PS
Priya Sharma, 26
UX designer · Bangalore startup · Karnataka, India
UPI works well for almost everything in her daily life. Groceries, rent, and a meal out in Indiranagar. It all goes through her phone without any friction.
The harder part is paying for tools priced in dollars. ChatGPT and NordVPN come up every month. So does the occasional Adobe font or a course on a US platform. Her Indian debit card gets declined more often than it works on these. Her credit card goes through sometimes, but the foreign transaction fees add up, and the exchange rate is rarely in her favour.
She started using crypto to get around that, since she needed a reliable way to pay for tools her bank kept blocking.
The card problem
International subscriptions kept failing. Declined payments, fees she hadn't budgeted for, some tools that wouldn't accept her card at all.
A colleague mentioned USDT
Someone on her team was already doing it. Buy USDT on an Indian exchange, use it to pay for things abroad. No card needed. She tried it for one subscription and it worked.
Replaced her virtual dollar card
She had been using a fintech app that issued virtual dollar cards. The fees were better than her bank but there were monthly limits. Crypto removed most of those restrictions.
Moved her work tools first
ChatGPT and NordVPN both have gift card options. She pays in USDT, redeems the card, done. Her team uses both every day, so it comes up every month.
Expanded to streaming and gaming
She bought a Netflix gift card after her subscription failed to renew one Friday evening. Steam followed because her brother kept running into the same payment issues with his account.
Used it for a trip to Dubai
She booked flights and a travel eSIM through Cryptorefills before flying out. The eSIM activated before she landed. Her Indian SIM would have started charging roaming the moment the plane touched down.
She still earns in rupees and lives in rupees. Crypto covers a small part of her spending. But it covers the part that used to cause the
most friction.
Where Priya's crypto spending goes
Rough breakdown by category: tools and subscriptions are the
bulk of it
AI and design tools
35%
Learning platforms
24%
Streaming
18%
Travel and eSIM
14%
Gaming
9%
Most of her UPI spending hasn't moved. Coffee, auto-rickshaws, the local kirana, weekends outside Bangalore all stays the same, but what changed is a specific slice of her budget, the part that goes to tools and services built for other markets.
Crypto vs UPI: monthly spending
split
A smaller share than Sipho, but concentrated in the tools she
needs for work.
Crypto
~25%
UPI / cash
~75%
Daily life in Bangalore runs on UPI. Crypto
covers what UPI can't reach.
6+
international tools paid with crypto
0
declined payments since switching
~3%
saved vs bank foreign transaction fees
As she started using crypto more, Priya picked up small freelance projects from a design agency in Germany, where they pay her in USDT. She keeps that balance and spends it directly, without going through her bank first.
Her situation is different from someone who earns primarily in crypto. She has a salary in rupees and most of her life runs on it. But for the part that doesn't, crypto is what she reaches for.
India has some of the best domestic payments infrastructure in the world, but the gap shows up when you try to pay for something outside that system. And that is where Priya uses crypto: a small part of her spending, but the part that used to be the most unreliable.
Access global tools and services with crypto: Pay for design tools, streaming, travel and more: all from your crypto balance, no card declines, no foreign transaction fees.
