The neobank boom democratized crypto spending. But as regulators tighten their grip, a new question emerges: who actually controls your financial data?
The Neobank Explosion Changed Everything
2025 was the year crypto cards went mainstream.
What started as a niche offering from crypto-native platforms quickly became a full-blown movement. Crypto card transaction volumes hit $406 million in a single month by late 2025. More than 50 crypto neobanks launched, each promising to bridge the gap between digital assets and everyday spending. The pitch was simple: hold stablecoins, earn yield, spend anywhere Visa is accepted.
The market responded. Users who once bridged tokens across chains every other day started loading USDT and paying for coffee from the same wallet they staked in. The narrative shifted from chasing APYs to showing off debit cards.
But here’s the thing about explosive growth: it attracts attention. Not just from users, but from incumbents and regulators alike.
Traditional Finance Wants In
While crypto neobanks were busy onboarding users, traditional finance was quietly preparing its countermove.
JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo announced they were exploring a jointly operated stablecoin. Visa expanded its stablecoin settlement capabilities, allowing select issuers to settle obligations in stablecoins rather than through traditional banking rails. Mastercard launched support for multiple stablecoins on its Multi-Token Network. By late 2025, JPMorgan was exploring crypto trading services for institutional clients, and Chase customers could redeem credit card rewards for USDC starting in 2026.
The implications are significant. Traditional banks bring established networks, deeper liquidity, competitive rates, and decades of trust. They can offer crypto exposure without the friction that slowed early adoption. For the casual user who simply wants to spend Bitcoin at a coffee shop, does it matter whether the card comes from a crypto startup or their existing bank?
This raises an uncomfortable question for the crypto neobank space: if legacy institutions can offer similar convenience with better infrastructure, what’s the value proposition?
The Answer Is What Brought Most of Us Here
Privacy. Self-custody. Financial sovereignty.
These weren’t just buzzwords that fueled crypto’s early growth, they were the entire point. The promise of a financial system where you actually own your assets, where transactions aren’t automatically catalogued for government review, where your economic activity remains your business.
But that promise is under assault.
The Regulatory Squeeze
January 1, 2026, marked a turning point. The EU’s DAC8 directive went live, requiring every crypto-asset service provider to collect and report detailed user and transaction data to national tax authorities. Names, tax identification numbers, transaction histories, all of it now flows automatically to regulators. The scope is global: any platform serving EU residents must comply, regardless of where they’re headquartered.
DAC8 isn’t operating in isolation. The OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) has been adopted by 75+ countries, including the UK. As of 2026, these nations participate in automatic exchange of crypto transaction data across borders.
In the United States, the IRS implemented new Form 1099-DA requirements. Starting with 2025 transactions, centralized exchanges must report gross proceeds to the IRS. Beginning in 2026, cost basis reporting becomes mandatory. The days of self-reporting crypto gains are ending, brokerages now inform the government directly.
The message is clear: the era of financial privacy in crypto is being systematically dismantled.
The Neobank Problem Nobody Talks About
Here’s the uncomfortable truth about most crypto neobanks: they’re built on the same infrastructure.
Same card issuers. Same payment rails. Same banking partners. Same compliance flows that automatically report your spending and earning data to tax authorities. Behind the sleek apps and yield promises, the architecture is nearly identical, a copy-paste of shared infrastructure dressed up in different branding.
When you use most crypto cards, your transaction data flows through the same channels as traditional banking. Your spending habits, earning patterns, and asset movements are catalogued, stored, and shared under increasingly expansive regulatory frameworks.
This isn’t necessarily malicious, it’s simply the path of least resistance for building compliant products. But it creates a fundamental contradiction: platforms that market “crypto freedom” while operating under the same surveillance architecture as legacy finance.
For users who entered crypto specifically to escape that architecture, most neobanks offer nothing but a prettier interface on the same system.
The Solution That Was Always Reserved for the Elite
There’s a reason wealthy individuals have historically maintained offshore accounts in jurisdictions like Switzerland, Panama, or the Cayman Islands. These structures offer legitimate financial privacy, the ability to manage assets without automatic reporting to home-country tax authorities.
For decades, this infrastructure was available only to high-net-worth individuals and corporations with the resources to navigate complex international banking relationships. The barriers, minimum deposits, relationship requirements, legal complexity, kept everyday people locked out.
Crypto changes that equation.
The same technology that enables borderless transactions and self-custody can also enable access to offshore banking infrastructure that was previously gatekept. Non-CRS (Common Reporting Standard), non-FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) banking relationships, once the exclusive domain of the wealthy, can now be accessible to anyone with an internet connection.
vPay: The People’s Private OmniBank
One platform has built specifically for this reality: vPay.
Positioning itself as “The People’s Private OmniBank,” vPay takes a fundamentally different approach than the typical crypto card issuer. Rather than building on shared infrastructure that feeds into automatic reporting systems, vPay has partnered with offshore banking providers that operate outside the CRS and FATCA frameworks.
The platform’s scope extends beyond a simple crypto card. vPay positions itself as an OmniBank, handling anything money-related across both Web2 and Web3. The goal is a single hub for managing, growing, spending, and automating finances, regardless of whether those assets live on-chain or in traditional accounts.
Key offerings include:
Multi-Chain Token Support: Users can swap any token from any chain into spendable funds directly within the app. The cross-chain complexity is abstracted away.
Physical and Virtual Visa Cards: Both options available, usable anywhere Visa is accepted, which means practically everywhere.
Named Offshore Bank Accounts: Individual, fully compliant USD accounts accessible from anywhere in the world. Not shared infrastructure with silent reporting, actual offshore banking relationships.
Stablecoin Yield Integration: Through a partnership with Neox, idle stablecoins in vPay accounts generate yield automatically.
AI-Powered Automation: The platform incorporates AI agents for automating financial tasks, from swaps to scheduling payments.
The Crown Jewel: Offshore Accounts
vPay’s most significant differentiation is its offshore account infrastructure.
These aren’t simply accounts with privacy-focused marketing language. They’re built on partnerships with non-CRS, non-FATCA offshore banking providers, the same type of infrastructure that private banks have offered to wealthy clients for decades.
The practical implications: users can maintain fully compliant offshore USD accounts without the automatic exchange of financial information that characterizes most banking relationships. Your spending patterns, earning data, and asset movements aren’t automatically catalogued and shared with tax authorities you haven’t explicitly authorized.
This isn’t about tax evasion, it’s about financial privacy as a legitimate right. The same privacy that corporations and wealthy individuals have always accessed through offshore structures is now available to anyone.
2026: The Year Privacy Becomes Urgent
The regulatory landscape isn’t slowing down. DAC8 enforcement will tighten. CARF participation will expand. IRS reporting requirements will broaden. The window for financial privacy in crypto is narrowing.
For users who built their crypto positions precisely because they valuedself-custody and financial sovereignty, the choice is becoming stark: adapt to a fully surveilled financial system, or seek out the remaining infrastructure that preserves privacy.
Offshore accounts aren’t just for the wealthy anymore. They’re for anyone who believes their financial activity should remain their own business.
The neobank boom gave everyone access to crypto cards. The next evolution is giving everyone access to what the elite always had: genuine financial privacy.
The question isn’t whether you need a crypto card in 2026, everyone has one. The question is whether yours actually protects what you came to crypto for in the first place.
The information in this article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or tax advice. Readers should consult with qualified professionals regarding their specific circumstances and obligations.
