From Paramedic to Bitcoin Evangelist - Part 4

Tali: 00:00:00

Hi, everybody.

Tali: 00:00:00

Welcome to part four of my conversation with Lindsay.

Lindsay: 00:00:04

That starts to get into a, into a really dystopian kind of a world.

Tali: 00:00:08

Well, my question is, why are they even charging US taxes

Tali: 00:00:11

if they're taxing us through inflation already anyway, right?

Lindsay: 00:00:14

Oh, that's the, that's the best theme on the internet.

Lindsay: 00:00:17

Like, if, if taxes don't cause inflation, then why am I paying them?

Lindsay: 00:00:21

Or other, if printing money doesn't cause inflation, then why am I paying taxes?

Lindsay: 00:00:24

Yeah, but you'll, you'll never hear a good answer to that.

Tali: 00:00:27

Yeah.

Tali: 00:00:28

Well anyway, moving on, moving on.

Tali: 00:00:30

You're doing this Airbnb experience and you mentioned that most of your

Tali: 00:00:35

audience actually are older than you.

Lindsay: 00:00:38

Oh, significantly.

Lindsay: 00:00:39

Yeah.

Lindsay: 00:00:40

The, the average age is probably 60 and up.

Tali: 00:00:43

So much older than you, like grandparents' age?

Lindsay: 00:00:46

Yes.

Lindsay: 00:00:46

Yes.

Lindsay: 00:00:47

Usually, usually they're prodded into, into it by a, you know,

Lindsay: 00:00:50

a daughter or a, you know, a relative, um, younger relative.

Lindsay: 00:00:54

But usually that person is, is priding 'em into it 'cause.

Lindsay: 00:00:56

That person doesn't know very much about it.

Lindsay: 00:00:58

They've just heard a little bit and be like, hey, maybe

Lindsay: 00:01:00

this is worth looking into.

Lindsay: 00:01:01

But yeah, it's, it's a lot of people who have some, you know, who have some

Lindsay: 00:01:05

financial stress or are, you know, maybe they're, you know, they thought they had

Lindsay: 00:01:08

a very comfortable retirement and they're seeing inflation go, go the way it is,

Lindsay: 00:01:12

and they're just concerned that, you know, maybe, you know, maybe I need to

Lindsay: 00:01:15

be worried like, you know what, I don't see a good, a good way to handle this.

Lindsay: 00:01:19

I mean, If the stock market does well, I mean, that's great, but you know, then

Lindsay: 00:01:24

my capital gains taxes go up and, you know, my withdrawals are still, you know,

Lindsay: 00:01:29

I'm still worried about taking out too much and especially as, as volatility

Lindsay: 00:01:33

goes up and the stock market is just, is, is just more volatile than, than

Lindsay: 00:01:37

we were used to for that, you know, the second half of the, of the 20th century.

Lindsay: 00:01:41

It's just, you know, it's scarier, more uncertain times now, and that seems

Lindsay: 00:01:45

to be a, a, certainly an underlying reason that, that people come to me.

Tali: 00:01:49

So I get a, a very common question from people in

Tali: 00:01:53

that age group about Bitcoin.

Tali: 00:01:55

If they are already, if they are convinced that Bitcoin is real, they

Tali: 00:01:59

are still generally afraid to transfer their funds into Bitcoin because

Tali: 00:02:04

of the wild price fluctuation, and they don't have time to write it out

Tali: 00:02:08

as you know, a young person would.

Tali: 00:02:10

So what do you tell them?

Tali: 00:02:12

How would you address that question?

Lindsay: 00:02:14

Sure.

Lindsay: 00:02:15

So that is definitely, that's a question that I get every time.

Lindsay: 00:02:18

And I, I actually have a section in my, in my, uh, experience about volatility.

Lindsay: 00:02:24

And what I tell everyone is don't, don't invest in amount that

Lindsay: 00:02:28

you're gonna be scared of losing.

Lindsay: 00:02:29

Don't invest in amount that is going to make you worry if the price drops,

Lindsay: 00:02:33

because just count on it that it will.

Lindsay: 00:02:36

Put in, put in whatever you're comfortable with, you know, assess your risk tolerance

Lindsay: 00:02:40

and put in, you know, if that's only 20 bucks right now, put in 20 bucks.

Lindsay: 00:02:44

Like, and as you learn more, you will get more confident.

Lindsay: 00:02:48

You'll understand better why this thing has such incredible long-term

Lindsay: 00:02:53

potential and you don't need.

Lindsay: 00:02:56

You don't need to have a lot to offset your risk.

Lindsay: 00:02:59

Honestly, I think that, you know, if you're, if you put in 1% of your

Lindsay: 00:03:04

net worth, I think that's going to protect the vast majority, if

Lindsay: 00:03:08

not all of your net worth, because that we are so early in this game.

Lindsay: 00:03:13

And more than that, I think you'll do very, very well.

Lindsay: 00:03:16

But if you're going to, if you're gonna get, you know, if you're not

Lindsay: 00:03:19

confident, you're gonna get scared.

Lindsay: 00:03:21

The first time the, you know, the price drops 20% under you.

Lindsay: 00:03:25

Like, then you've got too much.

Lindsay: 00:03:27

Like you need to, don't be in a hurry.

Lindsay: 00:03:29

Like take, take little baby steps at a time and as you feel more

Lindsay: 00:03:33

confident, add more if you want to.

Lindsay: 00:03:35

But to start out, just do just a little bit.

Lindsay: 00:03:39

You don't need to jump in with both feet on the first day.

Tali: 00:03:41

That is such a great answer.

Tali: 00:03:42

I'm gonna use that going forward.

Tali: 00:03:46

So what's a common question that you get from the young people who bring

Tali: 00:03:50

in their, um, parents, grandparents.

Lindsay: 00:03:53

Young people typ typically ask about like the security aspect of it.

Lindsay: 00:03:57

And like, you know, can it be hacked, can it be stolen?

Lindsay: 00:03:59

Can you, you know, your transactions can all be watched.

Lindsay: 00:04:02

That kind of stuff.

Lindsay: 00:04:03

And that is, That's a little bit harder of a question to answer just because, I

Lindsay: 00:04:08

mean, the Bitcoin blockchain is public.

Lindsay: 00:04:10

Every transaction that has ever happened, It's public.

Lindsay: 00:04:13

You can go on and look there.

Lindsay: 00:04:14

You don't know who these transactions were between.

Lindsay: 00:04:17

They're all pretty anonymous addresses, but it's a legitimate question because

Lindsay: 00:04:20

there are services and certainly you know, government agencies and

Lindsay: 00:04:26

institutions that look into these and can kind of link addresses to identities.

Lindsay: 00:04:32

And that has been a concern of Bitcoin for a long time.

Lindsay: 00:04:34

With the advent of the Lightning Network, which is a layer two protocol

Lindsay: 00:04:37

built on top, it batches transactions together, which makes your transaction

Lindsay: 00:04:42

fees dramatically lower, and you can send a, a transaction on the Lightning

Lindsay: 00:04:46

Network for, you know, a 10th of a penny.

Lindsay: 00:04:47

That's pretty incredible anyway, and it batches all of

Lindsay: 00:04:50

these transactions together.

Lindsay: 00:04:52

And so then they, they're all processed essentially in one

Lindsay: 00:04:55

transaction on, on the main chain.

Lindsay: 00:04:57

And that adds a lot of, a lot of privacy to it.

Lindsay: 00:05:00

As far as, and there are, there are more protocols being, being built.

Lindsay: 00:05:04

There's a new one arc that I just heard about not too long

Lindsay: 00:05:06

ago, which sounds pretty amazing.

Lindsay: 00:05:08

And then like the whole protocol, there's just, there's an incredible amount of

Lindsay: 00:05:12

innovation happening right now, especially considering how small the space is.

Lindsay: 00:05:16

It's just, it's just mind blowing.

Lindsay: 00:05:18

Anyway, so the, the privacy, the privacy issue is, Is definitely being

Lindsay: 00:05:23

resolved in real time right now, and it's, it's dramatically better than

Lindsay: 00:05:25

it was when Bitcoin was brand new.

Lindsay: 00:05:27

And I think that in, within a couple of years, that will be, that

Lindsay: 00:05:31

will be a, a complete non-issue.

Lindsay: 00:05:32

It's already well on its way.

Lindsay: 00:05:34

And today, if you did take, if you were willing to do a little bit of research

Lindsay: 00:05:38

and take some extra steps, you can have pretty good privacy on Bitcoin networks,

Lindsay: 00:05:43

certainly better than you can do in, with credit cards or debit cards or, you

Lindsay: 00:05:47

know, any kind of electronic payments.

Lindsay: 00:05:48

The other question with, to do with security...

Lindsay: 00:05:51

I like to kind of point out that, you know, there are,

Lindsay: 00:05:54

there are three, there are a few different ways of holding Bitcoin.

Lindsay: 00:05:58

You can hold it in exchange, you know, you could buy it on, on

Lindsay: 00:06:00

Coinbase and they hold it for you.

Lindsay: 00:06:02

You can have a, like a multi-sig arrangement, uh, which we won't go

Lindsay: 00:06:06

into that, that's kind of technical.

Lindsay: 00:06:08

Or you can have it on a, on a hardware wallet.

Lindsay: 00:06:11

You can have it in, in cold storage as they call it.

Lindsay: 00:06:13

And if you hold your stuff on Coinbase, on some kind of exchange where you bought it

Lindsay: 00:06:18

or you put it into a, a custodial wallet, there's, there's definitely a potential

Lindsay: 00:06:22

there for people to, to hack that, especially if you're holding in a place,

Lindsay: 00:06:26

in a place like Coinbase, like finance.

Lindsay: 00:06:28

And what that is, is that's, they are holding lots and lots of people's money

Lindsay: 00:06:33

in one place that you're moral, you're making, you're making a honeypot,

Lindsay: 00:06:37

you're making it so that the most sophisticated hackers in the world.

Lindsay: 00:06:41

Are going to attack that.

Lindsay: 00:06:42

And at some point, you know, even if they're, you know, not necessarily

Lindsay: 00:06:45

going over the Bitcoin itself, like it's also, it's a, it's a data repository.

Lindsay: 00:06:50

Like, they can, you know, do data breaches.

Lindsay: 00:06:52

They can, you know, secure some of the funds or, you know, whether it's Bitcoin

Lindsay: 00:06:57

or any of the other all kinds or any or anything that are held on there.

Lindsay: 00:07:00

But when you hold it all in one place, you're creating a target, you're creating

Lindsay: 00:07:04

a honey pot that that people with those motivations are going to attack.

Lindsay: 00:07:08

If you hold it in cold storage, you only have yours.

Lindsay: 00:07:11

The only way to hack that is to break into your house and steal

Lindsay: 00:07:14

that, that hardware wallet that isn't connected to the internet.

Lindsay: 00:07:18

Guess your password, guess your pin.

Lindsay: 00:07:19

And even then, if you realize it's gone, Like you can log onto a different

Lindsay: 00:07:24

computer the next day and still have all of your funds and safely move them.

Lindsay: 00:07:27

Like the, the amount of security that you can have with Bitcoin is unlike

Lindsay: 00:07:33

anything we've ever had before.

Lindsay: 00:07:35

You can, you can be a refugee trying to leave the country and you can memorize

Lindsay: 00:07:39

12 words in your head, get to the other side of whatever word you're crossing, and

Lindsay: 00:07:43

have your your entire life's net worth.

Lindsay: 00:07:45

And there was nothing anybody could rob from you on the way.

Lindsay: 00:07:48

You can't do that with cash.

Lindsay: 00:07:49

You can't do that with gold.

Lindsay: 00:07:50

You can't.

Lindsay: 00:07:51

You know, there's, there's no, there's no good way to do

Lindsay: 00:07:54

that, except through Bitcoin.

Lindsay: 00:07:56

So the security aspect of it is, is, is not an intuitive one to

Lindsay: 00:08:01

kind of wrap your head around.

Lindsay: 00:08:02

It doesn't have security because it's, you know, it's so, because, you know,

Lindsay: 00:08:07

Coinbase protects it or something.

Lindsay: 00:08:09

It has security because it's attacked around the clock by the most

Lindsay: 00:08:12

sophisticated hackers in the world.

Lindsay: 00:08:14

I watched a video on this by, uh, Andreas Antonopoulos.

Lindsay: 00:08:19

I'm not sure how you pronounce his name.

Lindsay: 00:08:21

He did a, a much better explanation of this than I did, but it was,

Lindsay: 00:08:24

I think that that principle is, is just kind of difficult to get

Lindsay: 00:08:27

that it, it generates immunity.

Lindsay: 00:08:29

By the fact that it is constantly attacked, and yet for the last, you

Lindsay: 00:08:33

know, since 2008, it's run without hitch and there have been no hacks of anyone

Lindsay: 00:08:39

holding Bitcoin in their own custody.

Lindsay: 00:08:41

Whereas if you leave it in charge of somebody else, if you have

Lindsay: 00:08:44

somebody else hold your money for you, that's taking a risk.

Lindsay: 00:08:47

I mean, it's the risks nowadays.

Lindsay: 00:08:48

Clearly there's been, you know, bank runs and stuff, like, your money

Lindsay: 00:08:51

isn't, isn't safe with custodians.

Lindsay: 00:08:53

And Bitcoin is one of those things that it allows you to take charge of your

Lindsay: 00:08:56

own finances and be your own bank, and that is the most secure way to hold

Lindsay: 00:09:02

purchasing power that there has ever been.

Tali: 00:09:04

Yeah.

Tali: 00:09:04

All really, really great points.

Tali: 00:09:06

So where do you see yourself going forward?

Tali: 00:09:09

I know that you're back in school and you're studying IT now, so

Tali: 00:09:13

do you see yourself going into the, the tech side of it now?

Lindsay: 00:09:18

I'm not sure where I'm gonna end up.

Lindsay: 00:09:19

I would, I would like to be able to contribute to the

Lindsay: 00:09:22

projects that are being built.

Lindsay: 00:09:23

That would be, that would be amazing.

Lindsay: 00:09:25

But if not, if I end up, you know, continuing to kind of in the same track

Lindsay: 00:09:29

that I am where I'm kind of helping to, to onboard people and onboard beginners like,

Lindsay: 00:09:34

That's, you know, I'm totally okay with that, but the more skills I have, the more

Lindsay: 00:09:38

marketable I am and I'm, you know, hoping to be able to, to break my way into the

Lindsay: 00:09:42

Bitcoin industry, you know, work for one of the, one of the companies that are, you

Lindsay: 00:09:46

know, really contributing to this space.

Lindsay: 00:09:48

I mean, there's lots of them out there.

Lindsay: 00:09:49

You know, there's Swan, there's Strike, there's Unchained, you know,

Lindsay: 00:09:52

lots of, lots of different options.

Lindsay: 00:09:53

And wherever I end up, I just, I wanna be able, I wanna be able to be worth the

Lindsay: 00:09:57

money that they pay me and, and contribute to this, to this movement, 'cause it is,

Lindsay: 00:10:02

it's, it's just incredibly important.

Tali: 00:10:04

Yeah, for sure.

Tali: 00:10:05

Any last recommendations or suggestions for women who are still not sure?

Lindsay: 00:10:11

Depending on how much time you wanna put in, I think that one of the

Lindsay: 00:10:14

most compelling things that really kind of pulls on your heart strings about

Lindsay: 00:10:18

this is a book by Alex Gladstein, called "Check Your Financial Privilege," and it

Lindsay: 00:10:24

tells stories of the people around the world and the movements in, you know,

Lindsay: 00:10:28

developing nations and stuff where Bitcoin is central to them being able to, being

Lindsay: 00:10:33

able to fight back against, you know, dictators and autocrats and, you know,

Lindsay: 00:10:38

skyrocketing inflation and cost of living.

Lindsay: 00:10:41

Uh, just, like, it's, it really, really hammers home the "why" of this movement

Lindsay: 00:10:46

and, and why it is so important.

Lindsay: 00:10:48

'Cause I feel like, you know, in places like the US, like, it's really easy to,

Lindsay: 00:10:51

to dismiss it as, you know, why would I ever need that when Visa works just fine.

Lindsay: 00:10:54

And you just don't, you don't realize how incredibly important it is.

Lindsay: 00:10:58

That's probably my number one recommendation.

Lindsay: 00:11:01

If you're still on the fence and you don't wanna, if you don't wanna go, you

Lindsay: 00:11:04

know all the way, and you know, you're not gonna devote yourself to, to reading

Lindsay: 00:11:06

a book, then just don't write it off.

Lindsay: 00:11:10

Just maintain an open mind, even if you're not gonna, you

Lindsay: 00:11:13

know, delve into it right now.

Lindsay: 00:11:15

Be open-minded about it and take everything that you hear

Lindsay: 00:11:18

about on the news with it.

Lindsay: 00:11:19

With a grain of salt, there is, that is not, not an objective reference point.

Lindsay: 00:11:25

There is a lot of of vested interests in keeping Bitcoin as sidelined as possible.

Lindsay: 00:11:31

And they're, you know, if you look at the funding, it usually shows that.

Lindsay: 00:11:34

So yeah, those, those are my two recommendations.

Lindsay: 00:11:36

It's, you know, an excellent book about recognizing what the, what the important

Lindsay: 00:11:40

why's are behind this movement and not getting, not getting turned off

Lindsay: 00:11:44

by people and interests that are not objective and that are not, they're not

Lindsay: 00:11:48

disclosed usually with those interests.

Lindsay: 00:11:51

They're not going to tell you that, you know, that they have

Lindsay: 00:11:53

a lot of, a lot of stake in the system remaining the way it is.

Tali: 00:11:57

Yes.

Tali: 00:11:57

Thank you very much for that.

Tali: 00:11:59

So for people who are near where you are or driving through Michigan, how

Tali: 00:12:04

would they find your Airbnb experience?

Lindsay: 00:12:07

Absolutely come sign up.

Lindsay: 00:12:10

It's called Drink Wine and Learn about Bitcoin.

Lindsay: 00:12:12

I am, like I said, on Airbnb, I'm also on Meetup and if you find the meetup page,

Lindsay: 00:12:16

there will be a link to the Airbnb page.

Lindsay: 00:12:18

Either one works fine.

Lindsay: 00:12:20

Yeah, don't, don't be afraid to send me a message or reach out.

Lindsay: 00:12:24

I am happy to, happy to meet up and happy to accommodate.

Lindsay: 00:12:27

Even if you don't want a class, you just wanna, you know, grab a beer and hang out.

Lindsay: 00:12:30

Let's do it.

Tali: 00:12:32

Awesome.

Tali: 00:12:32

Thank you so much.

Tali: 00:12:33

It's been such fun listening to your stories and sharing

Tali: 00:12:37

your knowledge with everyone.

Tali: 00:12:39

We'll wrap up here.

Lindsay: 00:12:41

Alright.

Lindsay: 00:12:41

Thank you so much for having me.

Tali: 00:12:43

Thanks for joining us today and learning with us today.

Tali: 00:12:46

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

Tali: 00:12:49

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

Tali: 00:12:54

Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club.

Tali: 00:12:56

The meetup link is in the show notes.

Tali: 00:12:58

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

Tali: 00:13:02

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