Airbnb Experience & Audience Age
Financial Concerns
Bitcoin and Volatility
Privacy & Security in Bitcoin
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https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/3362025
https://www.meetup.com/bitcoin-bootcamp/
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Please email questions/comments to Tali@orangehatter.com
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Free Market Kids Short
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Hi, everybody.
Tali:Welcome to part four of my conversation with Lindsay.
Lindsay:That starts to get into a, into a really dystopian kind of a world.
Tali:Well, my question is, why are they even charging US taxes
Tali:if they're taxing us through inflation already anyway, right?
Lindsay:Oh, that's the, that's the best theme on the internet.
Lindsay:Like, if, if taxes don't cause inflation, then why am I paying them?
Lindsay:Or other, if printing money doesn't cause inflation, then why am I paying taxes?
Lindsay:Yeah, but you'll, you'll never hear a good answer to that.
Tali:Yeah.
Tali:Well anyway, moving on, moving on.
Tali:You're doing this Airbnb experience and you mentioned that most of your
Tali:audience actually are older than you.
Lindsay:Oh, significantly.
Lindsay:Yeah.
Lindsay:The, the average age is probably 60 and up.
Tali:So much older than you, like grandparents' age?
Lindsay:Yes.
Lindsay:Yes.
Lindsay:Usually, usually they're prodded into, into it by a, you know,
Lindsay:a daughter or a, you know, a relative, um, younger relative.
Lindsay:But usually that person is, is priding 'em into it 'cause.
Lindsay:That person doesn't know very much about it.
Lindsay:They've just heard a little bit and be like, hey, maybe
Lindsay:this is worth looking into.
Lindsay:But yeah, it's, it's a lot of people who have some, you know, who have some
Lindsay:financial stress or are, you know, maybe they're, you know, they thought they had
Lindsay:a very comfortable retirement and they're seeing inflation go, go the way it is,
Lindsay:and they're just concerned that, you know, maybe, you know, maybe I need to
Lindsay:be worried like, you know what, I don't see a good, a good way to handle this.
Lindsay:I mean, If the stock market does well, I mean, that's great, but you know, then
Lindsay:my capital gains taxes go up and, you know, my withdrawals are still, you know,
Lindsay:I'm still worried about taking out too much and especially as, as volatility
Lindsay:goes up and the stock market is just, is, is just more volatile than, than
Lindsay:we were used to for that, you know, the second half of the, of the 20th century.
Lindsay:It's just, you know, it's scarier, more uncertain times now, and that seems
Lindsay:to be a, a, certainly an underlying reason that, that people come to me.
Tali:So I get a, a very common question from people in
Tali:that age group about Bitcoin.
Tali:If they are already, if they are convinced that Bitcoin is real, they
Tali:are still generally afraid to transfer their funds into Bitcoin because
Tali:of the wild price fluctuation, and they don't have time to write it out
Tali:as you know, a young person would.
Tali:So what do you tell them?
Tali:How would you address that question?
Lindsay:Sure.
Lindsay:So that is definitely, that's a question that I get every time.
Lindsay:And I, I actually have a section in my, in my, uh, experience about volatility.
Lindsay:And what I tell everyone is don't, don't invest in amount that
Lindsay:you're gonna be scared of losing.
Lindsay:Don't invest in amount that is going to make you worry if the price drops,
Lindsay:because just count on it that it will.
Lindsay:Put in, put in whatever you're comfortable with, you know, assess your risk tolerance
Lindsay:and put in, you know, if that's only 20 bucks right now, put in 20 bucks.
Lindsay:Like, and as you learn more, you will get more confident.
Lindsay:You'll understand better why this thing has such incredible long-term
Lindsay:potential and you don't need.
Lindsay:You don't need to have a lot to offset your risk.
Lindsay:Honestly, I think that, you know, if you're, if you put in 1% of your
Lindsay:net worth, I think that's going to protect the vast majority, if
Lindsay:not all of your net worth, because that we are so early in this game.
Lindsay:And more than that, I think you'll do very, very well.
Lindsay:But if you're going to, if you're gonna get, you know, if you're not
Lindsay:confident, you're gonna get scared.
Lindsay:The first time the, you know, the price drops 20% under you.
Lindsay:Like, then you've got too much.
Lindsay:Like you need to, don't be in a hurry.
Lindsay:Like take, take little baby steps at a time and as you feel more
Lindsay:confident, add more if you want to.
Lindsay:But to start out, just do just a little bit.
Lindsay:You don't need to jump in with both feet on the first day.
Tali:That is such a great answer.
Tali:I'm gonna use that going forward.
Tali:So what's a common question that you get from the young people who bring
Tali:in their, um, parents, grandparents.
Lindsay:Young people typ typically ask about like the security aspect of it.
Lindsay:And like, you know, can it be hacked, can it be stolen?
Lindsay:Can you, you know, your transactions can all be watched.
Lindsay:That kind of stuff.
Lindsay:And that is, That's a little bit harder of a question to answer just because, I
Lindsay:mean, the Bitcoin blockchain is public.
Lindsay:Every transaction that has ever happened, It's public.
Lindsay:You can go on and look there.
Lindsay:You don't know who these transactions were between.
Lindsay:They're all pretty anonymous addresses, but it's a legitimate question because
Lindsay:there are services and certainly you know, government agencies and
Lindsay:institutions that look into these and can kind of link addresses to identities.
Lindsay:And that has been a concern of Bitcoin for a long time.
Lindsay:With the advent of the Lightning Network, which is a layer two protocol
Lindsay:built on top, it batches transactions together, which makes your transaction
Lindsay:fees dramatically lower, and you can send a, a transaction on the Lightning
Lindsay:Network for, you know, a 10th of a penny.
Lindsay:That's pretty incredible anyway, and it batches all of
Lindsay:these transactions together.
Lindsay:And so then they, they're all processed essentially in one
Lindsay:transaction on, on the main chain.
Lindsay:And that adds a lot of, a lot of privacy to it.
Lindsay:As far as, and there are, there are more protocols being, being built.
Lindsay:There's a new one arc that I just heard about not too long
Lindsay:ago, which sounds pretty amazing.
Lindsay:And then like the whole protocol, there's just, there's an incredible amount of
Lindsay:innovation happening right now, especially considering how small the space is.
Lindsay:It's just, it's just mind blowing.
Lindsay:Anyway, so the, the privacy, the privacy issue is, Is definitely being
Lindsay:resolved in real time right now, and it's, it's dramatically better than
Lindsay:it was when Bitcoin was brand new.
Lindsay:And I think that in, within a couple of years, that will be, that
Lindsay:will be a, a complete non-issue.
Lindsay:It's already well on its way.
Lindsay:And today, if you did take, if you were willing to do a little bit of research
Lindsay:and take some extra steps, you can have pretty good privacy on Bitcoin networks,
Lindsay:certainly better than you can do in, with credit cards or debit cards or, you
Lindsay:know, any kind of electronic payments.
Lindsay:The other question with, to do with security...
Lindsay:I like to kind of point out that, you know, there are,
Lindsay:there are three, there are a few different ways of holding Bitcoin.
Lindsay:You can hold it in exchange, you know, you could buy it on, on
Lindsay:Coinbase and they hold it for you.
Lindsay:You can have a, like a multi-sig arrangement, uh, which we won't go
Lindsay:into that, that's kind of technical.
Lindsay:Or you can have it on a, on a hardware wallet.
Lindsay:You can have it in, in cold storage as they call it.
Lindsay:And if you hold your stuff on Coinbase, on some kind of exchange where you bought it
Lindsay:or you put it into a, a custodial wallet, there's, there's definitely a potential
Lindsay:there for people to, to hack that, especially if you're holding in a place,
Lindsay:in a place like Coinbase, like finance.
Lindsay:And what that is, is that's, they are holding lots and lots of people's money
Lindsay:in one place that you're moral, you're making, you're making a honeypot,
Lindsay:you're making it so that the most sophisticated hackers in the world.
Lindsay:Are going to attack that.
Lindsay:And at some point, you know, even if they're, you know, not necessarily
Lindsay:going over the Bitcoin itself, like it's also, it's a, it's a data repository.
Lindsay:Like, they can, you know, do data breaches.
Lindsay:They can, you know, secure some of the funds or, you know, whether it's Bitcoin
Lindsay:or any of the other all kinds or any or anything that are held on there.
Lindsay:But when you hold it all in one place, you're creating a target, you're creating
Lindsay:a honey pot that that people with those motivations are going to attack.
Lindsay:If you hold it in cold storage, you only have yours.
Lindsay:The only way to hack that is to break into your house and steal
Lindsay:that, that hardware wallet that isn't connected to the internet.
Lindsay:Guess your password, guess your pin.
Lindsay:And even then, if you realize it's gone, Like you can log onto a different
Lindsay:computer the next day and still have all of your funds and safely move them.
Lindsay:Like the, the amount of security that you can have with Bitcoin is unlike
Lindsay:anything we've ever had before.
Lindsay:You can, you can be a refugee trying to leave the country and you can memorize
Lindsay:12 words in your head, get to the other side of whatever word you're crossing, and
Lindsay:have your your entire life's net worth.
Lindsay:And there was nothing anybody could rob from you on the way.
Lindsay:You can't do that with cash.
Lindsay:You can't do that with gold.
Lindsay:You can't.
Lindsay:You know, there's, there's no, there's no good way to do
Lindsay:that, except through Bitcoin.
Lindsay:So the security aspect of it is, is, is not an intuitive one to
Lindsay:kind of wrap your head around.
Lindsay:It doesn't have security because it's, you know, it's so, because, you know,
Lindsay:Coinbase protects it or something.
Lindsay:It has security because it's attacked around the clock by the most
Lindsay:sophisticated hackers in the world.
Lindsay:I watched a video on this by, uh, Andreas Antonopoulos.
Lindsay:I'm not sure how you pronounce his name.
Lindsay:He did a, a much better explanation of this than I did, but it was,
Lindsay:I think that that principle is, is just kind of difficult to get
Lindsay:that it, it generates immunity.
Lindsay:By the fact that it is constantly attacked, and yet for the last, you
Lindsay:know, since 2008, it's run without hitch and there have been no hacks of anyone
Lindsay:holding Bitcoin in their own custody.
Lindsay:Whereas if you leave it in charge of somebody else, if you have
Lindsay:somebody else hold your money for you, that's taking a risk.
Lindsay:I mean, it's the risks nowadays.
Lindsay:Clearly there's been, you know, bank runs and stuff, like, your money
Lindsay:isn't, isn't safe with custodians.
Lindsay:And Bitcoin is one of those things that it allows you to take charge of your
Lindsay:own finances and be your own bank, and that is the most secure way to hold
Lindsay:purchasing power that there has ever been.
Tali:Yeah.
Tali:All really, really great points.
Tali:So where do you see yourself going forward?
Tali:I know that you're back in school and you're studying IT now, so
Tali:do you see yourself going into the, the tech side of it now?
Lindsay:I'm not sure where I'm gonna end up.
Lindsay:I would, I would like to be able to contribute to the
Lindsay:projects that are being built.
Lindsay:That would be, that would be amazing.
Lindsay:But if not, if I end up, you know, continuing to kind of in the same track
Lindsay:that I am where I'm kind of helping to, to onboard people and onboard beginners like,
Lindsay:That's, you know, I'm totally okay with that, but the more skills I have, the more
Lindsay:marketable I am and I'm, you know, hoping to be able to, to break my way into the
Lindsay:Bitcoin industry, you know, work for one of the, one of the companies that are, you
Lindsay:know, really contributing to this space.
Lindsay:I mean, there's lots of them out there.
Lindsay:You know, there's Swan, there's Strike, there's Unchained, you know,
Lindsay:lots of, lots of different options.
Lindsay:And wherever I end up, I just, I wanna be able, I wanna be able to be worth the
Lindsay:money that they pay me and, and contribute to this, to this movement, 'cause it is,
Lindsay:it's, it's just incredibly important.
Tali:Yeah, for sure.
Tali:Any last recommendations or suggestions for women who are still not sure?
Lindsay:Depending on how much time you wanna put in, I think that one of the
Lindsay:most compelling things that really kind of pulls on your heart strings about
Lindsay:this is a book by Alex Gladstein, called "Check Your Financial Privilege," and it
Lindsay:tells stories of the people around the world and the movements in, you know,
Lindsay:developing nations and stuff where Bitcoin is central to them being able to, being
Lindsay:able to fight back against, you know, dictators and autocrats and, you know,
Lindsay:skyrocketing inflation and cost of living.
Lindsay:Uh, just, like, it's, it really, really hammers home the "why" of this movement
Lindsay:and, and why it is so important.
Lindsay:'Cause I feel like, you know, in places like the US, like, it's really easy to,
Lindsay:to dismiss it as, you know, why would I ever need that when Visa works just fine.
Lindsay:And you just don't, you don't realize how incredibly important it is.
Lindsay:That's probably my number one recommendation.
Lindsay:If you're still on the fence and you don't wanna, if you don't wanna go, you
Lindsay:know all the way, and you know, you're not gonna devote yourself to, to reading
Lindsay:a book, then just don't write it off.
Lindsay:Just maintain an open mind, even if you're not gonna, you
Lindsay:know, delve into it right now.
Lindsay:Be open-minded about it and take everything that you hear
Lindsay:about on the news with it.
Lindsay:With a grain of salt, there is, that is not, not an objective reference point.
Lindsay:There is a lot of of vested interests in keeping Bitcoin as sidelined as possible.
Lindsay:And they're, you know, if you look at the funding, it usually shows that.
Lindsay:So yeah, those, those are my two recommendations.
Lindsay:It's, you know, an excellent book about recognizing what the, what the important
Lindsay:why's are behind this movement and not getting, not getting turned off
Lindsay:by people and interests that are not objective and that are not, they're not
Lindsay:disclosed usually with those interests.
Lindsay:They're not going to tell you that, you know, that they have
Lindsay:a lot of, a lot of stake in the system remaining the way it is.
Tali:Yes.
Tali:Thank you very much for that.
Tali:So for people who are near where you are or driving through Michigan, how
Tali:would they find your Airbnb experience?
Lindsay:Absolutely come sign up.
Lindsay:It's called Drink Wine and Learn about Bitcoin.
Lindsay:I am, like I said, on Airbnb, I'm also on Meetup and if you find the meetup page,
Lindsay:there will be a link to the Airbnb page.
Lindsay:Either one works fine.
Lindsay:Yeah, don't, don't be afraid to send me a message or reach out.
Lindsay:I am happy to, happy to meet up and happy to accommodate.
Lindsay:Even if you don't want a class, you just wanna, you know, grab a beer and hang out.
Lindsay:Let's do it.
Tali:Awesome.
Tali:Thank you so much.
Tali:It's been such fun listening to your stories and sharing
Tali:your knowledge with everyone.
Tali:We'll wrap up here.
Lindsay:Alright.
Lindsay:Thank you so much for having me.
Tali:Thanks for joining us today and learning with us today.
Tali:If the discussion with our guest resonated with you and you would
Tali:like to dive deeper into the world of Bitcoin, don't miss out on joining the
Tali:Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club.
Tali:The meetup link is in the show notes.
Tali:Also, if there are women in your life whom you think will both enjoy and
Tali:benefit from learning more about Bitcoin, please share Orange Hatter with them.