From Paramedic to Bitcoin Evangelist - Part 1

Tali: 00:00:00

Hi everybody.

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Welcome to Orange Hatter.

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Today you'll be listening to a conversation I had with Lindsay.

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Lindsay, welcome to Orange Hatter.

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Thank you so much for coming to our show.

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You've got a ton of stories to, to share with us, so we're

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gonna jump right into it.

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Let's start by addressing our first question, which is, when did you first

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hear about Bitcoin, and what was your journey like from discovery to conviction?

Lindsay: 00:00:24

Thank you so much for having me on.

Lindsay: 00:00:26

My story starts in like 2019.

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I had heard about Bitcoin before that in 2018 with the, with the bull run then, but

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I really didn't think anything of it...

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thought it was, you know, a bubble.

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And then in 2019, and I was really interested in reading about China

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and Henry Kissinger and stuff like that at the time, and somehow

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I happened upon bitcoin again.

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And I don't know, I kind of, I got sucked into the, the Altcoin world

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for a couple months and, but like things started to kind of click with

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me that there was something different about Bitcoin than the others.

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So many of them have, you know, what are called pre mines, um, where the, the

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owner, the, the inventor kind of releases a whole bunch of their coins to their

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friends and keeps 'em for themselves.

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And then, and then they do a sale to the public, and then they can kind of dump

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their, their holdings on the public.

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That's really, really common with altcoins, and I realized that

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Bitcoin didn't have that capability.

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And the other thing about it is that a lot of those altcoins had paid

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advertising and, like, groups that were kind of, you know, advocating them

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and Bitcoin didn't have any of that.

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All of the, all of the marketing seemed to be, you know, people who

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didn't have anything to gain from it.

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And I thought that kind of was a, you know, a vouching for its merit, I guess.

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And from there, I mean, there's no, there's no real

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end to bitcoin rabbit hole.

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So I kind of, I learned about economics and, you know, the

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history of money and what makes, what makes something of good money.

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And, you know, why, why did we ever get off the gold standard in the first

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place if that was such a good standard?

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And yeah, I, uh, I got really, really into it and I kind of talked to my, some

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friends and family into learning about it, and ever since I've just been more

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and more interested and more and more impressed by the community that I've, that

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I've experienced growing up around it.

Tali: 00:02:12

Thank you for sharing that.

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If you can just paint a picture for our audience of, like, your background and

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where you're located and what it's like in terms of, just knowledge about Bitcoin,

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where like closest to you, where you live.

Lindsay: 00:02:27

Sure.

Lindsay: 00:02:27

So I am 29.

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I live in , Michigan, which is a pretty, a fairly rural area.

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There's, other than the, other than the people that I have personally talked

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to and kind of gotten, started down the, down the path, there's really

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nobody that, that I know that's, that's interested in it, um, or knows, you

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know, anything, anything about it.

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I work several part-time jobs.

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I was a paramedic for a while, and I decided to go and try and...

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you know, I was trying to, to do something more tangibly helpful, you know, to

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society with my life and not a...

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there's not a whole much, whole lot out there that's more tangibly

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helpful than, you know, being a paramedic on an ambulance.

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But I decided that wasn't for me.

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I actually stopped being a paramedic in 2020, and decided to, to try and,

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you know, go back to school and, and contribute to this movement more.

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I'm actually going to school for information systems management.

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I wanna learn a little bit about development so I can do more in

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the Bitcoin space, 'cause I think that this is, I think this is

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arguably the most important movement going on in the world today.

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And that's saying a lot coming from someone who, you know, does,

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did CPR for a living and whatnot.

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I don't know, I just, I can't...

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it's so strange to me that so few people understand, you know, the, the gravity

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of this movement and what, and what Bitcoin is actually doing in the world.

Tali: 00:03:47

I think that sentiment is shared by a lot of Bitcoiners.

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I'm curious, so you were a paramedic...

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and I think a lot of women have the same concern when it comes to Bitcoin,

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which is if they're not computer sciences, it's not something that they

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can possibly understand, and yet you are so far down the rabbit hole, you've

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changed your entire life direction.

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So can you talk a little bit about that, that sort of internal shift

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and address some of the concern that a lot of women have, which is:

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how can I possibly understand this?

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It's so complicated.

Lindsay: 00:04:21

Yeah, so I don't know.

Lindsay: 00:04:23

I'm, I actually had an experience, I went to Bitcoin Miami in 2023, and I

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was sitting with a, with a group of people, and I remember one of them

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kind of rubbed me the wrong way...

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uh, said something about how, you know, if you don't, if you don't, if you basically,

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if you can't be a developer, like, you know, you're not doing anything important.

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And I'm just like, that is so, so completely backward.

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And it's like, you can't, you can't put it in those terms.

Lindsay: 00:04:48

Yes.

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I mean, I'm not gonna deny that the development part of Bitcoin is hugely

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important, um, and, you know, building out the tools to make it easier is,

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is, you know, they have vital role.

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But Bitcoin doesn't do any good if nobody knows about it and nobody

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understands it and nobody can use it.

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And Bitcoin's biggest hurdle is adoption.

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Um, and that's why I think that podcasts like this and you know, people like, you

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know, Natalie Brunell and Preston Pysh and all those that are kind of evangelizing

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and kind of spreading the word and, and helping people to understand...

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that is, that I think is the most important role in this space right now.

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And I am trying to do, I'm trying to do both.

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I'm trying to, you know, kind of change my, my career path.

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And fortunately I have the, you know, the, the time and the ability to be able

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to put myself back through school to do that and learn some about development.

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But, you know, if a better, if a better, and, you know, different opportunity

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comes along where I'm doing something more like this, absolutely, I'll take it.

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I don't think that there's...

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any contribution to Bitcoin is a good one and a worthwhile one.

Tali: 00:05:48

When you first heard about Bitcoin and you started taking that

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very first step, so if you can think back a couple years, how did you...

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how did you start learning like the first baby step?

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How did you take that step and what material did you use to

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help you understand it enough to take the second step?

Lindsay: 00:06:07

To be honest, I don't, I don't really remember all

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that well what I did first.

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I know that the concept of, of inflation was probably the first hurdle

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that I, you know, kind of tackled and that, that made sense to me.

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'Cause I've always, you know, as someone who's worked a lot of, a lot of lower wage

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jobs in her life, you know, inflation's a, a real thing, and it's like, you kind

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of feel like you're on a, you're on a treadmill all the time, and it's just, you

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know, you gotta go, you gotta go faster and work harder and put in more hours

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just to kind of stay in the same place.

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And, you know, I've always been, I've always felt that, but I never really

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devoted any, any mental space to, to really understanding why that was and

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learning about inflation and why it exists, and, and the times in the past

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when it hasn't really existed, really kind of helped build a framework for me.

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And that really kind of put it in context and, and put Bitcoin, made Bitcoin into

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something I could, I could relate to, and something that had a, you know,

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a real use case for someone like me.

Tali: 00:07:06

So I imagine other people, your age group, you know, your,

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your friends and family are feeling the same inflationary pressure.

Tali: 00:07:14

Were you able to discuss this topic with them in the way that you just described?

Lindsay: 00:07:21

No, I, uh, After I had gone down the rabbit hole enough where I

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felt confident enough to kind of, you know, to breach the topic with other

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people and, you know, not sound like a, you know, tin hat, conspiracy theorist.

Lindsay: 00:07:34

Um, I was a little more thoughtful in, in how I approached things.

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And like with inflation in particular, there's, there's

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an analogy that I like to use.

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So if you think of a grocery store owner, just a local grocery store owner,

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who also happens to own some rental properties, This grocery store owner, you

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know, he has employees, and we'll look at one of those employees in contrast.

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So you have an employee who works at the grocery store and who happens

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to live in one of these apartments.

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If you introduce inflation into that picture, what it does is it's going to

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raise the prices in the grocery store.

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It's going to raise the value of, say you own your own home, or you own

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a rental, or you own a business...

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the value of all of that goes up.

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The value of those wages of that worker did not, and the value of

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the cash that you save, which is a large percentage of your net worth if

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you're a wage worker, also goes down.

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But if you happen to be better off and you own stocks, those go up as well.

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So when you introduce inflation, you have this lowering of the net worth of

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people who are already lower class, and you have this elevation of the net worth

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of people who are already more well off.

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But the transfer of that purchasing power first goes to whoever has

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control of the new money, that is the person doing the printing.

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So you have a transfer of the purchasing power of the people in the lower

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class to first the government and then, the government who does the

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printing, and then to the person who owns that grocery store, who owns

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those assets, who owns those homes, rentals, whatever assets that they have.

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You have, you have a net wealth transfer.

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And I don't know, kind of putting it into those terms and then kind of relating

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it to the person that I'm talking about seems to, seems to help a lot.

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'Cause I mean, in my case, like, I never really thought about the fact that my,

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that the money in my bank account didn't buy as much as it, you know, doesn't buy

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as much as it did two years ago, even if there's the same dollar amount in there.

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'Cause two years ago, things were cheaper, things are more expensive now.

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But where did that purchasing power go?

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It went to the person who put that new money in circulation.

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And that person in this case is, is the government, the Federal Reserve, or you

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know, the big banks that kind of introduce money into the system by lending...

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however, however you wanna look at it, it's people with a lot more money than me.

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And that's kind of, I don't know...

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it's an insidious thing because it's not something that

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very many people understand.

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Inflation is the most progressive tax.

Tali: 00:10:04

So when you explain it like that to the people that you talk

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to, what is their first reaction?

Lindsay: 00:10:12

A lot of, I get a lot of quiet for a little bit while.

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They kind of, kind of think about it, but I don't know.

Lindsay: 00:10:16

It's, it seems to, it seems to connect, it seems to, it seems to make sense.

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And then usually from there, like, you know, it's, well, what's, you know,

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that that connection makes you, makes you think of like, oh, I need to be, I

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need to be invested in real estate, in stocks like that grocery store owner.

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Which...

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I mean, that's, that's not untrue.

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Like that, those are good strategies and would've served you

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well over the last, you know, a hundred years or really whenever.

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But from there, it's, you know, we kind of breach into into why,

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why Bitcoin is a superior asset.

Tali: 00:10:47

Thanks for joining us today and learning with us today.

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If the discussion with our guest resonated with you and you would

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like to dive deeper into the world of Bitcoin, don't miss out on joining the

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Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club.

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The meetup link is in the show notes.

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Also, if there are women in your life whom you think will both enjoy and

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benefit from learning more about Bitcoin, please share Orange Hatter with them.