system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[John Wick] How does John Wick have money?

The gold coins John has, while probably valuable because of their gold content, always seemed to represent something more like a favor trading system than an frankly unnecessary secondary currency that would just ultimately be exchanged for dollars, euros, or whatever; and I assume given how valuable they are within the continental's organization that you can't just take a handful of them and pawn them off for a few thousand bucks to put down money on a fancy California home, a classic American muscle car, or dog food. So is John's entire retirement taken care of by the continental's organization? Was he earning coins on the side? Is it like the big boys at the top of the high table pay their assassins in money and Winston is paying out coins or something for optional assignments? John never seemed like the kind of guy to go out of his way to kill people so it doesn't strike me like he'd hungrily be chasing people down for Winston so 5 years later he can afford to pay for a new suit, new guns, and intel on the Roman catacombs.
gpt
The coins are only used for high table and continental services. Cash is still traded for other goods and services by lower members. Working for the Russian mob pays US dollars, working for the camora pays gold coins. There's likely some way to exchange cash and coins for their opposite through the continental. We do see all continental services using gold coins despite assassinations being described in cash values. Likely the gold coins are merely a way for assassins to safely store their money with a neutral third party in the continental than trusting a bank or the mattress when handling large dollar amounts. John only had a few coins stashed and probably converted the rest to cash after retiring.