This New Card Sometimes Earns 100% Cash Back — But Might Never Pay You A Dime

2% cash rebate cards used to be pretty good. They give you back 2% of your spending, that’s better than 1%. But everyday 2% cash back is boring! The modern financial era isn’t about boring and you’re not going to raise Silicon Valley VC money with boring.

That’s why we now have a 100% rebate card: Tuyo. Only you only get the 100% sometimes, and you don’t get to choose when. “Speed up your money” “Buy now, pay maybe.”

We created a card that sometimes doesn't charge you.

Buy Now, Pay Maybe. pic.twitter.com/bl1pv9lIuA

— Tuyo (@itstuyo) May 7, 2026

Don’t get too excited, though, they do not promise you will ever get a rebate. For some customers it might be a 0% rebate card! And getting a rebate doesn’t allow you to expect one in the future.

And it’s not a credit card, exactly. It’s:

• A self-custodial crypto stablecoin app
  
• With a Visa spending card layered on top

You hold and spend USD Coin (USDC) in a bank-adjacent account with account numbers and transfers. You trade crypto and use the card for spending. And sometimes they don’t actually charge your account.

It might make sense to give you some rebates quickly on your early purchases, to train you to think you’re going to get a bunch of free stuff so that you keep using the card for big stuff (and get hosed on those purchases with nothing back). Is this a rewards program designed by Satan?

what’s up with these terms of service? are some people getting more free purchases than others? are the odds higher for getting a free purchase on your first few transactions vs. 3 months in? pic.twitter.com/S3DMBuRtoA

— ✨nicole✨ (@NikkiNikkiTembo) May 7, 2026

• Maybe whether you get rewarded is random
  
• Maybe it’s random as long as the purchase amount is small
  
• Or maybe there’s a sliding scale of probabilities that declines as the purchase amount increases
  
• They also might targeted some people with rewards based on account balances or trading volume, while slotting others for nothing because they aren’t profitable customers.

They want you to expect a rebate which is precisely why the terms say you cannot rely on one. And they’re betting a sweepstakes is a more compelling, viral, and retentive rebate mechanism than static cashback, especially for Gen Z, and that this will drive lower customer acquisition costs and higher lifetime customer value – that you’ll prefer it even when you get a lower rebate on average than your current payments card.

It seems like there’s a glitch in the matrix, though. Say you buy something expensive, and don’t get it free. Couldn’t you just return it for a refund and purchase again, aiming for another spin of the slots? And rinse, repeat until their compliance team decides to shut down your account? If enough people do that at scale surely it breaks the model.

Assuming don’t get your purchases free, it’s not entirely accurate to say you get no rewards. They also have a token rewards program called TUYOs, which you earn for card spend, crypto trading, earn from staking crypto, and referrals (which earn 20% of your referees’ TUYOs).

It seems like the best way to evaluate this product is actually as a tool for USDC spending, ease of self-custody model, and trading costs. Then consider whether you think TUYOs ever become worth anything. And until we have data points on ‘buy now pay maybe’ or more disclosure on its mechanics, significantly discount that piece of the value proposition.