crypto.com card. I lived on it exclusively for months—groceries, restaurants, travel. It worked until I got a traditional job and realised it didn’t support Apple Pay. I went back to normal banking.
Later, I spent eight months working inside a stablecoin-native payments company. That was enough time to know whether this model actually works. I left. I’m still using the card exclusively. If you want to try it, here’s my link: Get Your KAST Card. You get $20 cashback after spending $100, plus 20 percent off premium cards. I get a small cashback boost. Either way, the product works.
The Mechanics
Income flows from work invoicing, portfolio distributions, angel investments, derivatives. All in stablecoins. USDC or USDT.
Money sits on Coinbase earning yield until I need it. When the card balance runs low, I transfer a few thousand across. Spend anywhere Visa works. Everything else stays in Bitcoin. I’m not selling during drawdowns.
The card works with Apple Pay. I only carry my phone now. No wallet. No backup cards.
How It Actually Works Day to Day
In practice, it’s boring. Which is the point.
I spend from the card anywhere Visa works. Restaurants across Southeast Asia. Groceries. Online purchases. Flights. Apple Pay terminals in the UK when I’m home visiting family. I don’t carry a wallet anymore. Just my phone.
Income arrives in stablecoins. It sits earning yield until I need it. When the card balance runs low, I transfer a few thousand across. Everything else stays in Bitcoin. I’m not selling during drawdowns to fund lifestyle.
Rent was the most unintentionally revealing part of this setup.
Most people pay their largest monthly expense via bank transfer and get nothing for it. When I lived in Singapore, I paid rent using ipaymy.com. They let you pay a landlord via card, then handle the bank transfer on the other end. At the time, the cashback was 8 percent.
Several thousand dollars of rent per month. Two hundred and forty dollars back. Every month. Paid in stablecoins. For doing nothing differently.
Eventually the rate dropped to 5 percent. Still over $150 a month in cashback on rent alone. Your largest expense earning yield, purely because you’re operating on different rails.
The mechanics were simple enough that it felt ridiculous this wasn’t more common. Pay with a card. Landlord gets a bank transfer. Everyone’s happy.
When It Failed
Christmas. A restaurant in my hometown. Finished dinner, went to pay. Card declined.
The balance was there. But I’d booked several international flights that morning. Large overseas transactions in quick succession looked like fraud to the system.
I only carry my phone now. No physical wallet. No backup cards. I had to leave my AirPods and iPad as collateral, drive home, find a backup credit card in a drawer somewhere, drive back, and pay.
It happened once in five months. Previous bank cards declined more frequently, usually because some algorithm decided a normal purchase was suspicious.
Why This Route
Four reasons.
Ideological. I prefer operating outside traditional banking rails where possible. Banks are gatekeepers. Crypto rails are permissionless. If the infrastructure exists to bypass them, why wouldn’t I?
Practical. Easier when moving between jurisdictions. No calling banks to notify them of travel. No questions about why money is moving. Stablecoins flow globally, instantly.
Structural. The setup already exists. BVI company invoicing in stables. Portfolio in crypto. Income in stables. Using traditional banking would mean converting everything, paying fees, and waiting for transfers. Crypto rails are simply cleaner.
Because I can. The infrastructure is there. Using it is the obvious choice.
What This Actually Means
Work flows differently now. When my BVI company invoices clients, they pay in stablecoins. Money arrives in my wallet immediately. No wire transfers. No holds. No “3–5 business days.” Invoice sent, payment received, money spendable the same day.
Control matters. Money sits in wallets I control, not bank accounts that can be frozen or questioned. When I want to spend, I top up the card. When I don’t, it sits earning yield. One card. One app. One currency. Multiple countries.
The bank accounts still exist because some systems require them. Visa applications want bank statements. Some loan payments need bank accounts. Fine. They can sit there with minimal balances doing one specific job. Everything else runs on crypto rails.
What This Shows
Financial sovereignty isn’t gold bars or cash under mattresses. It’s infrastructure that lets you operate outside traditional systems when you choose to.
My bank has $6 in it. My card has a few thousand. Everything else sits in Bitcoin or earns yield on stablecoins.
I pay rent. I buy groceries. I book flights. I receive income. All on crypto rails.
This isn’t evangelism. This isn’t “someday crypto will be useful.” This is now. This is how I actually live.
“The future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed.”
— William Gibson
The infrastructure exists. Whether you use it is optional.
I do.