Hi everyone, welcome to Orange Hatter. Today you're listening to part two of my conversation with Marina. you're going person to person, it's peer to peer. And also I wanted to just, again, bring, bring it back to the fees, because I, I feel like a lot of people who are working internationally, or who are not working internationally, don't quite grasp the heavy toll the fees play on, like, for example, immigrants who are working overseas and trying to send money back to their families. And the banks doing nothing, except allowing that transaction, takes such a big chunk.

Well, I can just tell you, yesterday I was speaking to my father, and he said he walked into a bank the other day, and they were like, oh, we have a new credit card for you. We have a new credit for card for you, sir. It has 70% interest. 70! So it's, like, blows your mind. I mean, not even 10%, not even, like, 25 if you're really bad and you don't pay on time. 70%. And that was, like, the new good card to get. So obviously it's, it's a crime practically to owe money... and to be, I mean, being in debt here is slavery almost if you cannot pay on time, if something happens. It really is horrible. So that's why I also think the system has to change and we have to have different options, you know?

Yeah, for sure. Okay, so you were, you were brought into Bitcoin in 2017, and it sounds like based on our previous conversation, that you actually entered this space with not only Bitcoin but also other cryptocurrencies, but current... but since you've learned more about Bitcoin, you've now completely dedicated yourself to Bitcoin. Can you talk a little bit about, just, the comparison between Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies?

Well, I, I mean, I don't think that the world is gonna be one thing, everything for everyone. It, it, I think, you know, you have to respect people's needs and choice. Personally, I believe in Bitcoin. I believe in what it offers, and I also believe that it will be the global money, if you will. And so because of those factors, I've made, made my decision to focus on that technology, because it's the one that has been least hack... least problems, least issues. And for that, those reasons alone, I do think that it, it is the most stable and the most trustworthy option out there. And that's why I think I wanna dedicate myself to that, to that ecosystem and to ensure that it continues to stay stable, it continues to stay strong. And so my focus has been in, you know, I'm not a developer, but my, my work now is about growing the developer ecosystem. Because I love to, like, what I used to do was work with CEOs. So for me, finding talent, thinking about talent, understanding what it means to find people who are really good at what they do, that was my job, to find the next generation of CEOs and find who can change the world, if you will. That's what I wanted to do here, because developers are such an important part of the Bitcoin ecosystem, and even if I may not be technical, I'm very good at finding talent that is technical, if you will. And that's what I've been dedicating myself to.

Yeah, that's so important. And I wanna just bring it back one more time, just, about the other cryptocurrencies, because I know that that's a major question that a lot of women out there who don't... who are new to this space would ask, which is why Bitcoin? Why not Ethereum? Why not other currencies? But you mentioned that in the South American countries that you work with, you really need more than one. You need more options than one, because they have issues with their fiat currency that's more urgent. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Sure. I mean, I, I can, so I'll touch two angles. So I interviewed 63 women from 32 countries to create this report, because there was previous reports about how women use Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, but it really was about US and UK. I mean, it was 4,000 people interviewed, but none of them were from the global south... or some kind of tried, but, but because I grew up abroad, even though I'm American, I really think that the story is much broader and much more complex. And so, yes, for example, and I'll give you just the basics of, of the case of Argentina, which all of you have known, they're in the news all the time, because they have defaults all the time. And I, I remember speaking with a girl who works for a US company, but she gets paid in pesos in Argentina. And within six months, her money has devalued to the half of it. So one of the options she had was to exchange it for cryptocurrencies, whether it's Bitcoin or something else. But she also chose to, okay, save half, and then the other half, she would use stable coins, because that way her money could last for the rest of the month. And then she would exchange it for pesos once she had to pay more bills, right? Because her life was still pesos, her life was still fiat, and she needed to have fiat, but she just didn't want it to lose value, half of its value within six months. And even though she was paid by a international company, they were paying her in the local currency, and it really, really made it very difficult for her to make her money stretch, even if she had such a privileged position to work for a US company. And the other case, which was an interesting part of the report, I spoke with somebody who was pretty high up. He used to run, like, the, the bank regulation system in, in a country. And he told me, this is not money, Marina. Bitcoin is not money. And I, and I go, wait a minute. And what we proved was that 80% of the women that we interviewed preferred to get paid in cryptocurrencies than not. They preferred it over fiat, which definitely tells you, yes, it is money. And it was a big myth that we debunked. So much so that he opened up doors for me to talk to people at the IMF and the World Bank and all these other places, where he kind of realized, oh shoot, maybe, maybe I'm wrong about this. So I think that was very interesting that, that like me, like when my colleague chose to get paid in fiat and I chose to get paid in Bitcoin, you know, I was completely convinced, I believed in it, and I made a choice that made sense for me. Right? And I think that that's, uh, something that, that we're proving little by little. I don't, I don't think it's, like, the norm, obviously, we're still, we're still trailblazers in that sense, if you will. And you, you can call it risk, but this girl that was... that, I was talking to another girl in Argentina. She says, Marina, I was working two jobs. I couldn't barely buy a, a slice of pizza. I was living very precariously in my country. You know? And, and I'm studying law, but I can't afford the books. Like, my, my law degree is free. I can, my... they pay, they pay for me to, to go to my... to, to my law degree. But I can't pay for the bus or the books to study law. So when you tell me that Bitcoin and, and, and all these options that I have are dangerous for me, I mean, shut up dude. Like, literally shut up. Uh, my life was precarious. Bitcoin is not precarious. I mean, I at least know the risk. I know I have to sometimes wait certain times when the price is too low and, and maybe that's when I buy Bitcoin instead of panicking, right? Because we all have that moment where you buy it... I remember buying a hundred dollars of Bitcoin in 2017 or something, and then selling it immediately, like, when it came from 7K to 10K, I, I sold it. I was, like, panic. And, and then, you know, slowly you start learning. Okay, it sometimes goes up, it sometimes goes down. What is your horizon? How long do you want to, to keep it? You, you start learning, but only until you download a wallet and, and kind of understand it and follow the cycles... you can understand what they mean by diamond hands and what they mean by hodling, which is, uh, misspelling of hold, right, that stayed as part of the culture. So those are the reasons, like A: it is money, and B: don't tell me, you know, Bitcoin is precarious, because my life was precarious already. Like, this is actually not a risk. The risk is that my money will devalue within six months, and I'll have it, and I will have no way to pay my bills. So yes, I can wait it out. I can, in that case, use stable coins to to save, like, as if you were saving in dollars. Right? And not have the burden of, of the risk of your country defaulting again, and not being able to access your bank account, like in Lebanon, right? These, these things are happening all over the world. And people are smarter and understand that they cannot trust the government sometimes, right?

Yeah, for sure. And that the value, which I, we call it value, but really it's just an exchange rate, when it goes from, like, the high of Bitcoin was 68,000 and then it dropped to 16. And our families who knew that we had invested in Bitcoin said, oh my gosh, what are you gonna do? And I said, well, it's on sale. I'm gonna tell my kids go buy it. If you understand what it stands for, then the exchange rate is less significant.

Well, I do think it takes time to get to that point, right? Like, I do remember panicking, and I do remember, like, when it was low, I didn't have money to buy more, right? So, so sometimes it's not, like, so easy as we make it out to be. But I do agree that if you have a conviction, and if you've been reading, understanding, following, you know why, you know?... and, and in fact, that's something that's really interesting... that I realized that... I was speaking to a lady, an older lady the other day that had never heard about Bitcoin, and she didn't know that there was a limit... that there wasn't, that there was a certain amount of Bitcoin that was gonna be printed, if you will, as they say in the fiat world, and then it would stop being available, right? So become scarce with time. And she did not realize that. She thought you could just keep on printing Bitcoin, and Bitcoin was always gonna be, like, being, you know, made or minted or whatever you wanna call it... mined, in our case, we call it mined. And so she then realized how it was anti-inflationary and with time, how it would become more and more valuable.

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 bye!