FFS087 - Natalie Brunell

[00:00:00]

Intro

Natalie: Before Bitcoin, I had started to become sort of, pessimistic about the future. I was starting to look at the future as one where I didn't have as much hope.

I didn't know if I would be able to afford all the things that I need to afford to have a family or retire. I was full of fear and anxiety about the future, uh, and I've always been like a long term planner, but I just like, didn't know how to make it work.

And then when I learned about Bitcoin, it was like, Being injected with a huge dose of hope and optimism, and I believe that we can actually fix these problems. We have this amazing tool to address them. It's just that people don't know about it or understand it.

So now I'm really hopeful and optimistic and if anyone has a problem with that, I don't care.

[00:01:00] [00:02:00]

Welcoming Natalie Brunelll

Luke: Welcome back to the Freedom Footprint show. Our guest today is Natalie Brunell, former mainstream media journalist and now turned Bitcoin educator and podcaster. Thanks very much for joining us, Natalie. Welcome to the Freedom Footprint show.

Natalie: Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to this.

Knut: Yeah, so are we! Uh, so glad to have you here, Natalie, and, uh, so happy that we're gonna see each other again soon on the island of Madeira, uh, in, uh, I mean, it's even this month now, right? Isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

Natalie: officially in February.

Knut: Holy, holy something. It's getting closer for sure. Uh, yeah, we spent a couple of days in a bus in Bulgaria together.

That was, that was all good fun. And we [00:03:00] visited, Plovdiv. Have you seen the football team there now accepting

Natalie: I know. I saw the announcements. That's super exciting. Yeah, we were, we're really fortunate. We got to tour the entire country. Um, I, I actually had been to Bulgaria when I was a little girl, but have no recollection because I was so young. So now I, I got to see the whole thing and it was on a bus with you and Jeff Booth and Greg Foss.

It was, it was awesome.

Knut: Yeah, I loved it. Uh, and, and, uh, our tour guide, what was her name? Marina?

Natalie: Oh, yeah, I think it was Marina. We orange pilled her, right?

Knut: yeah, yeah. And yeah, she was fantastic and, and full days, like 12 hours sightseeing days, like fantastic. And, uh, yeah, a really good time.

Natalie's Orange Pill Story

Knut: yeah, uh, I'm curious about your orange pill story. Like how did you get orange pilled and, and what made you decide to, to like drop mainstream stuff completely and now hop on, be a full time Bitcoin [00:04:00] person?

Sorry

Natalie: are a couple of layers to this. So, I first heard about Bitcoin in late 2016, early 2017. That's when I first bought. And I was working as a mainstream journalist in a city in California, Sacramento. So, I was covering the capital of California. And friends of mine lived in San Francisco. They all worked in tech.

And they just started talking about Crypto, Bitcoin, uh, one of them worked at Coinbase. So I was like, what is this thing? And of course, at the time, I didn't understand money. I didn't know I didn't understand money, but I didn't. And I, I thought, okay, well, this is maybe, you know, it's probably similar to stocks.

I don't really invest in stocks, but what if I Put a little bit of my money in and I could just make, you know, make a fortune or whatever. I was looking at it from kind of a speculative gambling point of view because I was not making very much and I felt behind financially. And then, um, about a year or two later, I had a mentor of mine.

I told him that I bought [00:05:00] Bitcoin and he went out and he ordered the Bitcoin standard. Because that was, I think, one of the first books that came up when he Googled Bitcoin. And he basically kept prodding me. He was like, you have to read this book. You have to read this book. This is everything that represents what you talk about, what you report on, what the future is, what your family went through.

And I was like, oh, please, Larry. Like, I don't have time to read a computer programming book. I'm not, I'm not technical. I'm not interested in computer science. And so I put it off. I put it off. And then I finally read it. Like, a couple years later, I can kick myself because. Obviously, Bitcoin went up during that time, but I read it and it was like this aha moment.

Like, oh my God, how did I not know that we went off the gold standard in 1971? And I didn't understand what money printing is and fractional reserve banking and the history of money. And it was just like this transformative moment for me. But what's crazy is I feel like the seed was planted for Bitcoin.

In my childhood, because my family is from Poland, my [00:06:00] parents grew up under communism, they knew what hard money is, they appreciated that, and when they came here, um, to the U. S., they worked so hard, and, you know, worked multiple jobs, early mornings, late nights, and just when they were finally able to afford a mortgage on a very small home outside of Chicago, then the financial crisis hit, and they lost everything.

They had to file for bankruptcy in their 50s, and I was like, What is wrong with this system? Like, aren't we in the country that represents opportunity, and the American dream, and all the things my parents came here for?

Knut: when did they move there?

Natalie: So, my parents, and I was little, I was 5 years old, we were, uh, we immigrated in 1991. So, just after communism ended, yeah. Yeah, but so anyway, I mean, for me it was like It was like connecting all the dots all at once. I realized that the reason that my parents went through everything they did, the reason the great financial crisis happened and the impact of it afterward is because our money's [00:07:00] broken.

It's because of this monopoly over money and the fact that the state completely controls it and just prints, prints, prints, and, um, and, and, of course, the public has to pay for all of that. And it's the people at the top that benefit at the expense of everyone else. And so, for me, it turned into this mission.

Like, I have to learn everything I can about this. And then, really, leaving my job, it was kind of an accident. I started a podcast because I tried to pitch stories about Bitcoin for my news networks. And they weren't crazy about it, right? I got to do maybe one or two, and they were like Go focus on these other things.

And so I just did the podcast as a hobby because I was so passionate about it. And it started to gain an audience and I started to get requested on shows. And so I just took a chance. Like I, I didn't have a salary guaranteed. I didn't have income guaranteed, but I thought I could probably do so much more around the world, helping people understand this in a way that's approachable.

then anything that I could accomplish at this point with news, which I felt was going down path of [00:08:00] politicization and and honestly, the business models just completely broken in news at this point.

Knut: Yeah, this is so fascinating, because there's a saying, a Swedish saying, it goes something like, Man ska vis, och härre folk på deras. Which translates into, you should speak to To peasants in the way peasants talk, and to lords the way lords talk. Something like that. Yeah, and I find it so fascinating because, I really admire people that have that skill, that are able to, like, blend into any situation, and any type of group of people and be able to talk to them all.

Transitioning from Mainstream Media to Bitcoin

Knut: And I think you're, you're the one that can do that to this corporate media world. There's no, there's no other voice in Bitcoin that can do that quite like you can. Uh, so, so I really, I think we've, we've got, you've, you've got a special thing there. So, so, uh, so, so what, [00:09:00] what happened there? Like, uh, were you first?

Did they want to distance themselves from you when you started bitcoining, or were they like curious or interested immediately? Like how, how, why, what happened that made you end up on Fox News every now and then? Like from then till now?

Natalie: Well, first of all, thank you. And, um, just to one of your points, you know, I'm really grateful for this career because. At times I questioned it, you know, like, five years in, I was, I was a reporter for more than 10 years, and about five years in, again, I felt like the country was starting to get more and more political.

Everything was like, are you, are you red? Are you blue? Like, we can't be friends anymore. I mean, things were crazy after the 2016 election. I had never seen our country turn into these two teams before. But to your point, as a reporter, I had to cover everything. I had to go into homeless encampments and interview people that were living on the street and doing drugs, all the way to [00:10:00] city hall interviewing the mayor or someone running for a presidential office or on the red carpet in Hollywood, the celebrity.

So I got a range, like I don't have fear of asking someone to talk to me because I literally, my job depended on having to talk to anybody from any walks of life. In order to get the story. So separately from that, um, you know, the last couple of years of my job, I just, I went on this journey with Bitcoin and I realized that so many people don't have this information, uh, and they need it.

And again, I tried to sort of tell stories. I did like an intro to Bitcoin mining story. But my station, it's not that they cared that I was investing in Bitcoin, because actually one of my bosses was a Bitcoiner, and we would like talk about the price as this was running up to 60, 000 right before I left my job.

Um, but I actually got lucky in the sense that before my last

I actually had a podcast that [00:11:00] was just a hobby and it had nothing to do with Bitcoin. It was called Career Stories. You can look it up. And I would interview people that achieved success and they would talk about like how they got there. It was their total, their backstories, their origin stories, which if you know coin stories, that's how it all started too.

It's like, where'd you come from? You know, what did you want to be when you grew up? How did you achieve your goals? What, what obstacles did you face? And so I wrote a Into my news contract in my last job that I can still do that podcast that I'm allowed to because when you sign a TV contract in the US, it's normally very exclusive and they only want you to produce content for whichever network it is.

They don't want you doing something outside of it, especially if you're on like a full time. Deal. So I was very lucky. It was like kind of meant to be because I had this podcast. I made sure that my attorney wrote it into the contract that Natalie Brunell has a podcast. She can continue to do it. It has nothing to do with this job.

You guys don't have any ownership of it. [00:12:00] And so I originally thought, Oh, I'll do a season of career stories. I'll focus it on like 12 big Bitcoin people hear their backstories and you know, that'll be that. It'll be like 12 episodes. I'll call it coin stories. Peace. And lo and behold, here I am, you know, two and a half years later, it's my full time job, but yeah, I mean, basically, I was gonna renew, I was gonna stay at the network, uh, that I was at, I, I liked my job because I got a lot of freedom and autonomy, I was investigating a lot of public corruption and things that interested me.

But something just kept telling me I can do more with Bitcoin if I leave. And they weren't super happy that I was starting to do more interviews and talking about a financial, you know, asset. So I think it was kind of meant to be, I was at a crossroads. I could have stayed the stable route and gone with the income and everything that I was, it was predictable and stable, or I could go down this other path.

And I told myself, I'll give it a year. I'll live off savings for a year. If it doesn't work out, I'll try to get another news job and maybe I'll have to take a step back. [00:13:00] But if it works out, great. And it worked out.

Experiences Podcasting

Knut: Yeah. Well, our stories are more similar than you might think. Like this is very similar to, to what I did and here I am doing a podcast as well. Enjoying it a lot, and, uh, like, a podcast gives you so much more than what you think it will give you, like, the best thing, I think, is like, getting to know people more, and like, strengthen these bonds, and get to know new people, and like, just widen your network, it's fantastic, especially with Bitcoin, where everyone is incentivized to do it.

To be awesome to one another. So, yeah, it's just perfect.

Natalie: Just to add to that. So in my old job, I would work at minimum eight hours, maybe just a whole day, but possibly a week or a month to put on like a two minute news story. Usually my, my maximum was 90 seconds. So I would work eight to nine hours to put on 90 seconds of [00:14:00] television. And you have to be very skillful, like what do you leave in, what do you, what can you take out?

Um, so I got very good at writing very short stories and telling things in like a very, a very short format, but I love long form because you get all the context, right? You can just sit down with someone, hear their whole story, you understand the nuance and all these details that you can't get from a 90 second news story.

So I love podcasts because they just allow you to breathe and just take time to like, Figure out who the person is or what the topic really is. And I'm really grateful that I get to do that because before it was like everything was crammed into this short time capsule.

Knut: Yeah, and how much time would you say you spend now for, for doing, before you do a Coin Stories? Like, before and after? How much, like, if the actual pod is two hours, how much, how much time beyond that do you spend on making the pod?

Natalie: So, um, I would say that the majority of the time outside of the actual podcast [00:15:00] recording is spent on booking the guests and researching the guests. And then after the fact, there's a little bit of post production, and I actually, people will be surprised, but I still edit most of my shows. Uh, I have a little bit of help, but I just, I, I edited in school, and this is literally what I was doing when I was in college and grad school, so, um, so I still like to have that control, and I, it doesn't bother me to do the production, so, um, so I would say, you know, one episode still, I would say, you know, like a two hour, Or maybe one hour episode takes like eight hours totally with booking, research to complete.

Knut: Oh yeah, I'm so lucky to have a Luke, which I trust completely, whom I trust completely to do all the editing,

Natalie: Well, I have, I'll give a shout out to, I have this amazing producer who helps me named Aaron Bender. He's fantastic. So I am grateful for his help. He's probably, he probably laughs at me because he's like, I'll, I'll do it all. And I'm like, no, no, no. I still want to edit some of it. [00:16:00] Well,

Knut: but that's like, that's how you, I mean, I think people can tell that you're very genuine in what you do and that you're knowledgeable about the stuff and that it's not It's not just faking it till you make it, you've actually done your homework, uh, and I think, yeah, and that is, like, either you have a personality that wants to be involved in stuff, or you don't, I think it's very telling, I mean, And that's, that's the thing when you do, um, long format things also, and like, have to flesh out the ideas, you can't really, you can't really hide, it's impossible to do, like, two hours twice a week or something, uh, long format conversations with people Play, uh, play theater and wear a mask and try to be someone you're not.

Like, it just doesn't work in this, and that's why I think podcasting is so, why people crave, crave it and want to listen to [00:17:00] it because it's so much more honest. and that, that's what made Joe Rogan a success, he's, for what it's worth, he's honest, like, take it or leave it, that's, uh, that's podcasting.

Natalie: and I'm really grateful that the internet has created an opportunity where you can have this form of decentralized media and independent creators and voices come out and provide a different source or a different opinion because I didn't realize this when I was younger, but we have very few official gatekeepers, you know, when, when everyone's just maybe they're picking out of a couple of channels or a couple of different newspapers, um, and all of them start to say the same thing, you know, are you getting the full picture?

Are you hearing the other side of every argument? How close are they with Maybe government officials or the people they're supposed to be holding accountable or corporations. Very early in my career, one of my first news jobs, my first television job, [00:18:00] I reported on a public corruption scandal involving our mayor.

And there were aspects of the story where I was trying to, you know, publish information and advertisers. That were, you know, paying money to the station got very, very upset. And I sort of saw that there is a balancing act where sometimes stations will, you know, they're concerned about losing their revenue.

So will they report every story? And that made me really worried as a journalist, because I thought This has to, it has to be about exposing the truth, right? I mean, especially someone who holds public office and they're dealing with taxpayer dollars and they're accountable to us. The public. The public.

Um, so it, it's just, it was a fascinating journey to see how journalism has changed and how the technology around it has changed. Where all of a sudden now you're on Facebook or Twitter and people are posting their own videos and they, can be journalists basically based anywhere. And I think it's great because now the media have to also be [00:19:00] accountable.

And if there's another side that they're not covering, well, you're going to be able to find it online.

Knut: Yeah, I saw an, an interesting Twitter post about, uh, how many layoffs there've been, uh, there have been in, uh, mainstream media in the U. S. la just this last year. Like, so many of the big magazines and the big news channels and everything, AI is eating everything, because I love the term Alex Svetsky coined for it, mid width obsolescence technology, so it's, it's removing all the middle of the bell curve, people.

So, AI won't replace handymen or something like, very basic labor, and it won't replace the really, really, really high skilled labor, but it will replace everything in between. And that's what I think, like, so many journalists have been, you know, able to just make a living off of regurgitating and copy pasting and, and just being a mouthpiece for, for whoever the highest [00:20:00] bidder is.

Maintaining Integrity in Bitcoin

Knut: And so, so, so what do you do to like, I mean. I can imagine how many bags of, uh, shiny shit coins they dangle in front of, in front of you. Uh, you know, having seen how many they dangle in front of me. So like, what, what is your, how do you keep your integrity intact? And like, what's, what's your, like, what's your views on morals and ethics

Natalie: Yeah. No, and it's a great question. Um, so it was a journey for me too, because like I said, when I first entered into this space, 2016, 2017, my friends owned crypto, right? They were talking about Bitcoin, but also crypto. And I didn't know, and I fell into the, you know, the notion that, oh, well, if these are cheaper, I can buy more and maybe one of them will take off.

And then, again, here's the thing, too. I was really driven by the fact that I didn't have enough money. people, I think, glamorize what news is. And, and, and at one time, people did [00:21:00] make a really great amount of money. And if you're at the top of the game, right? If you're like Anderson Cooper or Robin Roberts, one of these famous American anchors, you are making millions of dollars, but when you go to these small networks, channels, newspapers, people are barely making a living.

I was always paying more than 50 percent of my paycheck on rent. My first job was less than 30, 000 US a year, which for America, it's really hard to live on that. And that was after getting my master's degree and taking out student loan debt. I mean, it was horrible, right? So when I looked at Bitcoin and crypto early on, I was like, Oh my God, maybe this is the way I finally, you know, hit a lottery ticket and I make some money and I can help my family.

So I was purely Looking at it speculatively and like gambling, and I bought a couple of the other tokens, and of course now I look back and I regret because all of that money ended up, I ended up losing all of it. Um, some of it went up, but then it was like, oh, well, shoot, I'm going to be hit with taxes.

All of it ended up going to zero for me. [00:22:00] So, I wish that I had just taken the time back then to learn why all these very intelligent people were saying, no, it's Bitcoin only, and that's really what it took for me is just taking that extra time To say, well, why are these very successful, smart people who I respect so much, why are they saying Bitcoin only?

And I had to learn. I had to learn about the blockchain trilemma. I had to go more into the technical components of the technology to realize that, okay, maybe some of these people in the space That are creating other protocols. Maybe they have good intentions, but like, it doesn't work. Certainly not as a global monetary standard and everything else has made a trade off.

And yeah, I get contacted by, oh my gosh, during the bull run 2021, I'm sure you experienced this Knut. It's like every other DM is, you know, ICO, help my NFT, I'll give you X amount of money. It's like, oh my gosh, I'm not going to lead the sheep to the slaughterhouse. [00:23:00] Um, I have, I never ever want to be in a place where I've recommended that someone invest in something and they lose all their money.

I, that, that thought terrifies me. I would never be able to live with myself or look myself in the mirror. Um, You know, I grew up with a strong sense of ethics and morality and religion and faith, and I don't want to do anything that harms people. One of the reasons that I love Bitcoin is I think it can help the most amount of people of any technology.

And of course, I hope that it helps good people because there are good and bad people. I hope good people, uh, I think most people are good. They adopt Bitcoin, but there are so many scammers out there. And impersonators and just people who are out to make a quick buck at your expense. And, you know, that's why we, we.

Bang on the drum so much and say Bitcoin, not crypto.

Knut: Yeah. And the scams are getting, uh, more sophisticated over time. Like now they're shit coining on Bitcoin with all this cat [00:24:00] pictures, uh, like, uh, the ordinals all the, the spam going on. So what are your thoughts around that? Do you have any opinions on it?

Natalie: So I, I don't own any ordinals. I don't, I have to be honest. I don't follow it that closely.

ultimate look, I'm not going to judge someone what's in their portfolio. I think that there are consequences to every decision. And I, I truly wish that we lived in a world where we had total free markets where.

Everything, the free market was the referee and you were able to succeed or fail. And that was because of the consequences of your own decisions. So if someone wants to invest, like, I'm not going to sit there and Tell them you have to have your whole portfolio in Bitcoin. Um, but also I just, I don't understand why people decide to make some of these decisions.

I don't fully get it. I just think Bitcoin is so beautiful and perfect the way that it is. And I hope more, more people focus on. Building amazing companies that serve the ecosystem. Um, I mean, [00:25:00] I'm, I'm focused on what I know I can do and contribute, which is education and trying to get the message out and simplifying it for more of a general audience.

So I'm, that's where I'm putting my energy. Uh, but I, I do think over the long run, it's, you know, things are created and most things don't work out. Most companies fail. And so I think a lot of these projects and, and things that are created on the margin, they just won't work out and it'll just. You know, they'll, they'll meet their destinies.

Um, I'm just focusing on Bitcoin. The one thing outside of Bitcoin that I hope to have someday is a house. Like, and I'm very honest about that. I have not come to a place yet where I'm able to afford, like, the kind of house that I would love to have and raise a family. So I hope Bitcoin can help me with that.

I hope I can, you know, maybe borrow against my Bitcoin so I don't have to sell it. But that's, that's my dream cause I, I want a roof over my head, you know, but, um, but other than that, I just, I'm not interested really in stocks and certainly not fixed income products. I think bonds are going to go, [00:26:00] um, the way of, you know, Beanie Babies.

Luke: maybe just to, uh, uh, one more thing about kind of the, the ordinals part here. I see you're coming at it from the investment angle, Natalie, but I think the, the, the thing that's had Knut and I a bit more, uh, concern and we've had a few people on to talk about this part is that the ordinals and related inscriptions and these sorts of things, they crowd out the block space.

Actually, Adam Back had a good tweet today that says every ordinal crowds out 300 regular UTXO transactions on the on the blocks, right? So it's raised fees. Basically, it's created a fee floor that when we're talking about for new adopters, right, coming in with a fee environment that's Relatively high.

What are your thoughts on that? Do you think that has any effect on new adopters coming into Bitcoin?

Natalie: Well, certainly, I actually think that this is a long term concern. I've done one episode about block scarcity. It was with Bob Burnett, who is just really great at articulating some of the future [00:27:00] issues with this, because Bitcoin is not only scarce in its units, but it is scarce for a very, very important reason in how many transactions you can fit in a block, which is why we need scaling layers.

And so absolutely, I mean, maybe down the road, uh, 10 years from now, you won't be able to easily transact on the base layer, and you do want to consolidate your UTXOs, which I want to do another episode on just to help walk people through that process, because it can be a little intimidating if you don't understand it, um, but certainly, yeah, I mean, I think fees are going to go up, I don't know all the technical components, I mean, again, I believe in free markets, so I think we should educate people about what's happening, but I, also don't want to, I don't think that there should be rules saying you can't do this or that, because I think ultimately the free market should, should Create a scenario where um, it cleanses some of this out of the system.

Someone posted a meme, and I don't know if you guys saw it or agree with it, but it was like, you know, high fees create, it was kind of the [00:28:00] hard times create strong men, strong men create weak, whatever.

It was like a self regulating, like, okay, fees become too high, so transactions accrue, and then the fees become higher.

It's like a circle. So that's my hope. I know that it's not perfect, but that's my hope. I'm not here to just, you know, tell people what to do, and essentially, you know, Bitcoin Satoshi didn't prevent something like this from, from happening, so I just don't under I just I guess it's just like, I don't understand some of it.

Like, why do you want a picture of a frog?

Knut: Well, well, I think that's a very, uh, like, good position to have, like, I, I feel the same about, you know, focusing your attention on bad actors in general. So whenever you retweet, uh, look, look here how stupid Shitboy and Crap, Shitboy Crapto was here by, when he did this stupid thing. All you do is you give these people attention and it's the same with like, look how stupid Joe Biden is or how stupid [00:29:00] Donald Trump is.

Whoever, whoever your perceived enemy turns out to be, like when you focus your attention on, it's like what Jeff Booth talks about, your reality becomes what you focus on. So like focusing on positive things and building things and being optimistic. is often way, way, way more constructive than, than fighting pointless battles.

It's all about hill to die on picking, right? And there are so many bad hill to die on pickers out there.

Natalie: I love this. This is what I try to do actively, actually, because when you're in this space, some of it can be like a magnet. You're drawn into these negative conversations. I really try to listen to what Jeff Booth says, and Michael Saylor has talked about it too, you know, keep your lasers on. You don't have to be against ordinals to be for Bitcoin.

You don't have to be against this candidate or that candidate to be for Bitcoin. You don't even have to be against CBDCs to be for, you could just be for Bitcoin and focus all of your energy on helping people understand this, getting people onboarded and just like what problems [00:30:00] Bitcoin addresses and fixes.

And that's where I'm putting my focus. So a lot of the other things on the side, it's just, it's noise and conversations that you could get lost in that aren't productive at the end of the day.

Knut: Yeah, and, and, there are other people who are taking these fights, like Luke Dash Jr. and, uh, and, uh, Mechanic and Bob Burnett and whatnot, and That's all fine. So, uh, but yeah, I think our, like, your attention and, and my attention are better focused on doing optimistic things. I, I think that's where, where we fit in both of us or all three of us.

[00:31:00]

Orange Pill App

Luke: Maybe we can talk a little bit about OrangePillApp. What are you excited about on the OrangePillApp side, Natalie?

Natalie: Yeah. I mean, what a cool app. I love that it recently, um, they just launched the merchants feature. I just hope that more and more businesses get out [00:32:00] there, allow, customers and consumers to know that they exist and that they take Bitcoin and to support them. I actually, you know, it's funny. One of the last stories I did in my news job before I left, There was a local burger shop in Orange County, California, very close to LA, and they accepted Bitcoin.

And it was a cool story because it was actually the father who orange pilled the son, and they operated this burger. It was like a Greek burger shop together. And, um, I mean, I think about it now because that was when Bitcoin was like Very high 55, 60. So they were making a lot. I think their, I think their Bitcoin income has gone down since then, but I know they're hodlers and it was a really cool story.

It's just exciting when you can go in and I did a full story on how customers were coming in and paying with their wallets and how amazing, how amazing that. We have a technology that can empower people to do global business at the speed of light with no fees and no middlemen involved. And I just, I think that it's super cool that [00:33:00] Orange Pill App is helping connect people.

Um, I love the social component. I moved to a new city. Last year, a year ago. So it was hard for me to meet new people at first. I didn't know a lot of people here. And so orange pill app helped me connect with other Bitcoiners in the area, which has been really fun. And now I'm sort of tapped into a local Bitcoin community.

Bitcoin Atlantis

Natalie: And I host events that I've posted on Orange pill app, like the women in Bitcoin events. I'm going to have one in Bitcoin Atlantis in Madeira in a couple weeks. So if people are interested, that's free to attend and you can head to orange pill app and there's a sign up there. You can register again all for free.

So it's just a great app for people to connect and, and, you know, create this environment of a very, um, robust social layer on Bitcoin and Bitcoiners are fun to be around, you know.

Knut: I know a whole bunch of wifeys that are going to that, uh, lunch.

Natalie:

Perfect.

Knut: Because it's not a branch, right?

Natalie: It's a brunch.

Knut: It IS a branch.

Natalie: yeah, we are so grateful. Um, I have [00:34:00] to give a shout out to Fred Thiel and Marathon, um, because they are sponsoring it. So actually we do get to do a brunch. It's going to be beautiful. It's going to be at the Museu Café in Madeira and really looking forward to it.

So I hope people sign up.

Knut: But there is no second breakfast. There is no second breakfast.

Natalie: You can skip your breakfast, just do brunch with us.

Knut: Alright then. Alright, the, the, museo, the, uh, okay. Where is that? Uh

Natalie: not, it's not far from the conference venue. Yeah, very close.

Knut: Alright, now, most things aren't very far in Funchal, but they can take a lot of time to get to anyway, because it's very, very hilly

Natalie: Oh, okay.

Knut: steep.

Natalie: I've seen videos online. It looks like, I mean, it just looks gorgeous. I can't wait to go. I've never been.

Knut: It's a literal paradise, you're gonna love it, like, you're gonna, you're gonna buy a house there instead of in the US, and you're gonna get so much more bang for your buck.

Natalie: I am not [00:35:00] opposed. I'm not opposed to that. I'm kind of questioning

Knut: yeah, I see this future happening already, like, this is, uh, absolutely, because,

The Decline of the United States

Natalie: You know, it's crazy. I mean, I think about this sometimes. My parents literally dreamt of coming to the United States their whole lives. When they were young, they would tell me stories of how, um, at the time they were on a different currency, the Polish zloty, and everything that they wanted was made in America.

They wanted jeans. They wanted American movies. Like my mom grew up on American films and music and like everything that was great and wonderful and inspiring. Firing and, and representative of like, hope and freedom was American. And now they come, they've come here, they've been here for uh, you know, several decades now, three decades.

And they're like, why did we come here? Like. Their peers in Poland are retiring with better lives. Um, it was really hard for them to recover from the financial crisis. Cause they, again, they were now [00:36:00] in their fifties having to start over. They lost their house and it was such a hard time for them. And I just, it's crazy to think that they dreamt of coming here for all these freedoms and hope and opportunity.

And what if I end up moving, you know, somewhere else because it's changed so much and all those things were. Nearly a mirage at this point.

Knut: yeah, it's, it's so, it's, like, tragedy of the commons, or whatever you call it, like, the, uh, human beings seem to do, make the same mistake over and over again when it comes to nation states, because, like, oh, Nazism was bad, it was really, really bad, we don't want that again, and, like, oh, the Soviet Union was bad, we don't want that again, no And then we just do the same thing over and over again.

We keep on making the same mistake and, uh, keep trusting politicians and keep like, uh, hailing democracy as the big thing, even though the word democracy is not in the American constitution at all. [00:37:00] Like it's all about property rights. So like people have the completely, completely the wrong angle and, you know, mix up cause and effect.

Natalie: And they've, they've, they've changed the meanings of some of these words and weaponized them. And I don't know if you heard the recent Russell Brand interview on Tucker Carlson. It was fascinating. He made some really great points. He talked about how this time around, authoritarianism, fascism, it's not going to come in the form of scary men with mustaches, it's going to come in the form of a businesswoman that comes in and says, we're here to protect you, we're here to do this for you, so that it's your safety, it's your convenience, I was like, oh my god, that is so, so true, and it's crazy because we do have to kind of awaken people and empower them more because I think so many people I don't know what it is.

It's like, I don't, I don't believe that most people are brainwashed. It's just, that they're not presented with enough information and the correct [00:38:00] information, especially about how our financial system works, so that they can actually vote in the right people or make, you know, become sovereign themselves. It's like they, They're, they're kind of, um, blindfolded or like walking towards this total control mentality where no, this is actually for the good of everybody.

This is what's kind. This is what's altruistic when at the end of the day, you're basically stripped of everything that it truly means to be human. To be free, to make your own decisions, to, you know, to have property rights and have those be protected. It's like, it's crazy. Um, I've really, I have so much hope for Bitcoin.

I think it came at just the right time in humanity because we need it more than ever. We're going down a very potentially scary path without it.

Knut: Absolutely. It's like, bah, bah, everywhere. Like they, uh, I, yeah, funny I should say that like, the corruption of words, I'm now reading or listening to Brave New World by Aldous [00:39:00] Huxley, uh, and 1984 is one of my favorite books, and I hadn't read Brave New World before, so I figured I'd plow through that, because I need sort of both these books.

And it's so true, those two books, they're like, the politicians seem to think that they were written as manuals, because we're getting all of that. We're getting a ministry of love, and a ministry of truth, and all of that. Yeah, it's awful.

Natalie: I

The Fallacy of Wealth Redistribution

Natalie: really love Jeff Booth's writing about some of this because he talks about the reality of how when people do feel such desperation and they're frustrated, they're looking for places to blame. You see instances of populism rising and they actually vote in the very thing that is hurting and crushing them, right?

They're like, give me more money. Give me more handouts, redistribute the wealth, intervene, intervene, intervene. And it's like, that is the very thing that's going to. cause the whole system to crumble and the other thing I love that he points out [00:40:00] is I feel like sometimes when I've talked about Bitcoin and capitalism to people who are very educated and maybe they're successful within the fiat world, they're like, hello, this is the credit is the reason that we've been able to achieve such prosperity and like, this is the reason why so many people over the last century have been lifted out of poverty and you're, you know, people in America have the houses that they have in the middle class, blah, blah, blah.

It's so interesting because they're missing two very important, I think, points and lessons. Number one being that we, the US, had such an immense privilege becoming the global reserve currency that they were able to export all of the devastating effects of inflation to so many other places. That's number one.

And then that slowly ended up hollowing out the middle class. But number two, it's kind of like putting an athlete on steroids. It's like, yeah, the. Short term effects are amazing, and they can run faster than everyone, and they can [00:41:00] finish the race, and like, they can become almost supernaturally talented, but it will not last.

It's unsustainable. You, you will need consistently more steroids until the athlete completely collapses, because that's not natural. It's not a natural growth. It's not natural productivity that should flow to the public with the form of deflation of prices. Like, people are People are convinced that this artificial system that we've created is one that creates wealth because we've seen so many rich people when it's actually the thing that has crushed so many people.

And I think that we haven't had some of some of the amazing innovations or entrepreneurship companies or, um, I don't know, just solutions to the problems that could have happened if we had hard, sound money.

Knut: Yeah, uh, so true, and we've heard so many good analogies for, for, uh, for this stuff on this pod, but I love that, that it's, uh, an athlete, uh, taking steroids. Like, we've heard, [00:42:00] uh, who was that, Angelo Summers, who said it's like a meth addict. Digging a hole in his backyard and it's coming, telling everyone, look at this hole I dug.

Yeah, but what are you going to use the hole for? And that's like a metaphor for the state spending beyond their means. And what was that, Ray Yusuf, the financial apartheid thing? That's, that's what it is, like we're exporting, it's basically modern day in slavery, exporting debt to other countries. It's, it's sort of, but the analogy there is when the Nazis came to power, uh, the first few years, everything seemed fine because they had slave labor in camps.

And, in a way, the world still does, like, but the camp is Africa and South America. We're like, uh, and, and the, you know, low income countries, uh, which we export the debt to. So, it's, it's kind of awful, uh, or it is awful. [00:43:00] Truly awful.

Natalie: I know. I think, thank goodness for people like Alex Gladstein that shine light on some of these issues and what the IMF does and the World Bank because again, before Bitcoin, I had no clue because we're not taught this. We're not presented this information in the media. We have to kind of seek it out on our own.

And, uh, I don't know, I don't know about you guys, but one thing that I've experienced just within my own life and my peer group and the friends that I want to orange pill, it's like, it's like, They almost think that sometimes I'm pessimistic about how I view the world, like, like I'm trying to find some sort of conspiracy theory explanation for why things are happening, whereas they truly believe that the people who are leading these organizations, the banks, the, uh, the government in general, like, they're good people, they're trying to come in and help people, they're trying to, um, you know, empower the disenfranchised, they're trying to help people.

Poor countries, it's like, it's like they're totally backwards and to peel back those layers and help them understand and get on our page, it's very difficult because sometimes they have to [00:44:00] be willing to unlearn certain things and be challenged with their most deeply held beliefs and not everybody's willing to do that.

Knut: No, absolutely, like, yeah. And this is one thing, it's getting increasingly hard to, to stay, to have a normal conversation with a normie friend anymore, since they're like But slowly but surely they will figure it out. I think a lot, I know that a lot of people had their wake up call during the lockdowns and everything when, when, when basically every country on earth became, went totally bonkers and started doing draconian things.

Uh, so, and some people still think they did the best they could, and they're still giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. I think that's the majority, because the majority are behaving like sheep. Um, but, but still, a lot of Bitcoiners were born during those years. I know [00:45:00] of quite a few, and quite a few that are now orange pilled hard.

I mean, they really, okay, this is the thing. They really got it during this period. And I think, like Uh, yeah, a critical mass, uh, of Bitcoiners is closer than people think because like when you can see now when we're going to Madeira here, you've, you've seen the tweets as well, I guess, about all these places that are suddenly starting to accept Bitcoins, like pharmacies and, uh, you know, um, uh, hairdressers and what, whatnot, a lot of brick and mortar stores on Madeira starting because they all want to Get a piece of the cake when the conference happens and there's a big buzz around everything.

And that thing, I mean, why would they stop accepting Bitcoin? It's so simple. Like, just have an app on your phone and you're ready to go. Uh, so it's And the thing is, that thing happening there is helping Bitcoin and Bitcoiners everywhere else in the world [00:46:00] with these, these little oasis, oasis, oasi, oasis, oasis, uh, around the world are, are, are like helping each other without even knowing it.

It's beautiful.

Natalie: I know. I love it. I know. It's really inspiring. I can't wait to see what happens in the next major bull run because, I mean, both of you guys already know you've been, you've been around, uh, when number goes up, there's no more powerful narrative for all the newbies to come out and say, wait, what, what was this thing that you were talking about?

So hopefully we'll see that soon. But it's funny. I mean, I'm sure you guys feel this way too. I'm like, no, I don't want the price to go up yet. Please. I'm still stacking. I'm behind. I mean,

Knut: Yeah, it's a, it's a double edged sword on a double sided coin. I guess we, we both want number go down and number go up. They're both good. If you tackle it from the right perspective, like, um, so yeah.

Price Predictions

Knut: What about price predictions and stuff? I, I [00:47:00] know you don't really do that, but like, uh, I, I don't see Bitcoin going to a hundred K and then staying around there for a while like that.

That's not what Bitcoin does. When, whenever we break an old, old time high for real, things go mental for a while, , and then it drops again. So like. 20x's and then drops 80 percent down to 200k or something. But before that, we go to a million and then we go down. So that's how I see it. Like that's how the old cycles have been.

And I don't see anything else happen because that's just how markets work. Like people get FOMO. And so how do you see that?

Natalie: I just think that Bitcoin's destiny is to climb higher and higher in every currency, definitely six figures in U. S. dollars, some, someday seven figures. I don't know when. I feel like it's pretty exciting to think that could happen in the next 10 years. Like some people are predicting. Kathy Wood, her, you know, [00:48:00] bullish case for 2030 is a 1.

2 million dollar Bitcoin. Here's what I think about. I don't have

Knut: Samson, Samson made a prediction. Yeah.

Natalie: Here's the thing. I, so I don't make price predictions. I know it's going higher. This is where I want to have my long term savings. This is what I wonder about in the short run. I think that we're at this really interesting inflection point with the US sort of in this, like, it's in its twilight days in terms of being the superpower. And having its money wield as much power as it does, we're seeing a a fractioning of other nation states now returning to potentially doing transactions in other currencies, adding more gold to the central bank reserves, um, I'm surprised that we haven't seen more nation states.

Legalize Bitcoin the way that El Salvador did. I thought that at least one other, you know, maybe developing nation might have done that by now, but we just see this [00:49:00] de-globalization in many ways. It's like there are multiple forces that are coming together. On the one hand, the powers that be, they want to, you know, concentrate as much of that power as possible and get everyone under their umbrella.

But at the same time, because of technology and many different formats There's this push towards decentralization and Bitcoin obviously being one of those technologies. And I think a lot of those forces are going to meet in the next couple of years. And we're so far in debt that I don't see how we avoid a sovereign debt crisis where people just start dumping US treasuries and rates go through the roof. And there is this like panic where they have to step in and do something very. Serious, very intense, you know, yield curve control, um, just anything to kind of cut off the exit ramps, right? Bitcoin's an exit ramp. It's an escape hatch for a failing system. So just, I wonder what's going to happen when the system starts to crumble [00:50:00] again.

I know everyone says, they're just going to Put the money printer in like they can only do that so many more times. Maybe it's one more time. Maybe it's two more times. I don't think it's 10 more times before the system totally implodes. so I wonder what Bitcoin will do in that scenario because I think that temporarily the price could suffer a lot, right?

And great opportunity for those who understand Bitcoin. Or will it decouple? Will it just totally serve as this, like, you know, everyone goes to it the way that maybe historically they fled to gold? Will it be a hedge to the failing credit risk and the financial system kind of pulling apart? I don't know.

Like, I think that the next 5 years are going to be dramatic, intense, Conflict ridden, um, you know, political. I don't know. I think it's just going to be a lot of chaos and thank goodness we have this Zen of Bitcoin to hold us through, uh, cause it's the one thing that we can rely on, but it's, there's going to [00:51:00] be volatility because fiat is so volatile.

Knut: Yeah, but there is, uh, a global, like, backlash to the, uh, uh, commie tendencies everywhere, like, uh, Melee's election in Argentina, for instance, but also, like, people are really starting to boycott woke Hollywood and these, you know, strong female characters in Marvel movies and Star Wars movies and stuff, like, that whole polititization of, uh, Like, it's getting a big backlash, and add to that the, the trucker protests in Canada, the, the, uh, farmers protests in, in Europe, in both, uh, started in the Netherlands, but now in Germany and France as well.

Natalie: It's so inspiring to see that, people fighting for their rights, yeah.

Knut: Yeah, but they have to, uh, sooner or later, when, especially when their bank accounts start getting frozen, and people tell them, oh, you're an idiot for not remembering 12 words, they are, they will, uh, they will, Uh, figure out Bitcoin. They will discover Bitcoin because like, that's the only way [00:52:00] out of this bullshit.

Like, it's the only real way out.

Natalie: Well, I wonder, I mean, like, will, like, if the system collapses and, you know, rates go through the roof, if there is sort of that final contagion effect and the debt spiral gets out of control, I just, I wonder what that will look like in terms of, will they, will they do some sort of a reset? Will they do a debt jubilee?

Will they try to helicopter? I mean, at a certain point, again, it's like you've, you've reached escape velocity and you could go into hyperinflation. And so what will they do to prevent that? What will they do to keep the system, you know, it's crumbled, but like, they're still, it's like taped together. Um, I just, I wonder what the next, I think the next 10 years are going to be wild.

And thank goodness we're in Bitcoin.

[00:53:00] [00:54:00]

Bitcoin ETFs

Knut: What role do you think these ETFs will play in that whole collapse scenario?

Natalie: Well, I mean, here's the thing. I tend to look at them more positively because I do think that they will be that entry point for more people to gain Bitcoin exposure in a way that's more familiar and easy and convenient for them. I obviously, if you follow my show, my work, I advocate for taking self custody and buying the actual bearer instrument and being self sovereign in the best way possible financially, which is Bitcoin.

But I do see a lot of people, I think, especially with certain generations, just saying, you know, I want, I don't want to think about it. I don't want to learn how to do. Wallets or seed phrases or anything. So I want my financial manager that does everything else for me to just allocate a small percentage, but maybe that will encourage them to start to learn about it and see that, hey, this is one of the only tools that when everything kind of falls around and crumbles in terms of the greater system, or you need something [00:55:00] that you can just flee with, that you can Transfer in a borderless way in a secure way.

I think more people will start to appreciate and learn about Bitcoin, but ultimately, you know, I think the bigger, if you're going to be kind of wondering what negative, um, impact it could have, it's, it's more. So I wonder like that Bitcoin essentially is with firms. A lot of Bitcoin is with firms that ultimately are.

regulated, and beholden to the government. So if the government decided to do some sort of Executive 6102 2. 0, it would be very easy for them to go to a Wall Street firm and say, okay, that Bitcoin is now ours. I mean, I don't expect that to happen, but that's like a worst case scenario where they try to seize people's Bitcoin, they try to seal off on and off ramps.

So overall, I think there's going to be very positive impacts with the Bitcoin ETF in terms of adoption, but there is always risk, um, and it's not like owning real Bitcoin.

Knut: No, paper Bitcoin is not [00:56:00] Bitcoin, like, not your keys, not your coins. And I think, I think like 13 out of 14 of these ETFs are not even holding the Bitcoin themselves. They're all using custodial services.

Natalie: Yeah, I mean, I mean, there's a reason for that, too, though, because I think that there are regulations in place where it can't be under one roof, because that's sort of like a single point of failure, so even if it's just a subsidiary, like, this is what Fidelity, I think, ran into, where they had to create another entity so that things were separated, and you don't trust, like, everything under one roof, or potentially someone could be a bad actor, so I think that that's the reason, but yeah, I understand your point,

Knut: Still, still, like, that's, that might be, uh That logic applies to the old world, but it doesn't apply as well to, to the Bitcoin world where you want to be as close to the keys as possible. I guess. And, and also like there, there are alternatives if, if you are a boomer and you want to invest in Bitcoin, but you don't want the hassle, like, uh, there are companies like the [00:57:00] Bitcoin advisor or the Bitcoin way or Unchained or what they call like these non Chuck multisig stuff that you can do.

And uh, and there are ways and I think, uh. A lot of these ideas are just being formed and these companies are just starting up for ways to still hold your keys, but maybe have a bit of institutional backup to that somehow, like, things are, we're in a building phase, as always.

Natalie: Yeah, and things that didn't exist 5 years ago, now there are so many more options, and it is easier, there are so many more, um, just avenues where people can learn about it, so I'm very hopeful about all of this, but yeah.

Knut: Absolutely.

Bitcoin Optimism

Luke: of optimism then, what are you most optimistic about?

Natalie: I'm optimistic about orange pilling a whole new set of people during this next bull run. [00:58:00] I am really going to focus a lot of my, um, original content this year outside of my interviews on like that 101 fundamental back to the basics because even though we've, done so much great work and we have a lot of people that are on this Noah's Ark, so to speak.

There are still so many people who are on the fringe who don't understand it or skeptical, or they're just not even thinking about it at all. So I just want to have more, um, content available to people who are really just starting out that sort of simplifies it. So I'm going to be focusing on writing some scripts and putting some, some, uh, work out there that's focused on reaching those people.

So I'm just optimistic about what Bitcoin will do over the next, you know, several years. I have to say, I mean, the best way that I can answer this question is. Before Bitcoin, I had started to become sort of, um, pessimistic about the future. I was starting to look at the future as one where I didn't have as much hope.

I thought that things [00:59:00] were going to progressively get worse. I didn't know if I would be able to afford all the things that I need to afford to have a family or retire. I was just like, I was full of fear and anxiety about the future, uh, and I've always been like a long term planner, uh, but I just like, didn't know how to make it work.

I was like, even if I work at this job, how do I save enough? How do I, how do I make it happen? And then when I learned about Bitcoin, it was like, Being injected with a huge dose of hope and optimism, and I believe that we can actually fix these problems. We have this amazing tool to address them. It's just that people don't know about it or understand it.

And it's like one of the most positive missions that you could work on, because I think Bitcoin Brings out the best in people because it returns economic dignity to them. So if you can plan for your future and you don't have to worry so much about how you're going to make ends meet, I think you can start to really drop your time [01:00:00] preference, be more cooperative, be more positive.

You know, take risks on ideas that you have, be nicer to your neighbor and people, start a family. I mean, it just like incorporates so, so many aspects of our lives that have started to go awry. So now I'm really hopeful and optimistic and if anyone has a problem with that, I don't care.

Knut: Ah, that's so beautifully put. Like, you said before you were, um, that your normie friend saw you as, like, a conspiracy theorist, and you have such a dark worldview. No! Like, I want to tell them, because I recognize this so much, and it's like, no, guys, I used to be a cynical bastard, but now I'm hopeful. Now I'm an optimist.

Like, I used to be this, you know, dark mind pretending to be happy, but now I'm happy for real. Like, there's, there's hope everywhere.

Natalie: I agree. I mean, that's why I love the saying that Bitcoin is hope, because I, [01:01:00] I believe it to my core. It's the thing that I most want to work on. I love meeting other Bitcoiners. I love talking about Bitcoin. I never stop talking about Bitcoin. Uh, and I can't wait until everyone's on board and, and we create a better world and then people can live anywhere.

You know, it'd be great to see a world where it's just like, we're all within like, The same rules, same set of rules. We're not overly governed by a bunch of elites who just want to take over control. We can make our own choices. We can be judged by the value that we bring to the table, our merit. It can be judged fairly in a system that, you know, doesn't misallocate capital because every, every price is wrong because everything was stimulated and artificially priced.

Um, I just, I don't know. I'm excited about what, what world we could create and what future generations will have.

Knut: Absolutely. That's, that, that's how you're expanding your freedom footprint, I guess. by spreading [01:02:00] optimism.

Natalie: yes, I hope so.

Knut: Fantastic. And yeah, if, if you want to, um, if you want to see some more of me and Natalie, I recommend you, but you watch the thing we did like a month back, the, uh, uh, orange pill apps, um, bitcoins got talent

Natalie: fun.

Knut: That was a lot of fun. What, what, what was the name of the winning, uh, the winning act? Uh, name escapes me at the

Natalie: Oh, um, it was that, oh yeah, it was

Knut: this is embarrassing.

Natalie: I know, we have to pull, we have to pull, we have to link it. It was cool. We, I wasn't expecting that one to win. I thought it was going to be, um, Sophie, Internet Sophie, because she sang so beautifully. She was like right up there, but, uh, but no, we had, we had great submissions all around, and the song that was created with the rap, it was super cool.

So,

Knut: yeah, yeah. So cool. Uh, and we're having an orange pill app meeting later tonight. Um, well, it's not tonight over there. It's, um, midday, I guess, but those are [01:03:00] always fun.

Natalie: Yes.

Knut: Luke, do you have anything more on your mind? Like any more questions for Natalie that you'd

Luke: I think this has been a really good session, and I think we're towards wrapping this up, so I'll turn right back to you, Natalie. Anything else you'd like to mention or direct our listeners to?

Natalie: just hope if you haven't already, check out my show Coin Stories. We get more than a million listeners a month, so I'm super excited because we've been in a bear market, so can't wait to see what happens in a bull run. Um, I'm on X and YouTube and all the different platforms. Just really grateful for the community's support.

we're planning Women of Bitcoin, not just at, uh, Bitcoin Atlantis in Madeira, but we're also doing a A huge one in Bitcoin Nashville. So if you want to be a part of it or if you want to sponsor it, reach out to me. Um, we can't wait. Last year we had more than 250 women. This year we're going to make it even bigger.

So it's really, really fun. Um, and yeah, just, I, I just love the message that Bitcoin is for everyone. So I hope, I hope everyone embraces that. And, uh, Holly [01:04:00] here is a Bitcoiner too, but she doesn't know it.

Knut: Oh, yeah, yeah, we were gonna ask about Holly. So, so what, what's that type of dog called in English?

Natalie: She's a mini Doxind.

Knut: Dachshund. Because that's called a tax in, in Swedish. So it's a tax, it's, it's a tax. So you're, you're, you're, yeah, you're literally being taxed at the moment.

Natalie: dork. She's very sweet, uh, I very much love her, I've been wanting a dog for a long time, and there's never a right time, so I just, I pulled the trigger and I got her, um.

Knut: So she's been sitting in your lap for all of this interview,

Natalie: Most of it, yeah. She just, she's very chill. She's

Knut: What a chill dog.

Natalie: Yeah, she's very chill. I wish I could bring her to Madeira, but I don't think she's quite there yet.

Knut: No, no, no, it's a tax haven. They don't allow, like,

Natalie: But these, her body is so long, like it's just, isn't it so [01:05:00] funny? She's just this little sausage. My little kielbasa. My little Polish kielbasa.

Knut: Oh, that's so nice. Yeah. Uh, well, looking forward a lot to seeing you on Madeira and all the fun stuff we'll, we'll be doing there. Will you be staying for a little while or, or just the conference?

Natalie: I'm flying in a little early, and I'll be there until the conference ends, so I can't wait.

Knut: Fantastic. Can't wait. And, uh, yeah, those Levada walks and everything like the, I, I had like When we created the Free Madeira organization, I think it was my fifth time on Madeira, and I've been there, like, as a, as a sailor, as a, you know, professional, uh, sea person, and as a tourist, and then as a, uh, as a Bitcoiner talking to the president about the future of money, so it's, it's, it's so weird, and, but I just love the, uh, that island, and, and yeah, I have a Coin Stories [01:06:00] episode.

Natalie: Perfect.

Knut: Yeah, we did one, like, uh,

Natalie: That's right.

Knut: yeah, uh, when

Natalie: We should, we should reshare it in the link, because yeah, and I have your book right up there, so. I know, yeah, we should definitely share it.

Knut: you should do one with Luke, he's got a fantastic story,

Natalie: Sounds great. I can't wait. I love featuring stories of people around the world. So if you go to my YouTube page, there's actually like a playlist and it's Bitcoiners around the world, and it's just fascinating stories. So I love it.

Knut: yeah, yeah, it's great, uh, and, well, Natalie, good luck with everything you do, of course, and, uh, can't wait to see you on Madeira, and all the fun we're gonna have there,

Natalie: All right. Bye guys. Thank you.

Luke: Thank you so much, Natalie. This has been the Freedom Footprint Show. Thanks for listening.

Knut: bye Holly.

Natalie: Bye. [01:07:00]