"Bitcoin: A Beacon of Hope"

In this episode, Carri and I dive into the world of Bitcoin and explore why it's more than just a digital currency; it's a symbol of hope and change.

1. Gold's Shadow: We begin by discussing how growing up in a family that valued gold as the ultimate safe haven made Bitcoin's potential stand out. It's not just about preserving wealth; it's about reshaping our future.

2. Beyond Wealth Preservation: Bitcoin offers something gold doesn't: a chance to transform individuals and society. It's not just a store of value; it's a world-changing technology.

3. A Personal Journey: Discover how Bitcoin became a personal journey of redemption for Carri, providing hope after years of doom and gloom.

4. Resilience Through History: We explore the stories of resilience in the face of adversity from the Holocaust to wartime experiences and how Bitcoin represents a new form of resilience in the financial world.

5. Finding a Community: Learn about the diverse and passionate Bitcoin community and how it offers a sense of belonging and shared purpose.

6. The "Cult" of Math: We address the simplicity of mathematics grounds our belief in Bitcoin.

Join us as we unravel the emotional and transformative aspects of Bitcoin, reminding us that even in uncertain times, there's always room for hope and optimism.

Carri's Contact Info:

Twitter: @carri_cee

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Bitcoin-People/videos

To learn more about Bitcoin: Join the Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club.  Visit https://www.meetup.com/womensbitcoinreadingclubwithorangehatter

Please email questions/comments to tali@orangehatter.com

HODL UP is available at www.freemarketkids.com.

Remember: Knowledge is empowerment! 🍊🎩

Mentioned in this episode:

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Hey, everybody.

2

Welcome to Orange Hatter.

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I've gotten some feedback to upload the

interviews in one episode instead of

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multiple episodes so that you can Listen

to the conversation from beginning to end.

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Let me know if you would preferred the

other way we're experimenting we're

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growing and we'll see how this goes.

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Today's episode is with Carrie

and she is based in Australia

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.

Carrie sees Bitcoin as a way to help her heal from a very negative

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world outlook that she inherited

and has given her so much hope, not

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only for herself, but for her son.

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So I hope you enjoyed the conversation.

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Welcome Carrie to Orange Hatter.

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I am so excited to have you here and I

can't wait to dive into our conversation.

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Carri: I am so happy to be here, Tali.

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It's so gorgeous to meet you.

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We've been in contact for a little

bit and I'm used to being on the

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other side and asking the questions.

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So, it's quite the novelty

for me to be a guest and to be

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answering questions for a change.

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So, thank you for the opportunity.

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Tali: Absolutely.

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I'm going to ask you

all kinds of questions.

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We'll start with would you mind

just sharing with us a little bit

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of information on your background?

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Carri: Oh, wow.

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Oh, where does one even start with that?

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The, the background plotted

history goes something like this.

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Born in the UK up till the age

of nine moved to Australia.

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My early career was financial markets.

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I was in stockbroking for almost a decade.

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Didn't like it, didn't enjoy it.

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It was during the kind of Wolf of Wall

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And I was put through a presentation

skills course, found my calling, the

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clouds parted, the, the angels sang, and

I went, this is what I want to do with my.

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life, and I became a

presentation skills trainer.

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And later, I moved into difficult

conversations, influencing skills, writing

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skills, business communication skills.

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And I did that for about

30 years up until COVID.

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When in the city of the longest lockdowns

in the world here in Melbourne, Australia.

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My business really got smashed.

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I, I was able to transfer to online

for the first year of lockdowns, but

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in the second year clients were saying,

Oh, we'd actually like to book in

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live again now that we're opening up.

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So we would book in.

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And then we would shut down again

and so we would cancel and then this

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went on and then the year after that,

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just trying to organize, getting back

into the offices and doing things like

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wellbeing and stress management coaching,

which I'm not terribly interested

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in that again, a lot of the business

communications was put to one side.

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And in that time I had discovered Bitcoin

and I had discovered libertarianism

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and I had found myself a new passion

and a new love and really started.

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a new business and that just

about brings us up to date.

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Almost, almost six decades in

hopefully less than six minutes.

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Tali: Wonderful summary.

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Let's let's rewind and go back to that

time during COVID when you were facing

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the transition with your job market

because of the lockdowns and you're

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discovering Bitcoin at the same time.

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Like go into a little bit

more detail about that time.

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Carri: So what happened there was

that in that second year, I started

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to realize that I might need a

different source of income over time.

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I hadn't given up on the business by

any stretch, but I had restarted that

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business several times over the years.

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So I had Well, when I first started, I

was working for someone else in Sydney

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and I had to build the client base.

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Then I moved to Melbourne and set

up offices for him and had to start

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a new client base in Melbourne.

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And then I left him on very, very

positive terms, but I wanted to broaden

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out from just presentation skills.

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And so when I left him and went

out on my own, I had to start

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again and create a new client base.

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And then when I had my

son I've only got the one.

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And things went very slow for kind

of six months and it was really a

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matter of having to restart again.

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So by the time 2022 came around

and I was in my mid fifties,

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I really wasn't up for it.

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And I, I had always wanted,

I will be absolutely honest.

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It was a great business and I loved it and

I loved the training, but I was tired with

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the sales and the marketing side of life.

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And to be honest, I'd always wondered what

it would be like to do something else.

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Or was I going to simply do this

till the day I died, you know?

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And it was a perfectly noble and

good, you know, like I know I've

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changed lives in that business.

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So.

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It's very attractive, but it was also

kind of golden handcuffs and I always

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wondered if I had it in me to start

something new and a girlfriend of mine

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had done very well in the 2018 bull run.

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She had been trading alt coins and done

extremely well and gotten out at the

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right time and as a single mom of two

boys, one of whom was best friends with

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my my boy and a single mom and a nurse

had just gone and bought her dream house.

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on the back of her profits.

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And I went, that sounds like a great gig.

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So then I started trading altcoins

and didn't have her, A, her guidance,

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cause she had someone helping

her a little bit, a friend, and

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B her instincts, whatever it was.

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And so I lost.

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money on altcoins.

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And at that stage, I'd started to

understand the difference with Bitcoin.

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I'd started to listening

to different speakers.

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Mostly they were talking about altcoins,

but every so often a Bitcoin speaker

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would sneak through and I'd start to

understand the difference with Bitcoin.

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And I started to understand

what Bitcoin was.

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And I got really intrigued.

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It just captured my imagination.

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And then through the Bitcoin community

and listening to Bitcoiners, particularly

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someone like Robert Breedlove, I

learned the word libertarianism.

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And I got really intrigued . I

Googled to see if there was a

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libertarian party in Australia.

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And there was.

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So then I joined the libertarian party.

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So I found myself caught up in a very

new world and had found myself quite

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isolated because I'd had a different

take on the pandemic and the lockdowns

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and the mandates than many of my

friends and I found myself a little

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isolated and so I guess I found a

new community in the Bitcoin and the

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libertarian movements between them.

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And so that helped to get me involved

and I think just it lit my imagination,

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it lit my heart, it lit my soul.

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There was just something about what

this could do for humanity that really

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resonated with me and at the risk of

just being extremely long winded and

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just to give you a bit of backstory

that I haven't included at this

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stage, I was brought up by a gold bug.

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So my mother was hyper aware of

issues to do with debt, to do with

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what happened when we came off the

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stopped being backed by gold at all.

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And she had painted a very, very

bleak picture for me over the years.

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So and really gold was the only

investment that she trusted

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and for all the right reasons.

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And so I already, once I started hearing

about Bitcoin, not only did I connect very

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quickly, with the problems that it solved.

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But I also saw a much more hopeful

picture for humanity than I had

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seen at any point in my life.

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Even with gold, because I

didn't see gold as hope.

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I saw gold as a potential escape, as a

way of maintaining value when the rest of

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currency went to zero in purchasing power.

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But I did not see it as hope for humanity.

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Bitcoin not only has the capacity

to maintain purchasing power

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against fiat, like gold, but it

is transformative in terms of what

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it does for us as individuals and

therefore for society as a whole.

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And it's a deeply, deeply

powerful, world changing technology

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like the internet on steroids.

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Tali: so let's dig a little bit deeper.

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You said that when you came

across Bitcoin, you felt that

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it lit you up heart and soul.

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Tell us more about that.

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Carri: Where do I start with that?

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I think different speakers helped me

understand different aspects of it.

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So I would listen to, and I will say

that One of the first people to orange

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pill me was Robert Breedlove and his

series on zero and the idea of zero

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and how transformative that was when

they discovered the digit zero, the

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idea of zero, how it gave everything

from perspective to paintings to

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transforming our capacity with math.

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Et cetera.

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So that was a really, I don't think

that was a starting point for me, but I

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know his philosophizing around Bitcoin

really made me think about money and

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think about the world and money as the

underpinning of society really deeply.

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And I really love being challenged

mentally and being presented

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with something brand new.

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We watch movies, we listen to

books, we listen to podcasts

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and so much is regurgitation and

formulaic and same old, same old.

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And so I loved being presented with

something absolutely brand new.

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I was listening to Alex Glanstein.

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And he was presenting to me the case

for how the IMF and the World Bank

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exploit the Global South and transfer

wealth from the weakest and the poorest

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to the strongest and the richest.

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And so to get that global perspective was

really Really, Alex Gladstein, for many

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Bitcoiners, is a hero, and really and

appeals as much to the left as the right.

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It's not a partisan issue, the

way that Bitcoin can sometimes

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appear to be, and it really isn't.

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And in terms of how it transforms

humanity, appeals, or should at least

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appeal, to the left and the right equally.

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And I was, I've also spoken to Lisa

Hough and she has no interest in

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uptake at the institutional level

because she can see what it does at

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the environmental level and the usage

of stranded energy and cleaning up.

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If anything, it's got a, what I'm going to

say, a negative impact on the environment

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has a negative footprint, not negative as

in bad, but negative as in reducing carbon

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emissions, which is quite the antithesis

of how it's popularly understood.

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And so I found each of those aspects

as I've delved into the energy side, as

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I've delved into the philosophy side, as

I've delved into the humanitarian side.

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Each one of those in their own

right has lit something within me.

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And, and then of course there's the

macro side and listening to people

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like Lyn Alden and Preston Pysh and

understanding the pieces that I already

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had some understanding of in terms of

excessive debt and money printing and

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the, and governments printing money to

paper over their problems to kick the

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can down the road, ever increasing the

debt to the next generation and the next

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generation and the next generation, such

that life just gets harder and harder and

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harder as each year goes by as they go.

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create inflation, even if it doesn't

look like it's very high inflation

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rate, it compounds, and it makes

life hard for us individually.

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And it makes life exponentially harder

for the next generation, and even

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more so for the generation after that.

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And then to hear someone as

intelligent as Lynn Alden, talk

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about how Bitcoin fixes this, With

as a scarce resource that cannot be

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inflated, that cannot be printed.

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that may not turn everybody on,

but for me, that is a tremendously

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exciting discussion and proposition.

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Yep.

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Tali: Yeah, I didn't hear about Bitcoin

until Scott was really nudging me about

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it, a few years back, but I was listening

to Robert Kiyosaki's book called why

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A students work for C students and

B students work for the government.

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And in that book, he talked

about the elephant in the room,

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which is the national debt.

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And I remember listening to that

book and thinking how in the

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world are we going to solve this?

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Because at the time, this

was, this was 10 years ago.

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So it's been a while.

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But I didn't know about Bitcoin back then.

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And there's, like, you look at this

huge problem and you just, you can't

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even wrap your head around what

the solution could possibly be.

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And then we find Bitcoin.

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So.

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Carri: And how hopeless would

life be without Bitcoin?

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And I will say this on a very personal

note, being brought up by a gold bug

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and being told every single conversation

from the age of five and probably less,

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that The world is terrible and there's

no hope and Western civilization is

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broken and is doomed and I suffered with

terrible depression for many years and

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a lot of it was because of this sense of

doom and gloom and that there really was

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no hope and that There was no way out.

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And so perhaps for me, part of

the excitement of discovering

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Bitcoin was, it was quite personal.

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It wasn't just the global South.

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It wasn't just debt.

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It wasn't just the next generation and

all those kind of altruistic things.

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There was something very

personal in it for me, that.

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When I say it was the first hope I

had in over 50 years, I really mean

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that at a, in a deeply personal way.

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And as someone who's Jewish and was

brought up with stories of the Holocaust,

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and my mother was brought up in the UK

being bombed, and I've told this story a

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couple of different places, but you know,

her brothers were fighting in the war.

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They were both pilots, I

think, or one might've been.

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Air Force and one might have been Navy.

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I might have that wrong.

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And you know, cousin in

concentration camp, et cetera.

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And Really, part of her whole, my

whole upbringing was the West is

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going to hell in a hand basket.

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People turn on each other when things get

ugly and Jews will be blamed and vilified.

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And so there was a very personal

aspect to all of what was going on

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with money printing and with debt.

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It felt like the world was

a very dangerous place.

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I never really got past that.

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And Bitcoin.

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started to help to heal me.

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And part of that is the

hope of the protocol itself.

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And part of it is the community who

perceive the world in a not dissimilar way

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to me, and a sense of finding my tribe.

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But it's a very broad

and very diverse tribe.

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I've been toying recently, as I

think as we all do, when we first

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encounter Bitcoin, is this a cult?

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Am I falling for something here?

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And then someone like Greg Foss is so

helpful here when he goes, it's just math.

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And you go, okay, so

I'm in the cult of math.

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I can live with that.

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To the degree that math is a cult.

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That's apparently the cult I'm a part of.

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Tali: So let's do a really high

level bird's eye view comparison

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between gold and Bitcoin.

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Carri: I.

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I'm just going to be quoting here

multiple other people, none of these

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are original thoughts, but there

are certain key characteristics when

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you look at the history of money,

of what rises to the top as money.

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So, At first, you can just start

with kind of a credit based system

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where we're on a small community and

I shoe horses and you bake bread.

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Now, I shoe your horse and I know

that you owe me bread for a year.

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So, maybe.

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I don't know how much it costs to

shoe a horse, but let's imagine.

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And that's okay as long as I know you

and you know me and we trust each other.

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Or maybe you've got an apple orchard

and it's seasonal and you can give me a

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hundred apples, but I can't get through

them all and they're going to rot.

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So what starts to happen either when

we start trading with, and this is

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very, this is so beautifully summarized

in Lyn Alden's latest book Broken

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Money, really recommend to anybody.

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But anyway Once you start trading with

other villages where you don't know and

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trust the people, or where it's going to

be transactional and there isn't going

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to be a long term relationship, or where

the apples simply don't work as currency.

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Then we start to need a trusted

third what do we call it?

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A third currency whereby we

can transact in something that

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we can both hold and value.

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and trust.

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And that's been many

things over the years.

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It's been everything from grain,

and soy, and salt, through to, so

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consumables, through to shells, and

glass beads, and then eventually

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metals, copper, silver, gold.

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The reason why grains and consumables

don't work is if they're in high demand.

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people simply grow more

and then it loses value.

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It's being devalued in the market.

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Well, I can just grow my own grain.

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You can grow your own grain.

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Why do I need yours?

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It's no, it has no value to me.

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So then you move to kind of glass

beads and shells and shells that

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were polished in a particular way

and became a form of, of coinage.

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But again, That can be mass produced

by people with better technology who

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can make glass beads or shells in a

faster more efficient way or they've

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got greater access to it and now

suddenly they are in effect the money

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printer and they've got an unfair

advantage over the rest of society.

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So that's why people moved more and

more towards metals, copper, silver,

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gold, and ultimately gold because it

has multiple multiple characteristics

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that have emerged over time naturally

as being attractive in a currency.

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One of them is equally valued.

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It's fungible.

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My one gold ounce is the

same as your one gold ounce.

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It's we can verify it.

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We, we can weigh it and we can cut

it in half and we can melt it down

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and make sure that it really is gold.

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We can divide it to a certain degree,

although probably not small enough

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to go and buy a pint of milk, where

we're really shaving tiny amounts

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off, but we can divide it down just to

buy, you know, a hundred apples, say.

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So it really, and most importantly, scarce

and difficult to dig out of the ground.

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Just, and so there's enough that's

in circulation that's in stock on the

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surface of the earth that it can work

as a currency, but there's not so much

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coming out of the ground each year.

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that it's going to devalue all the gold

that's all currently on the market.

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So that's why gold won't put so long.

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And then what happened is gold has a

couple of really impractical aspects.

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One is the divisibility and

the other is transportability.

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So if I go to trade with Russia in

oil, or if I go to my next door village.

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I've got to get past Robin Hood with

my gold and he's going to steal it.

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Or if I do it by ship, the

pirates are going to steal it.

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It's very impractical and it's very slow.

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So in terms of gold versus Bitcoin, which

was the original question that I'm now

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coming back to having gotten on a bit of

a tangent of the history of money in terms

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of gold versus Bitcoin, what we've got.

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is some characteristics

absolutely in common.

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It is scarce.

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It is actually even scarcer than

gold in as much as its fixed supply.

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There will only ever be 21 million

of them as written into the original

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protocol and it can't be changed.

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And we can get into the security

aspects of why it can't be changed,

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but it really cannot be changed.

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There's the divisibility.

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So now, beyond gold, not only is it

fungible and therefore I can swap it

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with you and one Bitcoin is one Bitcoin

and there's no differentiation, plus

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I can verify it through my own node

and I know that that is real Bitcoin.

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Plus it takes effort to

pull out of the ground.

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So mining Bitcoin is a very difficult

process that requires huge, what

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we call proof of work, which is

energy usage to guess, announce, to

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mine the Bitcoin, to hash a piece

of Bitcoin currency, as it were.

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So All of that, it has in

common with gold, but it has

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two additional characteristics.

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One is the divisibility, because

each Bitcoin is split into a hundred

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million Satoshis, which are very,

very minuscule amounts that you can

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use for day-to-day transactions of

the smallest good or service for a

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single apple with negligible fees.

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like transaction fees,

but it's also portable.

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So if I want to buy Russian oil, I can

get Bitcoin to Russia instantaneously

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and nobody can steal it and nobody can

interject and we don't need what happens

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with something like gold over time.

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The way they tried to get around the

transportability factor was to leave it

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in the bank and then to issue certificates

against it that were as good as gold.

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Yeah, that could be redeemed at

the at a bank at the other end.

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What starts to happen is.

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You can print paper certificates in

a way that you can at a greater rate

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than the gold and so you've got way

more certificates in circulation

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diluting in value versus the gold

that's actually being held in the bank.

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And so the certificates or what became

fiat over time because there was no longer

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any gold held against it as of 1971.

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And you could argue earlier than that.

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Suddenly that paper can be

printed and become worthless

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and that's what we're seeing.

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And so that's what's always going

to happen with gold because of

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that problem with transportability.

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It's always going to lead to

certificates and those certificates

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are always going to be dilutable.

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printable and dilutable in value.

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Whereas Bitcoin, there's

no trusted third party.

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They call it trustless, which

doesn't mean you don't trust it.

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It means you don't have to trust

anything else except the protocol,

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which you can validate for yourself.

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And it's open source and you can

see the programming and you can

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see the kind of the software

I've lost the correct word for it.

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But everything is open.

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And we've never had anything like this.

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What we've always had is approximations

of money, something that we make do

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with as money, but it doesn't really

perfectly meet all of the criteria

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of what we now understand money

needs to be to work effectively.

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And that's why Bitcoin is often referred

to as digital gold because it has

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all those positive characteristics

of gold and none of the shortcomings.

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Tali: That was a really,

really wonderful summary.

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Thank you so much for that.

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That's so helpful.

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Let's talk about the Bitcoin protocol

or really the Bitcoin community

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that has inspired you so much.

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Carri: The protocol itself,

I'm not, I'm not a coder.

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So I don't really get the tech as much

as I need to or want to and I've gone

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down rabbit holes where I've really

tried to understand it and understand

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SHA 256 and the cryptography and how

the difficulty adjustment works and how

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the actual hashing of Bitcoin works.

386

And I've kind of got broad general

principles without getting the detail.

387

Luckily I've made enough friends in

the Bitcoin community over time with

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people who are developers who can

explain that more to me and who I

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trust personally enough to trust them.

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And what they're telling me about

that in terms of the community.

391

I went down this rabbit hole very

much on my own to begin with you know,

392

really just off the back of that initial

contact with my friend who was trading,

393

but she wasn't a Bitcoiner per se.

394

She was a trader and she was a trader

of cryptocurrencies being the other 20,

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000, 30, 000 projects that are out there.

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that are entirely unrelated to Bitcoin.

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And that's an absolute must

to differentiate in the world.

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There's Bitcoin and then

there's everything else.

399

So I didn't really have anyone

and I was going down and I was

400

listening to these podcasts and I

was reading these books, et cetera.

401

And I heard advertised the

Miami Bitcoin conference

402

.

And I saw Michael Saylor was speaking there and Jack Mallers was speaking

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there and Lynn Alden was speaking

there and I was just hearing all

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these names and going, that is crazy.

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I have to go.

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I have to go.

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And so I booked myself

a flight from Australia.

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It's like 33 hours to Miami.

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It's this crazy long journey.

410

I was so jet lagged when

I got to the other end.

411

And It was the first time

meeting another Bitcoiner.

412

But not only meeting another

Bitcoiner, I met, what was it?

413

35, 000 other Bitcoiners.

414

And I was saying to you before

we hit record, I lost my voice.

415

I talked so much.

416

I found my people.

417

I loved every minute.

418

It's embarrassing to say, but I would

talk deep into the night about Austrian

419

economics and, and stranded energy.

420

Kind of all these crazy things and

gold and, you know, and, and kind of

421

and just different people's approaches

and it was just mind blowing for me.

422

I just loved it and then I came back

to Australia and I was alone again.

423

And I'm like, this is no good.

424

So I started a podcast so that I

could just meet other Bitcoiners.

425

And that podcast has been going for

just on or just over a year now.

426

And I meet daily Bitcoiners

and I've met some of my heroes.

427

I've gotten to meet some of the

better known names in Bitcoin and.

428

It's now really kind of taken

over my life to a distressing

429

level for my husband and son.

430

But you know, it's given me a

new lease of life in middle age

431

and that can't be a bad thing.

432

You know, it's given me a whole

new, I seem to have these hobbies

433

that go for 10 to 15 years.

434

So at one stage it was self development

and psychology and, and spirituality.

435

Spirituality continues, I must say,

but I was really intensely into

436

all of that for about 15 years.

437

And I was really into dancing

for about 12 years or so.

438

And I was really deeply into

motorcycling for, again, about 10 years.

439

And now it's Bitcoin.

440

So I can see this totally taking over

for at least 10 to 15 years before

441

maybe something new comes into my life.

442

Like Satoshi Nakamoto, I might come

to a point where I go, I'm moving

443

on to other things, but I can't

see that in the foreseeable future.

444

Tali: So, how do they feel, your

husband and your son, how do they

445

feel about this particular hobby?

446

Carri: They tolerate it.

447

They tolerate it.

448

My...

449

Husband gets it, but unfortunately when

I was still trading crypto, I got him

450

into crypto and he got burned and so

he's very wary, even though he does

451

understand the difference with Bitcoin.

452

He's very wary of going anywhere

near it now, unfortunately.

453

He's also not someone who tends to

get hugely carried away with anything.

454

He's very stable and very You know,

even on a good day, even if he's

455

been out for a great motorbike ride

or a great ski or a great something,

456

he'll go, it was, it was good.

457

It was good.

458

I mean, I'd be just, I'd be jumping

out of my skin going, oh my god,

459

it's the most awesome day and I'm

full of hyperbole and noise and so

460

forth and he's just not that guy.

461

My son, I was actually really

interested the other day.

462

We went to the local market to

we were just we go there fairly

463

regularly on a Saturday morning.

464

And we went there, my son likes

to get a Kransky for lunch and

465

we'll have a wander around.

466

And my husband knows a lot of

the stallholders really well,

467

I'm a little less regular there.

468

And we chat with people and it's

a very hippie kind of market.

469

And there was one stall

there that took Bitcoin.

470

And so I went over there and I bought

myself a lemon meringue pie with

471

Bitcoin and ended up in conversation

with these guys and my son was with

472

me and they turned to him and said,

How do you feel about Bitcoin?

473

What do you think of it?

474

And he said, Oh, something

about I kind of understand it.

475

And they gave him a bit of a lecture.

476

They kind of indoctrinated.

477

Oh, it was amazing.

478

And they got it and the

gold and the whole thing.

479

And I went down that track and I got into

the car with him to come home and I went.

480

I don't know how much I should

be talking with him about it.

481

I don't want to put him off.

482

I know that when your parents talk to

you about something, if it's their hobby,

483

that's kind of, it's quite off putting.

484

I certainly had that experience as a kid.

485

So I tried to shield him from it a

little bit, but like you, he edits my

486

shows, so he's exposed to it, whether

he likes it or not, to some degree.

487

But he he got in the car and he said,

yeah, no, this is what I get about it.

488

And I only got the 21 million cap

and therefore it can't be printed and

489

therefore it can't create inflation.

490

And he gave me a two minute summary

and I went, okay, that's good enough.

491

I don't need him or want

him to get more than that.

492

I would love him to go heavily down

the rabbit hole and do a thesis But

493

he's got his whole life, and if

I shove it down his throat too

494

much at this age, I'm bound to be

counterproductive in my, in my efforts.

495

So I do my best to refrain and then

I just go to Bitcoin meetups and

496

I talk at a million miles an hour.

497

And so we've got about a monthly

Meet up down here in Melbourne.

498

Quarterly, we've got a Bitcoin bush

bash in the regional areas of Australia.

499

We rotate between Queensland, New

South Wales and Victoria and the

500

regional areas of those states.

501

And so I try and get myself along

to as many of those as possible.

502

So I'm meeting up with Bitcoiners and,

you know, and then just interacting

503

with them on Twitter and so forth.

504

And they're the people who I try to

release my pent up enthusiasm with.

505

Tali: So, what is the

community like there?

506

Is it pretty large?

507

Is it very small?

508

What is it like in Melbourne and

those four places that you travel to?

509

Carri: Yeah, really good question

and funny enough, it's a question

510

I ask people when I'm speaking to

them around the world on my podcast.

511

So I've tried to ask, you know, to get

a sense of it in Bulgaria and Namibia

512

and Nigeria Eastern Europe, et cetera.

513

And it's really difficult

to know or to tell.

514

I can tell you that just at our Bitcoin

Only conference last year, there was

515

maybe 300 people, but of course we

know only a very small section of

516

the Bitcoin community can actually

physically turn up to these things.

517

Many people are just holding and they have

high conviction, but that doesn't mean

518

that they're showing up to these events.

519

We've got...

520

I would say a smallish, so at the

bush bashes, we would end up, I mean,

521

bearing in mind, Australia is not a huge

population, and the bush bashes are hard

522

to get to, deliberately, proof of work,

you better find a way to get there.

523

So they're in these kind of quite

out of the way, remote towns.

524

So I would say, you get maybe 50

regulars at those and then at the

525

local Bitcoin meetup, there would

be probably an average of 20.

526

But I do know that in the Melbourne

community, I know quite a lot

527

of folk who don't show up to

the meetups on a regular basis.

528

So there's a lot of hidden Bitcoiners

who I'm not aware of and it takes time

529

to get to know the community and what I

like about it is that the people who are

530

there are very I'm going to say still

early adopters to the degree that even

531

now, I would consider we are all early

adopters and they're hugely enthusiastic

532

and everybody's doing their bit.

533

Everybody's actually in the industry,

or most of us are in the industry

534

in some way, shape, or form.

535

If we're running our own podcast

or building an exchange, you

536

know, running an exchange.

537

Or in some capacity involved in

building out the Bitcoin network,

538

whether that's the social layer.

539

Or whether that's the physical railways,

or whether that's at the lightning

540

development, which is layer two apps

everyone's involved in some way.

541

And that's the nature of the, a little

bit like I'm assuming the internet

542

community was in the early days.

543

before it was just everyone and you never

needed to look, you don't need to look

544

under the hood of the internet anymore.

545

At this stage, the early adopters are

people who have looked under the hood

546

of either macroeconomics or technology

and that seems to be the crowd.

547

And I would say that's reflective

of my discussions with Folk in

548

various countries around the world.

549

It's still relatively small, but there's

200 million wallet holders out there.

550

That's a lot of people who own at least a

tiny bit of Bitcoin for whatever reason.

551

They may not be all in with

the high conviction of what

552

it is and what it can do.

553

But there's enough and the adoption

that we're now seeing more broadly

554

across politicians and institutions

and high net worth individuals and it

555

there's a real groundswell going on now.

556

And.

557

We can still, the small person, the little

person, you and I can still front run

558

the big institutions in a way that has

never been possible in human history.

559

And that's really powerful and I think

the people in the community at the

560

moment understand that and feel really

privileged and many of them deliberately

561

keep their heads down and maintain

privacy and don't want to be seen or

562

heard in the public sphere because they

feel very strongly that this is going

563

to be a multi million dollar asset.

564

A single Bitcoin will be worth multi

millions and they don't want to stand out

565

in the community as being that person.

566

I'm so worried about that in my lifetime.

567

Tali: That will be very exciting.

568

Carri: It would be very exciting.

569

Tali: Yeah, let's talk about...

570

The transformative aspect, you have

mentioned that earlier, that it not

571

only is changing the way you look

at money, but it literally changes

572

the way you look at everything.

573

Carri: Yes.

574

So there's a number of different angles

where we could come at with this.

575

Once you start understanding money as a

core piece of communication of how people

576

transact with one another and the trust

we need in money in order to transact, so

577

really a base layer of the basic economics

of society, even about a society.

578

Once you understand that it represents

trust and that once the money is broken,

579

the trust is broken and the schism that

we're seeing in society and that we're

580

seeing play out in the culture wars

on Twitter and other social media and

581

frankly in the mainstream media as well.

582

And you start to see all of that as

a function of a broken money system.

583

And once you start to see the corruption

in government and the lobbying groups,

584

and I'm going to say it, big pharma

and the, and big media and big tech

585

and the crony capitalism, that is all a

function of what we call the Cantillian

586

effect, which is those closest to the

money printer benefit the most because

587

they Get the deals with the government.

588

They, if they're in the big finance, so

financial institutions are part of that.

589

And the people in those industries can

go out and spend the money on assets

590

like shares, property, gold, etc.

591

And so they can outstrip Inflation and

value of their assets goes up faster

592

than the rate of inflation and then

eventually inflation dribbles down to

593

the day in and day out goods and the

people who have been unable to invest,

594

who are unable to invest in assets.

595

and are just living paycheck to

paycheck, and now they're being

596

pummeled by inflation, and the

cost of living is going up and up.

597

And so the whole way in which you see

society becomes a representation of

598

what corrupt money has done to society.

599

And so I'm, I get caught up in the

culture wars and I have some very strong

600

opinions about lockdowns and mandates.

601

And it's not that I'm immune to this.

602

When I'm involved, when I'm looking

at Bitcoin and thinking about the

603

money and you go, it is absolutely

understandable how we got to this point.

604

And nobody is to blame except the money

printing over years and years and years.

605

And that's got absolutely nothing

to do with one party or the other.

606

Both parties do it equally.

607

So there's absolutely no

partisan angle on this.

608

Literally both parties do it.

609

Both parties are guilty.

610

And we suffer as a result and the

breakdown in society as a function of it.

611

So it does help to understand the

world in a bigger picture way.

612

And it doesn't mean I'm immune to being

petty and small minded and irritable.

613

. So that's one way in which it changes

things, the hopefulness at the

614

personal level, a sense of optimism.

615

At the personal level, it's for

me, it's about the community

616

and finding like minded people

and that's how it's changed me.

617

But at the societal level.

618

It feels like I have greater hope,

frankly, for my son and for his

619

generation, that things could change

for the positive in his lifetime.

620

And that to the degree that we might be in

a fourth turning now and a crisis period.

621

that we won't come out of for

a decade because that's how

622

long a fourth turning goes for.

623

So for anyone who's listening and doesn't

know what I'm referring to, there's a

624

book called The Fourth Turning that talks

about generations that go, it's that

625

it's kind of the story but it's much More

deeply elaborated in the book and quite

626

thoughtful and quite a sophisticated but

really the way that it often gets summed

627

up is strong men create good times.

628

Good times create weak men.

629

Weak men create bad times.

630

Bad times create strong men.

631

So that's the kind of concept and

we are at a time where we have had

632

weak men who have created bad times.

633

Weak men in government printing and we're

now in those bad times and a crisis period

634

at the societal and the economic level.

635

And I'm hopeful that by the time

my son is hitting the workforce

636

and, maybe get married and have

kids, we're actually through the

637

other side of this crisis period.

638

And who knows how quickly

Bitcoin might take off.

639

And I'm not interested

in the price of it here.

640

I'm interested in global adoption.

641

And how it starts to create and we've

just seen the BRICS nations, which

642

is Brazil, Russia, India, China, and

my understanding is that a bunch.

643

In fact, I need to look

into this and read this up.

644

But I think a bunch of South

American nations have now joined

645

BRICS, including Argentina and so

forth, you know, Peru, Venezuela.

646

So.

647

They all want to trade with each other

in something other than US dollars.

648

Their currencies are worthless to each

other, so they need a different option.

649

So they're looking at things

like a basket of commodities

650

backed currency of some sort.

651

And I don't think it's

going to take them long.

652

I mean, you've already got El

Salvador who's using Bitcoin.

653

You've got a guy running for president, so

he's the nominee for One of the parties in

654

Argentina, who's a hardcore libertarian,

wants to see the size of government.

655

So I, and he's talking about Bitcoin.

656

So you're getting some big front running

politicians talking about, and you've got

657

it on both the left and right in America.

658

So you've got Robert Kennedy, Robert F.

659

Kennedy on the left and Vivek Rimaswamy

on the right, both talking about Bitcoin.

660

We could see this happen.

661

We could see this happen in our lifetime

and certainly we could see it in my son's

662

lifetime and that's in your children's

lifetime and that's really hopeful that

663

we could see from these bad times, we

could see some strong men come in and

664

create good times and so within another

generation or two, God willing, we'll have

665

a very different, very different society.

666

Tali: Yeah, Scott talks

about that book all the time.

667

He keeps referring to the fourth

turning and he quotes exactly the same

668

part of the book that you just did.

669

So,

670

Carri: It's the best way to summarize it.

671

Tali: yeah.

672

Any last suggestions or recommendations

for women who are sitting on the fence?

673

Carri: I would say it can sound

when we get into it like it's quite

674

complicated or there's a lot of

different aspects or that at some

675

level you need to understand economics

or you need to understand technology.

676

You really don't.

677

All you need to know is that it is

a revolutionary technology that you

678

may as well have a little bit of.

679

Just in case.

680

What the hey, throw 20 at it.

681

Throw 20 a week at it.

682

Something that if you don't have the

conviction that I do, you don't need it.

683

You just want to go, what if, what

if maybe there is something to this

684

thing and it's a little bit like

buying Amazon in the early days.

685

Or if you could buy a piece of internet.

686

in the early days?

687

Or if you really want to think

about it, if I could have bought

688

the money printer in the early days?

689

Or what if I could own a piece of, because

this is about transaction technology,

690

what if I owned a piece of the Visa,

MasterCard, PayPal industry, collectively?

691

Because this could replace all of it.

692

All of them.

693

What if I got in on that early?

694

And I just threw something at

it that I'm not afraid to lose.

695

Twenty dollars, maybe a hundred dollars.

696

Learn a little bit about just how to

onboard it and what's called self custody.

697

Just look after it myself so that nobody

else can ever touch it or ever take it

698

or ever steal it from me in any capacity.

699

And just little, little baby steps.

700

Little baby steps of just, you know,

learn a little bit about an exchange,

701

transfer a little bit of money across

to the exchange, buy a little bit of

702

Bitcoin, and then get it off and self

custody in a cold storage device.

703

If you could do each of those steps,

set up with an exchange, transfer

704

some money over, buy some Bitcoin,

get your Bitcoin off the exchange.

705

Those four steps, 20 bucks, go through

those four steps, do those four steps

706

half a dozen times until you've gotten

a little bit more familiar with the

707

process and it doesn't seem so scary.

708

And who knows, you may be

setting you, your children,

709

your grandchildren up for life.

710

Tali: Wonderful advice.

711

Thank you so much.

712

It was so much fun talking with you.

713

Thank you so much Hatter

and sharing your stories.

714

Carri: You're a delightful host.

715

Thank you so much for having me.