Sophi - Simplifying Bitcoin for the Everyday Person - FUN SEXY COOL! - part 1

Tali: 00:00:00

Hi everyone.

Tali: 00:00:00

Welcome to Orange Hatter.

Tali: 00:00:01

Today you're listening to a conversation I had with Sophi.

Tali: 00:00:05

Hi, Sophi.

Tali: 00:00:06

It's so wonderful to have you on Orange Hatter.

Tali: 00:00:08

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Sophi: 00:00:10

Thank you so much for having me, Tali.

Sophi: 00:00:13

I'm excited to be here.

Tali: 00:00:14

Yeah.

Tali: 00:00:15

So many questions for you.

Tali: 00:00:16

I've, I've visited your, your Twitter account and I just, first

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of all, I love, love, love the piece of music that you shared, "the

Tali: 00:00:25

Richmen from North of Richmond."

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So powerful.

Tali: 00:00:28

So powerful.

Tali: 00:00:29

Why don't we jump right in and just if you could tell us a little bit about

Tali: 00:00:32

your background for our audience.

Sophi: 00:00:35

Yeah, absolutely.

Sophi: 00:00:36

So I am a Miami native, born and raised.

Sophi: 00:00:40

My parents are Venezuelan, so I'm also a Latina.

Sophi: 00:00:44

And I got into Bitcoin because I was orange pilled by Nico

Sophi: 00:00:50

Moran, who's my fiance.

Sophi: 00:00:52

He started telling me about Bitcoin in 2016, and of course I was very skeptical.

Sophi: 00:00:59

I didn't believe that, you know, this could really be a thing.

Sophi: 00:01:02

I was like, ah, this is just like the next, you know, money grab

Sophi: 00:01:07

scheme of, you know, the decade.

Sophi: 00:01:10

I didn't really understand it.

Sophi: 00:01:12

I just lumped it in with all of the other cryptos, the way that most people

Sophi: 00:01:17

do, and I figured, you know, I, I just don't understand this, and why, why

Sophi: 00:01:23

would this be better than the dollar?

Sophi: 00:01:25

I just had so many questions that it actually took him two years to finally,

Sophi: 00:01:31

you know, get through to me and for me to understand the implications of how

Sophi: 00:01:37

important this technology actually is and the ramifications that it has, not

Sophi: 00:01:43

only on the economy, but on politics, culture, and every aspect of life.

Sophi: 00:01:49

You know, there's a reason that people say Bitcoin fixes this and it's because

Sophi: 00:01:55

how far and wide those implications reach almost every facet of our daily lives.

Sophi: 00:02:01

So he, he orange pilled me on that and I basically decided to hop on board

Sophi: 00:02:09

and then he started Simply Bitcoin and I decided to help him kind of do the

Sophi: 00:02:15

bookings and you know, I was helping here and there in the background, also

Sophi: 00:02:19

giving him a lot of moral support.

Sophi: 00:02:21

Now I am working on their short form content, which has been a blast.

Sophi: 00:02:27

I get to do skits and make Bitcoin as, as we say, in, in our, in simply Bitcoin.

Sophi: 00:02:33

Now we are trying to make Bitcoin fun, sexy, cool.

Sophi: 00:02:37

I'm trying to do that with the skits, with the cover that I just did.

Sophi: 00:02:42

I wanted to make it a little bit more pop so that it could reach some people

Sophi: 00:02:45

who maybe, you know, aren't into country.

Sophi: 00:02:48

We're also dropping merch.

Sophi: 00:02:51

So, you know, we're trying to just kind of populate the, the culture a little bit

Sophi: 00:02:58

with Bitcoin so that the Normies can also understand how great of a technology this

Sophi: 00:03:05

is and how this could affect their lives.

Sophi: 00:03:07

So that's a little bit about me.

Tali: 00:03:09

Yeah, so I was watching some of your skits, and I think that my kids

Tali: 00:03:16

will really find them interesting and entertaining because they're

Tali: 00:03:20

always showing me YouTube shorts.

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They're like, Mom, look at this.

Tali: 00:03:23

This is really funny.

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And then they will pop it on TV, and it's the similar style.

Tali: 00:03:28

So I feel like it would really speak to their generation.

Tali: 00:03:31

My kids are in in college, it would really reach the, that generation and like you

Tali: 00:03:36

said, it'll be like a really cool thing for them to share with each other, versus

Tali: 00:03:39

more of the traditional Bitcoin talk, which is more like really super serious.

Tali: 00:03:44

Sometimes listening to Bitcoin discussions can be really depressing.

Sophi: 00:03:48

Yeah.

Sophi: 00:03:49

And they're very serious.

Sophi: 00:03:50

And I think that they're meant for people who are already orange pilled, right?

Sophi: 00:03:55

And people who are already orange pilled, we're there.

Sophi: 00:03:59

We like, you know, you don't need to convince us, you just need to

Sophi: 00:04:02

supplement us with more information.

Sophi: 00:04:04

And that's where we get into debates and how to make this

Sophi: 00:04:08

better and more efficient.

Sophi: 00:04:10

And, you know, not how to change it necessarily because

Sophi: 00:04:13

you don't change Bitcoin.

Sophi: 00:04:14

Bitcoin changes you.

Sophi: 00:04:15

But it's, it's about like, you know, deepening your knowledge and

Sophi: 00:04:19

understanding, whereas what I'm trying to do is break out of the echo chamber.

Sophi: 00:04:25

I think it's, I mean, it's awesome to go into deeper understanding,

Sophi: 00:04:28

but that's not my talent.

Sophi: 00:04:31

It's not what I'm good at.

Sophi: 00:04:32

I'm not a very technical person at all, but I do have a lot of creativity.

Sophi: 00:04:38

I have a lot of ideas.

Sophi: 00:04:40

I think that I'm an effective communicator when it comes to taking an idea that's

Sophi: 00:04:45

very complex and translating it in a way where most people will understand it.

Sophi: 00:04:52

And I think that this is something that is both so important, but

Sophi: 00:04:55

also so difficult to get people to actually buy into, because it's money.

Sophi: 00:05:03

What is, you know, I mean, aside from family and your marriage, what is

Sophi: 00:05:07

more important than money, really?

Sophi: 00:05:09

And to get people to change their paradigm and shift in from a fiat

Sophi: 00:05:14

mindset to a Bitcoin mindset.

Sophi: 00:05:18

Is probably one of the biggest challenges that we're gonna face as a society.

Sophi: 00:05:24

So how do we take something that is so complex?

Sophi: 00:05:27

I mean, the average person barely even knows where our money comes from.

Sophi: 00:05:31

They don't know what the Fed is.

Sophi: 00:05:33

They don't know that fiat is not backed by gold anymore,

Sophi: 00:05:37

and it hasn't been since 1971.

Sophi: 00:05:40

So how do you get people to shift the way that they are thinking about something

Sophi: 00:05:45

that they, you know, have been thinking about for so long and change it to this

Sophi: 00:05:51

Bitcoin thing, especially when the space is muddled with so much garbage, like

Sophi: 00:05:59

all of the crypto stuff and the scammers and the NFTs and all of these things

Sophi: 00:06:03

that have nothing to do with crypto, but they all get lumped in because we, you

Sophi: 00:06:08

know, we as a society have a difficult time understanding nuance, so, that's,

Sophi: 00:06:13

that's where I think that I can make a difference in Bitcoin and I can actually

Sophi: 00:06:19

step in and be like, okay, this is how we're gonna teach the next generation.

Sophi: 00:06:24

This is how we're gonna teach even the older generation how, how to

Sophi: 00:06:29

shift their paradigm on money.

Sophi: 00:06:31

This is how we're going to translate it and chew it up so

Sophi: 00:06:35

that it is easier to digest.

Tali: 00:06:38

Yeah, that is definitely sorely needed.

Tali: 00:06:42

And if you make it something that is easily shareable, like

Tali: 00:06:46

entertaining, shareable, then it has a chance to go viral, you know?

Tali: 00:06:52

And I think that's, that's so cool.

Tali: 00:06:54

And I can't wait to tell my girls to check you out.

Tali: 00:06:57

'Cause uh, I think they would get a real kick out of the, the information out

Tali: 00:07:02

there and they'll learn something and they can share it with your friends.

Tali: 00:07:05

That's one of the things that I was really just trying to figure out how

Tali: 00:07:09

to do is, you know, I, as I mentioned before, my husband created a board game

Tali: 00:07:14

and I brought the game actually onto campus to try to get kids involved.

Tali: 00:07:19

But I feel like your content would be, easier to share actually,

Tali: 00:07:24

you know, 'cause it's, it's short and it's, it's to the point.

Tali: 00:07:28

And then if they get curious, the game can maybe help them understand the

Tali: 00:07:32

nuances of the technical side of it.

Tali: 00:07:34

But man, just to get them interested, that is really, really key.

Sophi: 00:07:39

Yeah.

Sophi: 00:07:39

I think that if you can make somebody laugh, or understand something in

Sophi: 00:07:44

less than a minute, then you've, you've, you've done something great.

Sophi: 00:07:48

I think that's the reason why Twitter is such a popular platform and such

Sophi: 00:07:53

an effective way of communicating where, you know, at first it used to

Sophi: 00:07:57

be only 180 characters and people would be able to get huge ideas across and

Sophi: 00:08:01

jokes and just like powerful messages in these very short characters.

Sophi: 00:08:06

Whereas before you would have to write essays and long speeches and books

Sophi: 00:08:12

and this very long format and like all of that content for Bitcoin exists.

Sophi: 00:08:19

And I give it up to the people who have made it because, man, Bitcoin

Sophi: 00:08:24

is not an easy thing to explain, and there is so much depth and technicality

Sophi: 00:08:29

that my hat goes off to all of them.

Sophi: 00:08:31

But like I said, I, I think most people, especially in today's day and age, where

Sophi: 00:08:35

people are used to instant gratification, instant access to knowledge, instant...

Sophi: 00:08:40

like you, you wanna know something, you Google it.

Sophi: 00:08:43

If I can explain to someone what Bitcoin is in less than a minute, if

Sophi: 00:08:48

I can orange pill someone with five points and, and get them to at least

Sophi: 00:08:53

start turning the wheels and thinking about their monetary situation, then

Sophi: 00:08:59

I feel like I've done my job because I, I also like, then I leave it to the

Sophi: 00:09:03

experts who are good at deepening the knowledge and explaining all of the rest.

Sophi: 00:09:08

But my job is like, you know when you go to a club and like there's a

Sophi: 00:09:12

promoter at the door and the promoter's job is to like get girls and, and

Sophi: 00:09:16

people to come inside of the club and they're like, we have the best tables.

Sophi: 00:09:21

We're gonna have the best DJ we're gonna have.

Sophi: 00:09:23

That's, that's me.

Sophi: 00:09:25

And then we leave it to all, like ... is like the DJ, you know what I mean?

Sophi: 00:09:29

Like he'll like really like pull you into like the experience that is Bitcoin.

Sophi: 00:09:34

But you know, I just see myself as kind of the promoter and, and the

Sophi: 00:09:38

person who's gonna get you in the door.

Tali: 00:09:41

I love that analogy.

Tali: 00:09:43

That is so perfect.

Tali: 00:09:45

That's, I feel like I'm standing outside the club with you and I'm, I'm the

Tali: 00:09:48

one who's passing out the pamphlets.

Tali: 00:09:50

You know.

Sophi: 00:09:52

That's so funny.

Tali: 00:09:52

I, I'm like, you know, in baggy clothes and like, hey,

Tali: 00:09:55

would you like a, a, a pamphlet?

Tali: 00:09:57

I have some information for you.

Tali: 00:09:59

And then you'll be, you'll be like the sales person.

Tali: 00:10:01

And then once they get in, all the rest of the people can talk tech.

Sophi: 00:10:04

Exactly.

Tali: 00:10:05

I'm just the one who passes out the pamphlets.

Sophi: 00:10:07

Exactly.

Sophi: 00:10:08

No, we're we're passing out the wristbands.

Sophi: 00:10:10

We're like, here, you get a discount, you get SATs.

Sophi: 00:10:13

You get SATs.

Sophi: 00:10:14

You get SATs.

Tali: 00:10:15

I love that.

Tali: 00:10:16

I wanna ask you some questions about your upbringing because you mentioned that your

Tali: 00:10:19

parents are originally from Venezuela.

Tali: 00:10:22

Has being in sort of a bicultural family, you know, American and

Tali: 00:10:27

Venezuelan, did that influence how you perceive your sort of monetary

Tali: 00:10:34

interactions in day-to-day life?

Sophi: 00:10:37

At first, it didn't, at first, I, I'm gonna be honest with you, I just

Sophi: 00:10:41

never thought about money, because I, I mean, except for like, in the way

Sophi: 00:10:47

that most people would think about it.

Sophi: 00:10:48

Do we have it?

Sophi: 00:10:49

Do we not?

Sophi: 00:10:50

Are we gonna live like the next day?

Sophi: 00:10:52

But I never really thought about where money came from.

Sophi: 00:10:55

Even as the inflation crisis was hitting Venezuela, I just didn't

Sophi: 00:11:00

understand what that actually meant.

Sophi: 00:11:03

In my mind, I was like, well, an evil dictator has taken over the country, so

Sophi: 00:11:08

of course the economy is gonna do badly.

Sophi: 00:11:10

But I didn't understand the bridge between A and B.

Sophi: 00:11:14

I didn't understand what it was that the government was doing and what

Sophi: 00:11:18

nationalization was doing to our country to make the currency inflate.

Sophi: 00:11:24

And you know, to make basically corruption devalue our, our currency.

Sophi: 00:11:30

So I never really thought about it from that point of view until

Sophi: 00:11:34

I understood what Bitcoin was.

Sophi: 00:11:36

And when I understood Bitcoin, I started going back to my upbringing.

Sophi: 00:11:42

I started, I started understanding, wow, okay.

Sophi: 00:11:45

So they started printing more money to pay off more people to, 'cause it

Sophi: 00:11:49

was a corrupt government and the more people they paid off, the more dollars

Sophi: 00:11:54

they stole from other reserves because the, the ... was backed by the dollar.

Sophi: 00:11:59

And then, you know, when they ran out of dollars, they had to print

Sophi: 00:12:02

more money so that the dollars would be worth more ... then I understood,

Sophi: 00:12:08

wow, they're doing something very similar in the United States.

Sophi: 00:12:12

How could that be?

Sophi: 00:12:13

We don't have a corrupt government or, so I thought, and then that,

Sophi: 00:12:18

that all started making sense.

Sophi: 00:12:19

But at first my upbringing didn't really clue me in to any of this stuff because

Sophi: 00:12:25

I was just, I was living in a bubble.

Sophi: 00:12:28

I didn't know what was going on, and I was very, I just didn't know.

Tali: 00:12:32

What about your parents living in America and being able to see

Tali: 00:12:37

what's going on here just on the edge of what Venezuela has gone through?

Tali: 00:12:42

Do they talk to you about their experience and give you some like recommendations

Tali: 00:12:49

or are they just watching it and thinking there's nothing they can do about it?

Sophi: 00:12:54

Well, So there's a couple of things there.

Sophi: 00:12:57

My parents came to this country in the eighties when the United States

Sophi: 00:13:03

was at the peak of its economic performance, and so they had no idea

Sophi: 00:13:10

that that, you know what, what has happened in the last 20 years happened.

Sophi: 00:13:16

Even today, they're very much in denial that the dollar could collapse or

Sophi: 00:13:22

that the government is corrupt because they've seen it in such an extreme

Sophi: 00:13:27

version in their country that they cannot fathom that it would happen here.

Sophi: 00:13:32

Even though, you know, people, people are people and people make mistakes and,

Sophi: 00:13:37

and nobody is immune to sin, you know.

Sophi: 00:13:39

So, and power corrupts, you know, everybody.

Sophi: 00:13:43

So for them it was very difficult to, and now I've orange pilled them a lot

Sophi: 00:13:48

and they're coming to terms with it.

Sophi: 00:13:50

But for them it was very, very difficult to accept that this

Sophi: 00:13:55

was happening here as well.

Sophi: 00:13:57

And, and they still believe in the institutions.

Sophi: 00:13:59

They, they, they grew up in, in the height of it.

Sophi: 00:14:02

Again, it's what I was mentioning before, it's hard to shift someone's

Sophi: 00:14:06

perspective when they've grown up knowing one thing their whole life and

Sophi: 00:14:11

they were, they grew up thinking that the United States was the greatest

Sophi: 00:14:16

country in the world, and it still is.

Sophi: 00:14:18

And because it's the greatest country in the world, they thought it was

Sophi: 00:14:21

immune to what's happening now with all of the money printing and the

Sophi: 00:14:26

corruption at a government level.

Sophi: 00:14:28

So it was, it's difficult for them.

Sophi: 00:14:31

I have to constantly kind of provide proof of what's happening.

Sophi: 00:14:35

I have to tell them about bricks.

Sophi: 00:14:37

I have to tell them about the CDBCs and FedNow, and everything that's happening,

Sophi: 00:14:43

they just, they, they don't believe it.

Sophi: 00:14:45

It's difficult for them to come to terms with it because they already had to

Sophi: 00:14:48

come to terms with it in their country, and so for them to have worked so hard

Sophi: 00:14:53

to come to the United States, it's hard to go through that trauma again.

Tali: 00:14:59

Thanks for joining us today and learning with us today.

Tali: 00:15:02

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

Tali: 00:15:06

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

Tali: 00:15:10

Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club.

Tali: 00:15:12

The meetup link is in the show notes.

Tali: 00:15:14

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

Tali: 00:15:18

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