Why I built Spliz: a dinner bill in Montreal

This guide describes an earlier version.

Payments and wallets are disabled in the current version of Spliz. You can split expenses and record repayments made elsewhere. The flows and pricing described in this article are no longer offered.

See what’s coming to Spliz

New Year’s Eve, 2025. Montreal. I’m at dinner with two friends, a Brazilian and a Canadian. The bill is split on a tracker, clean. I owe my host 47 Canadian dollars. I pull out my phone, ready to pay.

Then the absurd part begins. “Do you take Wero?” “What’s that?” “Maybe Pix?” “I use Interac, do you have it?” Twenty minutes. Nothing worked. We ended up saying “we’ll sort it out later.” We never sorted it out later.

I did not sleep that night. Not because of the 47 dollars, but because of what the moment revealed. We had shared the same table and agreed on the calculation. When it came time to pay, we no longer had a shared tool.

Wero, Pix, Interac, Zelle: payment habits vary by country. That evening, our usual options did not give us a shared path. That concrete friction stayed with me.

The decision on the flight home

I decided to build something for it. Not another expense tracker, there are plenty. Something that solves the part that actually breaks: the settlement.

The idea was to explore stablecoins as another way for group members to repay each other. Access conditions and fees still need checking, but it adds an option. On January 15, 2026, I started coding. I called it Spliz.

Tracking was never the problem

The math was always easy. The tracker did its job that night in Montreal. The problem is the moment after: someone fronts the money, a few people pay back instantly, a couple promise “tomorrow”, one goes quiet. A week later you remind them. A month later you give up. The amount gets quietly written off and trust takes a small hit. Multiply by ten trips and two years of flat-sharing, that’s the real price of “we’ll sort it out later”.

Paying a friend back in Spliz

Find the person you owe in Balances. If you already use a bank transfer or another app, record that repayment in the group. To pay through Spliz, sign in, fund your wallet with USDC on Base, then review the amount and fee before confirming. You authorize your payment; the other members decide when to make theirs.

Why USDC on Base

1. No gas to pay. You never touch ETH. Spliz’s relayer sponsors the transaction; you sign, that’s it.
2. 0.1 % fee. With a minimum of 0.10 USDC per payment. You see the exact number before you sign.
3. A shared network. USDC is a dollar stablecoin issued by Circle. It works the same whether your friends are in Montreal, São Paulo or Paris, the exact thing that failed me that night.

Partner purchases and withdrawals have their own fees and country availability. Signing in with Google, Apple on iPhone, or a code sent by email or SMS creates your wallet. You can also connect one you already use. Your keys stay yours; Spliz never holds your money.

Building this in public

I’m a solo builder, and I’m sharing the journey here: the wins, the doubts, the technical rabbit holes, the real numbers. If you’ve ever stared at your phone trying to figure out how to pay a friend abroad, you already know why I’m building this.

Spliz is live on iOS and Android. The roadmap is public, and the community shapes it on Discord, Telegram and X.

Keep the good moments. Know what remains to settle.