TGIF! A few months ago, I chanced upon an article by The Smart Local in which the writer wrote “We Tried To Live Only On Cryptocurrency For 24H In Singapore” – which turned out to be nothing exciting at all, since he explained that it’s actually difficult to use “actual crypto” for all our purchases.
The article then branched out to document an entire day of surviving purely on using Crypto.com pre-paid debit Visa card which has no actual relation to the title of the blog post – because the same can be achieved with the Revolut card, Hugo Save card, GrabPay card or Singlife card.
Note that technically, no crypto is used at all for the purchases made despite being repeated mentioned in the article. This reason is that the Crypto.com Visa card has already been topped up with Singapore dollars (or other currencies) prior to usage, by either –
- Selling cryptocurrency (APAC-accepted list as of 28th Oct 2021)
(BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP, ADA, CHZ, DAI, DOGE, ENJ, LINK, MANA, MATIC, TAUD, TCAD, TGBP, THETA, UNI, USDC, USDT, VET, & ZIL) - Using another credit / debit card
I’m a pretty heavy user of the Crypto.com Visa card myself, and given that acceptance level of Visa cards is extremely high in Singapore, it is quite possible to survive a day, a week or even a month on it without using any cash. Well, since others can write an article like this, I’ll bet I can do it too!
More importantly, I felt that the key should be to highlight the important role that the Crypto.com app and eco-system plays in streamlining the process of converting the value of crypto into SGD that is sitting in my Crypto.com Visa card.
I’ll also try to illustrate some interesting bits and walk-through the role Crypto.com plays in two weeks of my life, and yes – I’m not directly paying for transactions using crypto. Crypto is simply the source from which I obtained my SGD.
Consider this a little bit of my skin-in-the-game. Time-stamps included! As much as explanations are helpful, a dash of examples could be better.
Note – $CRO is the native token of the Crypto.com project. Earlier blog posts here for more context.
28th Sep 2021 : Redeem Giant Vouchers
An exclusive feature within the Crypto.com app allows me to use $CRO tokens to buy gift cards, and my favourite one has got to be Giant gift cards.
I can use it at a nearby Giant supermarket just 5-minutes from where I live, plus 5% is quite hard to beat.
Bought two gift cards which can be seen in the screen capture below (Crypto Pay: Gift Card).
Upon redemption, the email is received instantly and redemption is to be made via Mooments. I logged into my Mooments account and all I have to do is to show the barcode for the cashier to scan during payment.
The gift cards I redeemed typically has around 6-months runway before the expiry date, which is quite acceptable. Besides, it’s only $10. Two packs of milk, one carton of eggs and a loaf of bread and that’s it.
Plenty of other options include iTunes, Dairy Farm, Deliveroo, Shopee, Adidas, Amazon, Best Denki, Courts, FairPrice Online and Grab etc.
One thing to point out is that they do offer different amount of rebates assuming I’m staking $CRO e.g. Giant (5%) vs Amazon (2.5%).
28th Sep 2021 : Free Spotify
On the same day, Crypto.com credited me with 70 $CRO tokens as reimbursement for my monthly Spotify bill (up to USD 12.99 equivalent monthly subscription fees).
One of the benefit of holding a Royal Indigo tier Visa card is having “free” Spotify.
2nd Oct 2021 : Refer-A-Friend Rewards
Pleasant surprise! Received the bonus reward for US$25 worth of $CRO for referring a friend who successfully staked S$500 worth of $CRO tokens for a Ruby Steel Visa card.
I had recommended a friend who is interested in the crypto space to give this a try, considering that she was already engaged in DeFi activities.
Not only is the Ruby Steel tier good value for money (do check out my previous blog posts), it also serves as an excellent gateway to spend some of that crypto income.
8th Oct 2021 : Crypto-to-Fiat Withdrawals
As much as we’d like the alternative, there are often situations whereby cash is needed and credit/debit cards aren’t accepted as payment modes.
Besides using crypto to top-up the accompanying Visa card, there is also a handy feature for converting crypto into SGD via the integrated StraitsX (previously Xfers) gateway.
That’s right – the Crypto.com Visa card isn’t the only way to spend our crypto gains. Funds in StraitsX can be deposited into our bank accounts quickly and seamlessly.
Many times, I have managed to convert crypto into SGD in my bank account in a matter of minutes, as long as the StraitsX-to-bank processing is conducted in a timely manner.
As an example, now that the Terra blockchain is IBC-compatible, a UST$25,000 “savings account” in Anchor Protocol yielding 19.5% APY can be easily set up to give us SGD$500 of passive income every month.
If you’re interested in something like this, my step-by-step guide could up end as another blog post in future.
11th Oct 2021 : Weekly $CRO Stake Rewards
If you’re new here, you probably didn’t know that I’m a long-time user of Crypto.com products and services.
As a legacy user, I’m currently staking a fixed amount of 10,000 $CRO tokens for my Indigo Tier Visa card.
On top of benefits provided, my locked stake are also earning 10% p.a. with rewards that is given out weekly.
12th Oct 2021 : Free Netflix
Similar to what happened for Spotify, Crypto.com credited me with 72 $CRO tokens as reimbursement for my monthly Netflix bill (up to USD 13.99 equivalent).
13th Oct 2021 : Use $CRO & Top-up Visa Card
As the value stored in my Visa card is gradually depleted, I’ll top it up occasionally with crypto. I’m not sure how the list of accepted crypto is determined because it’s a messy list anyway. (BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP, ADA, CHZ, DAI, DOGE, ENJ, LINK, MANA, MATIC, TAUD, TCAD, TGBP, THETA, UNI, USDC, USDT, VET, & ZIL)
And thus, the cycle continues indefinitely. With all the $CRO I have earned from staking, rebates (expenses/Spotify/Netflix) and referring my friends, I can now :
- Redeem them for gift cards
- Top up my Visa card
- Withdraw them to my bank account via StraitsX
Misc : Buy? Buy. Buy!
There are people who shill products and services, and there are people who actually use them in their daily lives.
I’ve said quite a few times that I only write about things that I’m using. Whether Crypto.com is something that can be useful to you or value-add in any way, I’ll leave it up to your own interpretation.
Each time I use my Crypto.com Visa card to pay for an expense, I’d get a notification email.
From $1.84 EZ-link MRT rides to $214 dental treatments, I get at least 3% rebate on all expenses – why leave money on the table?
Summary + TLDR
With this post, my trio of Crypto.com articles have pretty much covered most of what I wanted to share about this topic.
In summary,
- Overview of the Crypto.com eco-system
- Why Crypto.com is so, so valuable to me
- How I use Crypto.com in a typical month (Examples)
- More articles on Crypto.com
As you might have noticed from my Twitter account and Discord server, although I’m fairly invested in the crypto space, my blog has very little content that touches on the intermediate aspects of crypto.
Everything I have written here are content that I feel is most suited for people just starting out in the space, because I feel that casual readers aren’t ready for the dog-eat-dog environment of crypto. Every week or so, I hear of friends (or friends of friends) getting exploited or losing funds due to mistakes etc. Just like how my parents can use smart-phones, WIFI and the internet without knowing how the underlying technology works, the crypto space is still far away from this state.
Say you are interested in signing up for Crypto.com and staking for a Ruby Steel Visa card, why not make use of my dedicated referral link and we’ll both get a US$25 bonus in the process. (Referral T&C details is here)
If there are specific crypto content that you’d like to read about, please let me know a comment or send me a message on any of the many channels available!
Disclaimer – I share about products and services I’m actively using. Nothing in this blog post is to be taken a recommendation of any sort for all the crypto asset mentioned.
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Hello! I’m Kevin, Turtle Investor
At the age of 30, I am the Personal Finance Blogger who laid claim to a negative net worth of minus $25,755 – and decided to turn things around.
- Seven years later in 2019, I hit CPF Full Retirement Sum (FRS) of $176,000 without making a single cent of CPF top-up.
- In eight years, I added $453,000 to my net worth (excluding the value of my HDB apartment).
- I made over $12,000 in alternative income in 2020 (and $20,000 in one month) in addition to my full-time job.
More tidbits about myself here if you’re curious. My blueprint for financial independence can help give you a head start in your own FIRE – Financial Independence, Retire Early (optional) – journey.
I am married to a lovely wife and that means dual income with no kids. In my free time, I chase miles so that we can fly in business class. My hobby is making pocket change off this blog and sharing everything I know with you!
hey Kev,
how did you end up with USDC in your app?
for the purpose of using visa, you changed USDC to fiat? or CRO to fiat?
Hi FC,
I ‘harvest’ crypto income regularly (some which I transferred in the form of USDC) from Binance Smart Chain [BSC] and Polygon etc into my Crypto.com account.
Hi Kev,
Onboard Anchor but was wondering what is the cheapest way to get UST into Anchor, currently doing Gemini(SGD to BTC) sent to Kucoin (BTC to UST). Since if you factor withdrawing UST backwards to Fiat, these fees can make it very close do Hodlnaut USDC rates. If Anchor continues with the downward trend of their APY it will not be worth the hassle.
Hi EH,
Anchor Protocol yield is sustainable, at least in the mid-term.
https://twitter.com/YieldLabs/status/1455526945182076937
a) Anchor Protocol withdrawal : aUST to UST
b) Deposit into Osmosis and swap : UST to CRO
c) Withdraw to Crypto.org chain and send to Crypto.com app
d) Top-up StraitsX or Visa card : Sell CRO
I think at most 2% (?) if we go from Anchor Protocol (19.5%) withdrawal to SGD sitting in POSB. I’d probably take Anchor Protocol (plus Ozone Protocol protection) over Hodlnaut anytime, both in terms of % and having everything on-chain, but that’s realistically not the most suitable option for most people trying to gain exposure to crypto for the first time.
On getting UST cheaply, (I never had to try the fiat part) but I hear a cheap option is to deposit fiat directly into FTX, then withdraw BUSD via BSC then bridge into Terra using Terra Bridge, plus the whole process is extremely low fees!
FTX : https://www.turtleinvestor.net/product/ftx/
Terra Bridge : https://bridge.terra.money/
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for your intro of this card I started using (using ur referral link) and introducing to friends :).
Pls have the guide on the terra blockchain you mentioned! Looking forward.
Hi Grace,
Appreciate your support! I’ll try to write up a guide on Terra when time allows 🙂