You're The Voice | by Efrat Fenigson - Educating Brazil, Despite Surveillance & Fiat Mindset - Carol Souza | Ep. 108

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

My guest today is Carol Souza, co-founder of Area Bitcoin, one of the largest Bitcoin education platforms in Latin America, reaching hundreds of thousands across Brazil and the Portuguese-speaking world. Her path began not in tech or finance, but as a dentist, where Brazil’s inflation, POS payment fees, and daily operational fragilities pushed her to study money and ultimately adopt Bitcoin as a survival tool for her clinic. We discuss Brazil’s long history of hyperinflation, savings confiscation, and the deep fiat mindset that still shapes economic life. Carol explains how PIX, open banking, and the proposed Drex CBDC form a sophisticated financial-surveillance architecture, and why she sees Bitcoin as a sovereignty instrument rather than a speculative asset.► If you got value, please like, comment, share, follow and support my work. Thank you!-- SPONSORS --→ Get your TREZOR wallet & accessories, with a 5% discount, using my code at checkout (get my discount code from the episode - yep, you’ll have to watch it): https://affil.trezor.io/SHUn→ Shield your bitcoin with time-delayed transactions over multisig with BitVault: https://bit.ly/bitvault_efrat → Have you tried mining bitcoin? Stack sats directly to your wallet while saving on taxes with Abundant Mines: https://AbundantMines.com/Efrat – AFFILIATES –→ Get 10% off on Augmented NAC, with the code YCXKQDK2 via this link: https://store.augmentednac.com/?via=efrat (Note, this is not medical advice and you should consult your MD)→ Watch “New Totalitarian Order” conference with Prof. Mattias Desmet & Efrat - code EFRAT for 10% off: https://efenigson.gumroad.com/l/desmet_efrat → Get a second citizenship and a plan B to relocate to another country with Expat Money, leave your details for a follow up: https://expatmoney.com/efrat → Join me in any of these upcoming events: https://www.efrat.blog/p/upcoming-events -- LINKS –Carol’s Twitter: https://x.com/carol_bitcoin  Area Bitcoin’s Twitter: https://x.com/areabitcoin Area Bitcoin’s Website: https://www.areabitcoin.co/ “Bitcoin 4 all” English Course: https://www.areabitcoin.co/preview/bitcoin4all-en Efrat's Twitter: https://twitter.com/efenigsonEfrat's Channels: https://linktr.ee/efenigsonWatch/listen on all platforms: https://linktr.ee/yourethevoiceSupport Efrat's work: ⁠https://bit.ly/zap_efrat -- CHAPTERS –00:00 - Coming Up01:42 - Intro To Carol Souza: Bitcoin Advocate03:40 - Carol's Journey to Bitcoin07:00 - Bitcoin & Broken Money in Brazil 11:15 - Ad Break12:40 - Outcomes of Bitcoin Education13:50 - Challenges of Accepting Solutions Like Bitcoin18:30 - Is Digitalization a Barrier?21:20 - Crypto vs. Bitcoin23:20 - Brazil's CBDC - Pix & Drex26:55 - Ad Break29:05 - CBDC in Brazil Contd.31:30 - Big Tech Censorship & Surveillance34:00 - Bitcoin Education and Activism37:00 - Open Source Education, AI & Vibe Coding45:00 - Designers & Developers Training in Bitcoin47:00 - Teaching Complex Bitcoin Concepts48:40 - The Future of Bitcoin Education

fiat money is broken especially in brazil that we had already hyperinflation in the 90s we had savings accounts confiscated we have a super hyperinflated system like in three or four years we had two or three currencies our currency right now is real brl already lost 87 percent of its purchase power so for me to teach about how to get out of the fiat mindset and to learn Bitcoin properties as a better money is crucial. Everyone sees the price going up. Everybody sees the corruption. Everybody sees the taxing as a system of coercion and oppression. But most of the people still don't know that Bitcoin is this tool that can help them. In Brazil, there's a lot of places that don't have access to internet. So there's a lot of digital education that needs to

be done before Bitcoin. Last year, X, or Twitter, went down. That's when Oscar in Brazil went really popular. It was during Sao Paulo elections and when the elections went over, okay, everything solved. Everyone can use X-Ray now. The open source is a powerful tool for spreading information without barriers, without companies censoring or without copyrights to limit what can be used or not. When you put together education, freedom tools, AI, you enter into a rabbit hole that is vibe coding. When I noticed that Cantillon effect in fiat, I got super angry and my sense of justice got angry too. And when I discovered Bitcoin as a solution, I feel a lot of purpose. hello and welcome to your the voice once again from prague a shout out to trezor for hosting

us in their beautiful studio thank you so much i am so excited to finally sit down for a proper conversation with Carol Souza. Hey Carol. Hello Efrat. Amazing to see you, to talk to you and thank you for having me here. Thank you for coming. We met last year in Brazil and we met before as well but we hang out in Brazil last year at the conference at SatsConf and we also did a little fireside chat on stage and we talked about free speech and Bitcoin and different topics related to Brazil at the time. And I'm sure a lot has happened since then. So the fact that we're sitting here for like a bit of a deeper conversation is super cool. And just for my audience that may not know you, I'll give a quick intro and then we'll dive into the questions. Okay. Cool. So

Carol is the co-founder of Area Bitcoin, together with Caca, who is in the audience here today. You can't see her but she's here one of the largest bitcoin education platforms in the world with over 5 000 students more than 600 000 followers across social media and an active presence at major conferences major global conferences her work is transforming how brazilians understand money helping thousands move away from the fiat mindset and speculation to see bitcoin as a tool for sovereignty, decentralization, and individual freedom. Recently, she launched Bitcoin for All, a free and open source video course with about 10 lessons in Portuguese, English, Spanish.

You can check it out online. I will also put a link to it. And there's much more, but I let you speak. And I think you are one of the most important and respected voices today in Latin America in the Bitcoin space. And I think that it's quite spectacular. Amazing to see how your reach has grown over the last few years. So do you want to start with like what got you to that point?

Where did you start? A bit about your background and how did you build Area Bitcoin? Sure. Yeah. My background has nothing to do with technology or development or finance. I was a dentist before Bitcoin. Ah! Yes.

I had a clinic with Kaka, my partner in Area Bitcoin. No way! Yeah. You guys. Yeah, Cacau worked in marketing and I was a dentist and also worked for the government. So I had both jobs, like a dentist in the government health system and also in our clinic. So I could see all the inefficiencies of the system, of the health system from inside. And also the inefficiencies of being an entrepreneur in Brazil with inflation.

And the thing that brought me to Bitcoin was the highest fees and inflation. I was trying to protect myself at the time, like trying to survive, trying to make the clinic survive. And the thing that triggered to Bitcoin was the POS machines. I already have bought Bitcoin in 2017, but the POS machines were super expensive for us as entrepreneurs. years. And I was trying to find... The POS machines, just for my audience that may not know, are the machines that you use in order to accept payments, right? In shops or everywhere you have those machines that you swipe a card or... Yeah. So that's POS machine. Yeah. And the fees in Brazil were and are super expensive. Sometimes 20% of the purchase power. Because in Brazil we have a

culture to fragment the spending and the clients can delay the payments like one month at each time, you know. So it was a huge cost for us as entrepreneurs. And I was studying Bitcoin for myself, for our business. And I got into Bitcoin as money. And I thought, if I can receive Bitcoin without fees, so I can eliminate the POS machines if my clients want to pay me in Bitcoin. And that's how everything started. That's how I started to study Bitcoin as money, how I could receive it. And during this journey, it was a paradox for us because at that time, most of the content was about trading, speculating with Bitcoin, but not about receiving Bitcoin peer-to-peer from another person, from your client. And the search to have a more efficient business brought me to Bitcoin. And then we started to share our experience, like what it is a wallet, how to create a wallet in Brazil, in Portuguese, getting out of the trading speculative mindset.

And it worked. A lot of people started to consume our content, cheering like, ah, this content helped me so much. That's our sign-off to keep doing it. So you started with YouTube videos? YouTube videos. And also Instagram. that is the two biggest ones in Brazil that most people use. And it grew a lot.

And then in 2020, I quit my job at the government and also sold the clinic to dedicate 100% or 200% of our lives to Bitcoin and to create content and help Brazilians. In 2020? 2020. Wow, what a time when COVID started. Yeah. And when you started accepting payments in your clinic, was Bitcoin not even in a discussion of regulation at the time in Brazil?

No, they were starting a discussion about IRS and how to tax it more, how exchange could track and to deliver information to our IRS system. Now in Brazil, anyone who buys Bitcoin has their data delivered to the IRS. So this discussion started at that moment. We have a surveillance system, fiat surveillance system way much more efficient than the rest of the world. I guess we're going to talk about it. I would love to talk about it. And now the things they are developing.

Yes. Wow. Okay. So, and okay. Well, let's go according to my order of the questions because I can go anywhere now. What first type of education you created that you felt like it was the first thing that people need to know when they got into their journey? How fiat money is broken, especially in Brazil, that we had already hyperinflation in the 90s. We had savings accounts confiscated.

Tell us a bit about the 90s. What happened? We have a super hyperinflated system. Like in three or four years, we had two or three currencies. In like 100 years of Brazil as an independent from Portugal, we had like nine currencies. Our currency right now is real, BRL. It has 27 years, already lost 87% of its purchase power. So for me, to teach about how to get out of the fiat mindset

and to learn Bitcoin properties as a better money is crucial. And because people have experienced this in relatively recent decades, are they more open? Are they understanding what inflation is in a better way than most of the other places around the world. Yeah, totally, because everyone sees the price going up. Everybody sees the corruption. Everybody sees the taxing as a system of coercion and oppression.

But most of the people don't know how to exit, how to opt out and how to help themselves. So this is where our search. Okay, this is a tool, Bitcoin is a tool, can help a lot of people in Brazil. But most of the people still don't know that Bitcoin is this tool that can help them to survive through inflation, hyperinflation. Who knows what will happen?

We already had savings accounts confiscated in Brazil in the 90s. So the confiscation of the banking... It was like a bail-in, like they took money away from deposits. Yeah. Or closed the deposits, like now it's ours, the banks. To fight inflation. To fight inflation, of course. It's like in Cyprus, of course.

Yes. Okay. Go on. Yeah, so I think, but the thing is, this happened like 30 years ago, and most of the people forget of these events or think that it can't happen anymore. So one of our efforts is try to help Brazilians to remember that and to prepare, but to notice that in their real lives, they are already suffering these effects in fiat money, like the real losing purchasing power and all the surveilling mechanisms that fiat has through banks and through government and through taxation and everything okay area bitcoin has reached thousands of brazilians and portuguese speaking right what's been by the way you have a lot of

audience from portugal yeah not just uh from brazil yeah portugal there's a lot of brazilians living abroad in other countries. So they are watching it from other countries. Okay. You're the Voice is brought to you by Trezor, the original Bitcoin hardware wallet company pioneering the development of self-custody for crypto assets since 2013,

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knowledge to wisdom when you put it in practice. Yeah. And to me is to see people putting in practice like deciding to install a wallet in their cell phone or to asset Bitcoin or to see Bitcoin as a tool for them and take action and start to do things with Bitcoin okay build an app or start to think okay how can I use this in my daily life not just study study study study never took action so what we see a lot in our platforms and with students and people that cross our lives in this journey is that they start to take action. They start to do things with Bitcoin. They start to accept it. They start to show to their families and friends. And to me, the action is what changes realities. Absolutely. And that's where I feel like many

people are getting stuck these days, where, for example, in the UK and in Switzerland and in other places, there's this whole push towards digital IDs, which is like the foundation of surveillance States, like we know. And I see a lot of freedom oriented people or freedom communities talking about and obviously resisting it and are very verbal about it, which is fantastic. But most of the content that I see out there is just talking about resist, say no to this, go out to the street, sign this petition, I don't know, write a letter to your MP or anything you can do in order to try and influence the situation and make it not work for the state to instill that. However, I feel like most of these people are in a way losing hope because they're not seeing

what else can be done in order to create a new reality. They are stuck inside this reality, just trying to push back push back you know against what the state and the government is bringing but they have no idea what they're gonna do once maybe this will come into their life and it probably will like as we know or if it's gonna take a few more years until it gets there or whatever and then when you talk to them about there are some tools out there there are some freedom tools one of them is called bitcoin the other one is called noster and you know there are some privacy apps and all this kind of stuff it exists you just have to like open your mind I feel that there's a lot of fear a lot of resistance towards that so do you meet that

in your work and how do you how do you you know get how do you approach those people how do you try and get them to understand that they shouldn't be so fearful that there are ways that they can actually do something about it yeah um it's hard to see the surveillance system growing now uh for example to leave brazil or to get into europe or u.s you need to face scan yes through your passport and customs um so what i say is that even if this system gets more stronger you we can develop tools that even with those surveillance tools, we can survive and get freedom and some way counterfeit that or to improve our freedom tools to other people to use across the world.

But I see that those who are more afraid are those who don't know yet, Noster and Bitcoin, that these tools exist. Another example is like open source. Yeah. Open source is a viral and a powerful tool to develop things that can't be stopped. So you can develop an app, a website, I don't know, any digital tool that can be used across the world that anyone can download in their phones, computers, and then can be used for freedom. But we need people to take action and invent those tools.

A lot of them are being invented right now, but we are in the process of digitalization of everything. And if we don't invent those tools, the surveillance system will win somehow. So we need to take action and we need to learn about this and share information. Okay, someone's building something there. How can we do something similar in Brazil or in Europe or whatever? So I think that part of the educational process is to let people know what the problem is, that these surveillance tools are being used against people and what kind of solution already exists and what else we can do to improve our freedoms. And there's a saying in Bitcoin, you can just do things, right? Which a lot of Bitcoiners take and adopt and they just build stuff or they do stuff.

That's to your point, they get into action, which is oftentimes the hardest thing for people to do, to get into action. Because it requires them to actively change something in their lives, to break a habit, to unlearn something, to adopt a new way of being or working. And that is super hard for people. Change is very hard for people. Because of insecurities. Yeah. That's a thing that we notice. When I talk about Bitcoin, some people said,

ah, I can't, I'm not a developer. I don't know enough, you know. So it takes time for people to be confident with technological and financial tools and open source tools and new abilities they need to absorb and to incorporate. I agree. Do you think that the whole digital thing, the digitalization that you were referring to, is a barrier for many of the people that are now wanting to make a change or trying to get into Bitcoin or the digital world?

I think that those who want to get into this space already know those tools. But I think there's a lot of people that doesn't even know this exists and could be part of it. For example, in Brazil, there's a lot of places that don't have access to Internet. So there's a lot of digital education that needs to be done before Bitcoin and before what we are talking about. So this is a great barrier. Like what's the Internet? How do you access a website? To have an email.

Have an email and have a device that you can do that through. yeah so do you at all handle any of these things like in your work or are you just catering for digital people like people who are already in that space yeah our focus is for people that already are using those tools or are already in social medias or already access to blogs or digital platforms because we are in all social medias and we also have our own platform and We have open source courses that everyone can access, but those who assess it already have a device, already have a computer. So I think this is another kind of approach that it is out of the screens. It's something more analogical.

And this could be a process and educational that could be done, but it's not something we're focused in yet. But it's definitely a way. If this is a calling for any of you listening around Brazil or in other countries, you know, rise up and you can be the one helping people to actually become more digital if they're in the analog world and they need help to step up their game, because that is another thing that is very needed. I agree with you. What we do is meetups. There are meetups in different cities where local hosts can be leaders in their communities and start this process. But there are those who are watching us. Our audience says, I learned a lot from you.

I want to help in my city. What do I do? So these people contact us and we help them. But it's just seven cities. How do you help them? What do you do? We have online courses like Bitcoin for All. They can watch it.

We have once per month a mentoring for them. Like, okay, these are the materials. what do you need what do you have a place to do the meetup we help them to create these local communities this is already a analog movement but it's it's more than i think it could be in the future wonderful okay um what what are the mindset barriers that you see often with new students when it comes to moving beyond speculation towards sovereignty and self-custody Right now, I think that the fiat mindset towards crypto, because since we started, mostly until 2022, most of the content and Google and search for Bitcoin, it got mixed with crypto. So for like...

And my conspiracy theory hat would say that it's probably on purpose to get people confused. Totally. And to push them through speculation so they can receive more fees from the speculative mindset, people will negotiate more and trade more. And this could be a get rich quick thing, but for the exchanges. So that's why a great part of the educational part are like meetups or conferences for crypto, but funded by exchange and those who have interest in spreading this mindset, speculative mindset and not Bitcoin as a freedom tool, as something that people can store and don't need to be trading all the time. You know, I think that this crypto mindset is a barrier because they start to mix everything and come back to the fiat mindset, come back to. Yeah, absolutely. It pulls them back into that way of thinking and living. Yeah, it's very sophisticated. This is like the natural tendency of humans today because we are living in a world full of greed and fear and corruption. and you want to get rich you want to sometimes it's from good intentions like you just want to

survive and you're being pulled into that direction but at the same time you forget about your need and sovereignty you forget about your privacy you forget about building something that is uh outside of the system and you get pulled back very easily because from crypto the way to CBDC is very short yeah it's very similar and some would say it's the same because you know if we're talking about things like Ripple or XRP this is literally a CBDC platform so so and that's why I think a lot of freedom movement people are confusing Bitcoin with CBDCs They're saying like Bitcoin is a way to open the door for a CBDC, like normalize CBDC in the future. And they have no idea that it's 180 degrees different, right?

So let's touch on that. So what do you see in Brazil in terms of the trend towards CBDC and how it's been building over the past few years, starting around COVID time with the systems that the state put in place? Brazil already have like a pre-CBDC, it's called PIX, it's a payment system. It grew really fast because, especially during COVID, they already were planning to push this payment system, but when COVID arrived and everybody was afraid of using cash, no one... And then PIX came. And at the time, the central bank forced all banks bigger than 500,000 clients to update and to implement Integrate PIX. So really fast, they integrated it. And they started to compete for the clients because through PIX, you need to create a key, just like public and private key.

Ah, really? Yeah. And they were competing for the clients of other banks to see which one would get most of the keys and bring other banks' clients for them. So they created a competition between banks and they promoted it on the TV, in advertisements. So it got popular really fast. Now it's the main way Brazilians pay for things. Wow. In a few years.

Five years. It's crazy. Way much faster than credit cards, for example. And it's used more than credit cards today? Yeah. Wow. People are using a lot. And now they are creating a credit system for PIX.

And let's remind everyone how many people live in Brazil? 200,000. 200 million. Million, yeah. Fucking hell. 200 million. And you have this pervasive system that is already there on the retail side. And what's happening on the wholesale side, like with the banks and stuff, with their CBDC plans?

Okay, so since they launched the PIX, they are planning to launch a CBDC called Drax. And they started the pilot in 2024, but they still couldn't launch because of privacy issues. But obviously, this is an issue from the start. But they are planning to launch it next year. They plan to use a blockchain for that, and they quit. And now we don't know exactly how it's going to work.

But the thing is, they don't need to launch a CBDC. They already have the PIX. And the PIX is already linked to our IRS system. And we have in Brazil a system called open banking, where banks share information of their customers. We have that in Israel as well. Really? Yeah.

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it's a PSYOP. They are using that project in order to pretend that we are currently working on a CBDC project because we have to because all countries are doing that so they all have to show that they are doing it and we're trying to implement a digital ledger we're trying to implement you know blockchain whatever blockchain technology but in the end because we already have pigs but they're not going to tell anyone that that's the reason they're just going to say in the end you know what we listen to you because of privacy or whatever we're pulling back we're not actually going to have CBDCs because we don't need them we already have pigs it's working fine And we're just going to make sure that PIX is going to be then utilized in maybe your salary, maybe your taxes, maybe your, you know, ingrain this into your life even more so that you essentially have a CBDC without knowing that this is a CBDC.

And what they could do is add another stablecoin that is like a state stablecoin. and that will be also integrated into the PICS because it will be your digital, what is it called, real? Yeah, digital real. So the digital real. And the PICS will hold your digital reals and there you go. You have CBDC, you just didn't call it that way. So it's all a sign up to just like pretend that they are doing stuff

and not doing stuff for the population, but they're doing it anyway. And the narrative is for efficiency. Efficiency, yeah. Finance inclusion, but it's a surveillance. Financial inclusion, that's the funniest. How many people in Brazil don't have a bank account or get debanked because of that shit? Yeah, it's less than 20%.

That's a lot. I must say that Brazil has one of the biggest digital banking usage and one of the main internet usage and digital platform usage. So really connected. And they are using this curiosity for technology and internet and connection, because Brazil is huge, it's a way for everyone to communicate, to install those mechanisms and surveil financially and through digital platforms like WhatsApp and Next, they already shut down in the past, we can't enter in that matter. Yeah, can you share a bit about that? So what has happened? Yeah, last year, X, or Twitter, went down during a Supreme Court judge.

And we stayed like 20 days or 15 days cut off from X. Everyone needed to learn how to use VPNs. Like, people that I didn't realize would be interested in VPNs got interested and started to ask us how to... This is the thing, like pigs. Everyone learned how to use QR codes to transact. This is a secondary effect. And then when X went down, everybody was curious about VPNs, curious about privacy tools, and curious about Nostr. That's when Nostr in Brazil went really popular.

Really? Yeah, we have a video that grew a lot at that moment telling about how to use Nostr, how to configure a Nostr account, etc. And for 15 days, we got deplatformed. So after that, it was during São Paulo elections. And when the elections went over, they, okay, everything's solved. Everyone can use X right now. Coincidentally, right? It coincided with the election so that you wouldn't be able to influence

in your campaign and share and whatever. Fucking hell, such corruption. It's unbelievable. So now it's fine. Now X is working in Brazil? Yeah, it's working. but there's a lot of persecution for those who criticize Supreme Court and some political components.

Brazil is polarized like the rest of the world right now. But we have a Supreme Court judge that don't like those who criticize them and start to de-platform and shut down and wants to shut down some accounts from Brazilians that have more visibility. So just like the same playbook, like all the rest of the world, censoring people's expression and speech and trying to control narratives through the platforms. How convenient that they put all this legislation in place that they can regulate the big tech companies and the social platforms. Okay, so it's a good sign to hear that Brazilians were interested in Nostr and starting to curiously research what that is.

And if you don't know what Nostr is, then come on, we talked about it already, but you know, check out what Nostr is, N-O-S-T-R. Education is a form of activism, I think. How do you see Bitcoin education contributing to cultural and political change in Latin America? I think that people are feeling empowered because those who are noticing Bitcoin as a tool to survive and to help their friends and families are feeling more confident. and are starting to feel confident to show about what the fiat system is, how real being debased, to show what they are doing, like shutting down people's accounts and start to speaking up and starting to create content and starting to be leaders in their communities

because they're starting to notice that if no one talks about it, if no one shares information and helps people to see Bitcoin as a tool for freedom, for people to wake up to this system. So I think that is an empowering tool and it's making people to speak up and feel more confident and to feel confident even to store their own money, their own wealth, their own family wealth

because we already have those episodes of banking accounts and savings accounts being confiscated. So everyone starts to think, okay, this can be done again. So I will anticipate and I will protect myself, I'll protect my family and I'll learn how to use these tools, how to use multisig or a wallet. So I've noticed that people that we couldn't even think that would be interested in Bitcoin or interested in protect their money are getting interested. But it's a slow process. Yes.

Depends when something, that's the sad part. Yeah. Sometimes something needs to happen for people to accelerate the process, you know? I know. But I think that's the way life is. Like, it's divine. Like, things happen in the time and the pace. They happen for a reason.

And people have their own journey to go through. And unfortunately, some of us have to receive stronger punches from life before they wake up. so yeah it can be painful and you know I was recently banned from telegram so really my telegram account was shut down and I don't have anyone to talk to because I'm speaking to bots and AIs on the telegram platform and now I can't even speak to them because they completely closed my account I had two channels there one with 6,000 people one with 2,000 people in Hebrew and in english and they're it's all gone and i have to get another sim if i want to open another telegram account so people think that telegram is this free speech place no it's not nostrils um

you launched bitcoin for all in three languages congratulations like that's that's amazing and i watched the obviously just the english i don't understand other languages what impact are you It's a great course. I highly recommend for people to watch that. What impact are you seeing globally? And was open sourcing this important for you? Yeah, we are feeling and seeing that open source education is becoming a thing. Because for me, it's a viral thing.

Anyone can use it. Everyone can download or remix and recreate using this as a basis. or even pick up the images or the videos and play in their meetups without copyrights. And this is the powerful thing. And we decided to create these videos and these classes so anyone could play in their meetups or in their houses or in their bar, I don't know, anywhere they want

to help people to learn about Bitcoin. So I think the open source is a powerful tool for spreading information without barriers, without companies censoring or without copyrights to limit what can be used or not. So we decided to create in three languages. So in Latin America, Brazil speaks Portuguese, but there's a lot of countries that speak Spanish.

The Spanish courses, we used AI to do that because our Spanish is not that good. But the English, I record it. So I think it's a tool that can help anyone who is learning, anyone who wants to teach, anyone who wants a basis, a script, or initial material to create upon it. So I think it's a good basis that can help a lot of people. And if more open source educational content appear,

we can have infinite amount of content to multiplicate this idea. I think the idea is to multiplicate knowledge and help people to feed this Bitcoin mindset and get rid of the fiat mindset because it's hard. When you don't notice, it's there. you're thinking like a fiat mindset absolutely I totally understand and empathize with people who say but you know I need to make a living so I need to monetize this I can't put all my stuff for free out there for people to consume I totally get that and I respect that however

if you can what you can put out there for the world to take do it and I think that that's very inspiring and yeah we don't think like that enough we're very much in the fiat mindset but you do have some paid courses there as well right yeah yeah okay we have a paid platform and we have way much more free content on online but I think that in the short term paid education may be demonetized by ai and i think that the open source contents may help to to feed those ais to propagate the bitcoin mindset and not okay fiat is good you need to use the government currency you only have to use that you need to obey to everything you know i i absolutely i think we need to provide those tools for we have different opinions and different forms of content to

be basis for this digital world we are going to live this is very interesting what you're saying it makes me think that um you know i was a marketeer for about 20 years that's what i did before i got into this new chapter of my life and obviously as a marketeer you always look at the different types of uh different types of marketing channels that will bring you leads that will bring you traffic and what works best and how you can utilize them in the best way possible. And until a few years ago, search engines were like the number one channel that in most cases that will bring people into your content, into your work. And I think it was two years ago when I had a discussion with a few Bitcoiners that are building things in this space

and they don't have the marketing or the business background that I have. And we were talking about AI and how it's going to enter into our life and what it's going to change or whatever. And I told them, you just wait and see, give it not much time. I'm telling you like two years from now or even less until you start seeing that AI is going to beat search engines in bringing people into content online. and it's not going to take much time

and people are going to rely on what the AI tells them and the sources it gives them in order to find content and answer their questions. And lo and behold, this is what's happening. And I think for the first time ever, I have a blog. Also, it's a free blog so people can sign up to my mailing list and 5,000 people did that. Thank you very much for everyone who signed up.

And I can see every time someone signs up where they came from. So for the first time a month ago, I got someone from ChatGPT. Really? Yes. So like ChatGPT is starting to send people down to my blog. And the reason I'm saying this is not just to celebrate, but also to show how content like mine, which is quite, you know, dissident, different. I speak about freedom, sovereignty, you know, getting out of the system and all that stuff. AI is also regurgitating that.

even though this is content that the state likes less it's it's somehow like through the pipelines it's uh trickling down and it's working so people are being sent to my content as well maybe they're searching about cbdc's maybe they're searching i don't know what they're searching but it's super interesting to see and what you're saying is very yeah it's very much tying into that ai is going to change a lot and if we put open source content out there that AI can then feed on it will start sending people to the relevant you know websites like yours etc and it will also answer questions in a different way right so that's another reason why we want to do open source content yeah and I think that our work as educators is going to become a little much more active not um for

example what i'm thinking right now is that when you put together education freedom tools ai you enter into a rabbit hole that it is vibe coding right and you can maybe you can explain to people what vibe coding is is when you use ai to create apps or to build something that you couldn't do before so for example and you don't need to know how to program yes you don't need to know to be a coder for example but you can become a coder without knowing exactly how to do that for example we are vibe coding websites and platforms that we couldn't do before and we were depending of a developer to do that small websites and it brought us a way much faster way to do things like we were saying in the beginning we are doing more things and as educators we can build

educational platforms educational websites that we didn't have before so this is why i think we're going to need to to be more active more creative and more builders yeah to build the education build the tools we couldn't have before and this is how education activism and a little bit of building abilities merge into the future of Bitcoin education and general education. I love it, Carol. I love it. Okay. This is exactly, yeah, it ties in really well, this question. So you also helped build Bitcoin creative and Bitcoin coders. Why do you believe, what are they first? And why do you believe empowering designers and developers is key to bitcoin adoption okay because through time since we started in 2019 until now people come

to us saying okay i learned a lot from you i already have bitcoin and i want to work in this space i am a non-developer like a regular developer not a bitcoin developer or i am a creative person i work in marketing i'm a designer and these two profile profiles came to us asking, what can I do? I know nothing about coding. And we always wanted to have this space for people to develop careers

and also to help adoption and to help these tools that we are seeing that are necessary to build. So I think that Bitcoin Creative and Bitcoin Coders merge this necessity. People wanting to work in Bitcoin

and develop their own tools without knowing how to do that, the creatives, And also the regular developers that don't know how to be a Bitcoin developer and want to contribute to the protocol. So these are two programs that we started this year with two teachers, two professors, Laura and Rafael, that are leading those two initiatives. And we are with our audience, bringing them into these spaces and helping them to merge their careers if they want, or just to build something that they think that needs to exist in the Bitcoin space. Beautiful. I love it. Okay. We're coming. We have only a few more minutes, but I still have a few questions for you. So what's your approach to teaching complex ideas like decentralization or monetary debasement to people who've never thought about money this way before? I think that teaching is more about hearing than speaking.

So in the beginning of a conversation, you need to hear what are the backgrounds and feel a little bit what are the backgrounds of that person and start to do questions and using metaphors. Metaphors are the best way to help people to digest what Bitcoin is. And to me, this is the tool to make it more didactic, to understand Bitcoin money. Of course, you want help and teach us, speak about Bitcoin, all subjects that it is. We need a thousand hours to understand Bitcoin, a little bit of Bitcoin.

Can you imagine in a small talk to try to deliver everything? The person don't know what to do with that much of information. that's why hearing and connecting a few dots it's the the first step and then you can through the conversation understand what the personal necessities i need to this person don't know how fiat works and i need to go through the fiat problems or investments problems or freedom problems so we need to find a way to reach out the central point in each one beautiful you're such a good educator beautiful and what's the future of Bitcoin education in the world in Brazil in Latin America specifically maybe and

what role do you see yourself playing that you and in Kakete area Bitcoin I hope that it gets more common, Bitcoin education and Bitcoin awareness. Because at this point, everyone already heard about Bitcoin, but it still has this speculative label. So I hope that in the future, it's not just that. Bitcoin has money, it has a freedom tool. And our idea is to keep doing that, keep helping people. and keep growing. I heard Bitcoin and ourselves

already were transformed to this process. So it's hard to say how I imagined there because probably it's going to be way much different. But I hope to still be here, still be talking to you, knowing people in the space and keep growing with the Bitcoin industry

and adoption and helping more people in our region to connect to Bitcoin as well. So how do you measure your success? Is it the number of students or is it something else um numbers are nice but they're not the main measure i think that the feedbacks that we receive because we test a lot of things a lot of contents different ways to produce and the feedback feedbacks are the most important yes i love it so we are always doing research and combining the results we have and the feedbacks and for us is the feedbacks okay

this work because we have 50 20 positive reactions or positive feedbacks about it so okay let's keep doing that and growing through this way love it and on a personal note what keeps you inspired to keep reaching out and speaking out even when it's difficult or unpopular to me is the sense of justice that bitcoin brings the sense of justice yeah say more about that i when i noticed that cantillan effect in fiat i got super angry and my sense of justice got angry too and i discovered bitcoin as a solution i feel a lot of purpose and to help people to see bitcoin as an equalizator, that everyone follows the same rules, to me is the thing that moves me. So when I'm in Bitcoin, I feel that I'm helping and improving my sense of justice.

Okay, I have something to hold on, that it's a better tool that anyone can use. And I know no one will corrupt it like the fiat system it is. So to me, the sense of justice. Fantastic. I love it. Where should people follow you? Our main website is areabitcoin.co. There they will find, okay, Instagram, YouTube, Bitcoin for All,

and all the places to find our contents. Also in Brazil, it's areabitcoin.com.br. It's in Portuguese, but in English and Spanish, it's .co. .co? Yeah. Areabitcoin.co. Yeah. And on X, Instagram, you said as well?

Carol, underline Bitcoin. Okay. And in Oster, in X, my public key's there. You don't remember the public key? huge okay carol this was fantastic thank you so much for coming and sharing yourself so generously and thank you so much for being such an inspiring educator for hundreds of thousands of people around the world i appreciate you so much thank you so much ifrat you are also inspiration for me it's amazing to talk to you have amazing energy and thank you for having me here pleasure thank

you thank you thanks for being with us please take a minute to give this episode a like a comment and subscribe or follow and please share it with your friends so they can also get value and choose to take some positive action in their lives till next time