Jon Joyce

@e____f____e what are you building/ working on?

woke up to london tech twitter and felt motivated for the first time in months maybe the hunger is there but it's just buried under linkedin reposts and panel events MAKE LONDON SHIP AGAIN

@pizzaboy brighton?

The work you see me post didn't come from one location. Luke's somewhere up north. Ana's in London. I'm on the south coast in the UK. We co-work on Discord, sometimes with a Spotify jam going on, or sometimes I go to a beach to sketch some stuff. We've never all been in the same room. I grabbed coffee with Ana once in London, but other than that, we're fully remote. Who the hell needs an office when the studio already made $210K first year by doing it on Discord? (maybe soon actually)

@ChefDoxie @robj3d3 you do have to pickup an easymoney card though, airport lines have contactless payment but from what I could tell that was all. otherwise was pretty awesome

@robj3d3 clean, fast, cheap (💫), can basically go to anywhere you want at Taipei

Singapore public transport is insanely efficient I’m surprised we don’t have this in London: - tap card when you get on - tap card when you get off - no physical tickets - buses/trains actually on time - very clean - everyone is respectful and quiet Seriously why can we not manage this in Europe???

@MelkeyDev @simonbalfe convex auth is not ready yet btw, convex itself is awesome but their auth is a foot gun rn

@simonbalfe LOL dude my exact thoughts. TanStack is in beta, and Convex local dev is also beta. However I trust both the teams working on these.

TanStack, Tailwind and Convex - incredible. Looking into auth solutions. I know the obvious choice is Clerk but i've heard great things about better-auth

@just_some_dev Though you will want to make sure you can atleast receive SMS on your UK number if planning to use a highstreet card abroad, banks see to usually text with a Y/N reply option or call. Only fintechs seem to use apps to verify

@just_some_dev used to be able to setup a local us esim via tello or usmobile but it’s only really meant for locals and is a bit 50/50 now, would recommend the Tripcom eSIMs though been using them nonstop the last couple weeks throughout Asia uk.trip.com/things-to-do/d…

Random question: Does anyone know what happens if you use a chip-and-PIN card in a chip-and-signature country? Does it just work?

@just_some_dev Yeah I prefer it, a lot of terminals you just insert the chip card and it just processes with no further verification though which was new to me. I try to travel with 1-2 cards on each payment network (vs mc Amex) and a mix of fintech / highstreet cards to be as safe as possible

@jonx0693 (honestly, I will say, chip-and-signature is objectively better imo, you can skim the PIN fairly easily so at that point chip-and-signature is the only thing with a chance of giving evidence)

@oost_marcel @Revolut Monzo had it first :)

🚨 @Revolut launches “Street Mode”, one of the smartest security upgrades we’ve seen in fintech this year. Phone thefts are exploding. And the threat has evolved: Criminals now force victims to complete the selfie check before running, a trend known as “transfer mugging.” Revolut’s answer? Context-aware security. What Street Mode does: You set “Trusted Locations” — home, office, hotel, wherever you feel safe. Inside those zones → transfers work normally. Outside → any transfer above your limit triggers: ✅ Extra selfie verification 👉 Mandatory 1-hour delay before funds can move That one hour is the kill switch. A critical window for you (or Revolut’s fraud team) to freeze everything before money disappears. Why this matters: Traditional bank security is static. Same rules whether you’re on your couch or walking through a crime hotspot at 2 AM. Revolut is building adaptive financial security: Rules and protections that respond to your environment, not just your device. Over 1 million users already enabled Revolut’s Wealth Protection feature. Street Mode extends that logic to real-world threats.

@levelsio I used an eSIM from Trip dot com during my layover, it routes via Singapore and everything worked

🇨🇳 Okay got Alipay to work Alipay is nice because it acts as a proxy to use other apps like Didi, and Didi won't let me sign up directly, so via Alipay it auto logs you in (kinda like OAuth) Also Meituan app lets me order food from anywhere and apparently it can arrive via a delivery robot Other handy app is Baidu Translate The challenge here is that every Western app like Google Translate, ChatGPT, Google Maps, ChatGPT etc doesn't work at all or doesn't work most of the times, so you kinda have to use the Chinese apps, like DeepSeek Of all my eSIMs my Revolut Global seems to work best, it lets me SOMEHOW open most Western sites fast with no firewall, while Airalo is extremely spotty switches to E (Edge) all the time, I also tried Airalo Hong Kong thinking I could use the Great Firewall hack but that didn't work Whatever @revolut Global eSIM is doing it works amazing in China Yesterday in the subway none of our eSIMs worked though, like we had reception but both of our phones didn't get internet to work. Also nobody spoke any English (which I understand, we're in China) and nobody can read English either So essentially we were illiterate (can't read anything), with no internet, nobody to help us. We tried getting a taxi but they wouldn't take us either because we couldn't communicate Again 99.9% of Chinese don't speak a single word of English, even in 2025, which is OK, it just makes things harder Calling the hotel with my Dutch phone SIM for €5/min ended up being the solution because they could talk to the taxi drivers So yes everything kinda works now! What I see with these travel blogs btw if I write it's difficult I get a lot of replies like "lol fucking n00b!" Which is easy to say but again it's not so easy here But that's also the fun part of China, especially after COVID tourism here from the West appears to have dropped rapidly and Western-Chinese relations have deteriorated rapidly after realizing what a threat China can be in its fast technological development etc. That makes it more interesting as a traveler though because you're the only foreigner almost everywhere I will keep you blogging what I experience next

@jackgecom @eTRoWlEs why not a good idea to use banks back home? HSBC is especially set up well for this, and as a UK resident you can apply for their HK account to get access to Asian/Thailand QR code payments which can be incredibly useful

Just doing this how are you going to bank you can’t use Thai banks, and using banks from back home, eg me for example UK banks, is not a good idea as your no longer a tax resident there. Also for ecom you need a business entity. This is why there is more to it. I have the thailand DTV visa - the digital nomad one.

My 0% tax setup I’m from the UK living in thailand. I have a UK and Hong Kong company. Both great for ecom. Offshore HK company is 0% tax. My UK company doesn’t make a profit. I am a personal tax resident in the UAE. UAE has 0% income tax. —— How to get 0% personal tax Method 1: Become a UAE tax resident by setting up a UAE company. You’ll need to be in the UAE physically for at least 90 days of the year (to be an official tax resident). Make sure you don’t stay in another country longer than their certain time to become liable for taxes there. Method 2: Live in a country that doesn’t tax foreign income like Thailand. Become a tax resident there. Most likely the banking system will be bad. So you’ll need to setup personal offshore bank accounts. You can do this with banks in Singapore, Switzerland etc. You may need deposit minimums and networth requirements. Method 3: Become a tax resident of a country that offers no income tax. Many people i know are setup in Portugal. I don’t have any experience with this. —— Right now I use method 1 but soon will switch to method 2. I think living somewhere just for the sake of saving taxes isn’t worth it. Your freedom of being where you want is more valuable to me than tax. So i think when it comes to personal tax, look at what countries you want to spend your time in and then put a plan together. —— If your business is ecom everyone should get their company tax to 0%. As it doesn’t matter where you live. You can do this using an offshore HK company or US LLC. —— I’m making this tweet to share what I know. Hopefully it’s helpful. I’m a young guy on X. Of course do not listen to me for tax advice. This information may be wrong. Speak with professionals. —— Send me a DM if you want - My UK accountant. - HK setup company I used - UAE setup company I used

@pizzaboy @mrjeremyblaze I used to use Monzo but they are worse than HSBC when you have to go through the SWIFT transfer process, takes longer and you end up with less money. Check out HSBC SmallBusiness Global Wallet, you get local account details in about 20 markets and can hold currencies easily

@mrjeremyblaze Luckily Monzo is super good with international clients so I don’t run into any issues, but yeah that sounds good!

I don’t understand these service based business who still use Stripe. Just invoice clients and go bank to bank, why are you spending thousands on avoidable fees?