Hi everyone. Welcome to Orange Hatter. Today you'll be listening to a conversation I had with Marina. Thank you so much, Marina, for joining us today. I know you have tons of stories to share, so we're gonna jump right into it. Before we jump into your Bitcoin story, please tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.

Sure. So I was born in the US, um, half Mexican, half American. I lived in the US, uh, until I was five. And then I grew up in South America, Mexico, Bolivia, Columbia, and came back to the US for college. So I, I'm American, but I grew up in Latin America, if that makes sense. And that's a little bit of my background as far as cultural experience. As far as understanding money, it really is the, that duality of everything works versus nothing works sometimes. And then in college I studied international affairs, and more recently I did my master's in public policy at NYU. So that's where my interest in the world and what's happening came about.

Yeah. Thank you for that quick overview. So let's jump into your Bitcoin story. How did you first hear about it? When was it, and what was your journey from discovery to conviction?

So it was back in 2014, I used to run a business association, a very important CEO network that was focused on Latin America. It was called The Group of 50. And we would do yearly conferences in different places around the world. So Singapore; Spain; Washington, D.C.; and that particular year we went to Silicon Valley. In Silicon Valley, you know, we had incredible people like Arianna Huffington, ex-presidents, and, and among those, when we were developing the agenda, we spoke with really, really important entrepreneurs from Latin America who, one was from Argentina, they, they're from Venezuela. They had sold their company to and they were now investing in financial startups, if you will. And they had come across Bitcoin because they had problems in their countries sending money. And so they were completely convinced that Bitcoin was the next, the next money for the world. And so they said, you have to do a panel about Bitcoin. And they set up this amazing group of speakers for us. And I mean, given how incredibly successful they are and their conviction and the fact that they had seen the system from both sides, right, from the US and from their countries, I knew that they were onto something, that, that this was clearly important for the world. But also at the same time, you know, I studied public policy, I saw tech, I saw finance. I was like, okay, really cool. I'm gonna pay attention, but perhaps for me, not yet. Right? And this was 2014. It was incredible. I paid attention. But I didn't go above just, you know, setting up that panel, setting up that event. But in 2017, I was working for an international consulting firm that, you know, we're talking about new technologies and what we had to do, and one of the speakers were explaining what was the revolution behind Bitcoin and the blockchain and what that meant, and how it would change how companies work, how the world worked. And in that occasion, we touched upon immutability, transparency, why the ledger was so important, how it had created a completely different change for how money used to work and how it was gonna work in the future. And then because I studied public policy, as I say, I go, wow. Like, that's when my head went boom, like the emoji, right? You know, transparency, immutability, all the things that we talk about from... when we're trying to change things in the world, there it was. And so that's when I said, okay, this is what I wanna do in my life. This is where I wanna focus. This is what I want to dedicate my time to. And that's when I started going to conferences and messing up royally, because you go to like Bitcoin this, Bitcoin that. And then there's some really weird sketchy people trying to sell you stuff, instead of really, like, explaining what's behind it, what it means, how it's changing things. But you know, in the end, if you are persistent, you find the right groups, you find the right people who, like, make sense and they're not shilling something. And, you know, that's how I started being, uh, I got hired by a, by a company in Columbia that was using Bitcoin to send money to different places around the world. There was an OTC. And that's how I started that journey. They were having problems explaining to people what was value, and obviously Bitcoin at the time had that terrible sense of, like, only criminals use it. And so what we were focusing on obviously was, okay, how does it solve your problem? We save you 20% because you don't have to pay the fees of changing your money from Colombian pesos to, let's say the Euro. Because it usually goes from the, the pesos to the dollar to the Euro. And that takes, you know, three weeks or so. And so they were saving 20%. They were sending the money within two days. And the goal with that team was, like, that's what you should tell your clients. That was, you should explain to them. And once they, you pique their interest, then you can say, okay, we're doing this via Bitcoin. So it really was about storytelling and about explaining how we're solving a really big problem for you and your company. Right? So that's how we started, that's how I started in this space.

So can we go back and, for the people who are listening out there who don't know anything about Bitcoin, you mentioned immutability and other aspects of Bitcoin. Would you mind going a little bit more into detail about what those terms mean and why they're so important?

So one thing that I liked as far as the explanation of why money is different with Bitcoin, right, was... and or why it became different was because before, let's say you send a picture, right? And the picture is in your computer and also on somebody else's computer. So there is the copy of that picture. And so what the blockchain allowed because it's now in the system and then there's a new ledger each 10 minutes... every 10 minutes, there's a new system that tracks what's happening in different computers... now that, that, that proof that you sent the money or that you sent the Bitcoin is in the ledger, and it is no longer on your computer. It is now part of the ledger, and it's been passed to another person. So the for the first time in, in the history, you were able to send money without keeping a copy of that money, right? And that's what made it completely different from before. That was the innovation, and again, transparency, because it's on the blockchain, it is on the system, and nobody can change it, because obviously every 10 minutes it's updated, and it's in many, many, many computers and many, many, many, many nodes. So if somebody tries to fudge with it, it's very obvious that something's happened. So those were the two, the two innovations that I thought were brilliant and that made Bitcoin such an obvious solution for global money, if you will.

Yeah, uh, definitely. And also, you mentioned that when you are sending fiat currency and doing the exchange from the Colombian Peso to the Euro that there is a 20% fee. Can you explain why Bitcoin is better? Why Bitcoin doesn't have that 20% fee?

Well, I mean, there's fees, right? And it depends on how much is happening on the blockchain... but it's not even just the fees. Think about, Tali, like how many... I mean, right now in, in my home, I'm, I'm in Mexico right now, and in my hometown, my address is: next to the basketball court, next to the block of this, and in the house of this corner... and that's your house, like, there's no actual address. And so if you want to do KYC when you're sending money abroad, which is typical, a, a lot of people are left out of the system, because they don't have a real quote unquote "address". And, and that limits a lot of what happens. And so, yes, it's fast... i, I also think it's faster, right? I have a... a colleague and I, we did a, we did a project for a company, a Bitcoin company in El, in, in Argentina. And they said, well, do you want Bitcoin or do you want fiat? I said Bitcoin. My colleague said fiat. He his took two weeks to get there. Mine took five minutes. And, you know, three months later, because of where we were in the money... in, in the up and down cycles, my, my payments almost doubled. And he's like, damn, I should have accepted the Bitcoin. And obviously that's not what happens all the time. Bitcoin goes up and down. You really do have to have a long-term horizon when deciding to accept Bitcoin, unless you, you know, if you have that ability, which I did at the time, it made complete sense, because I could think long term about it. Not everybody has that possibility. So I understand that that things can get complicated, but in my case, it made total sense, and I was happy... because also, if you are a Bitcoiner and you are not accepting Bitcoin, it really doesn't make sense. Right? You have to walk the talk and, and, and do it yourself as well, right?

Yeah, for sure. And that... you were referencing people who don't have physical addresses. There are also people who are just unbanked based on their lack of credit... depending on which system, economic system you're in. And they have a lot of trouble making very basic transactions that we kind of just take for granted. Like, sure, I can, you know, write a, write a check or, yeah. But also you're talking about the timing and how much faster it is because it's, it's... you go into a general ledger, and it's over the internet, and there's no third party in between, as you mentioned. You, you don't, there's no bank, there's no exchange that you're going through. You're going person to person, it's peer to peer. Thanks for joining us today and learning with us today. If the discussion with our guest resonated with you, and you would like to dive deeper into the world of Bitcoin, don't miss out on joining the Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club. The meetup link is in the show notes. Also, if there are women in your life whom you think will both enjoy and benefit from learning more about Bitcoin, please share Orange Hatter with them. Until next time, bye!