← Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell
Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell
Efrat Fenigson: Betting on Yourself & Bitcoin in a World Torn by Ideological and Political Power Struggles
01:00:40
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- [00:00]
Ephrat Fenigsen
When you talk about the way the game is played and the system is rigged and the top down is kind of making the rules and throwing the wealth from up the top and everyone down the bottom is kind of looking up, going, give me some. Give me some. It creates that mentality and that conditioning that keep people in that victimhood loop where they need to continue either begging for more or being angry and upset said for not getting more. And they continue that dialogue with whoever is on the top and then the real slavery that exists is in their head. It's like they are becoming slaves of the system.
- [00:46]
Natalie
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Joining me this week in studio is Ephrat Fenigsen. She's an independent journalist and host of you're the Voice. Efrat, I've been wanting to record with you for so long. Thank you for joining me here in New York.
- [00:58]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Thank you for inviting me and wanting to record with me. So for so long. I do not take it for granted.
- [01:04]
Natalie
You have done fantastic in this space. I just really admire your authenticity, your honesty and the way that you show up and have this genuine curiosity about people. I just love all the energy that you put out. So let's have my audience get to know you a little bit better. I'm sure many of them listen to your show. Can you talk a little bit about your origin story? Let's start from the very beginning. Born in Israel. Tell me about your life.
- [01:27]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Yeah, so born and raised in Israel at 1980. So I was lucky to experience Israel in the 80s. It was very, very different to what it is today. And I was kind of growing up with technology. I remember around 9, 10 years old, we had our first PC and I started playing around with technology. I loved it. And as I was growing up, more things came in. The Internet started coming in. I remember.
- [01:55]
Around when I was 21 in university. I'm jumping for a second. And I studied computer science. We had the first course for mobile programming and back then the iPhone didn't exist yet. And we were like, sorry, it was 2001, not 21. We were like, what is this lecturer talking about? Why does he say this is going to be the next big thing? And they were teaching us to program for mobiles. And. Yeah. And he was so convinced that that's the next revolution. We did not see it coming. And he knew like a few years later it was the very big thing. So jumping back in Israel grew there most of my life. Went to the military when I was 18 for two years. That's what Girls do in Israel. And When I was 20, I started studying in a college in Israel, computer science. And after a couple of years I did an exchange program with a university in Australia. So I moved to Australia and studied. I didn't like my first like bachelor's degree there in computer science. I was a geek. I was a developer. Wow. Yes. And you switched. I could be. I'm not as good in programming and I worked in a video game student studio for three years. Developed games for Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo.
- [03:23]
Natalie
Yeah, I would not expect that.
- [03:25]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Yeah. Wow. I know. And I was always the only woman in development teams. It was always very strange. I was always wondering why other women are not so much into technology. Like there were some other women being artists or graphic designers and things like that, but not developers. And lo and behold, I also got sick of it after a short while and I knew that I do love technology but. But I don't like creating the code for it. I want to create the stories, I want to create communication around it. I had no idea how I'm going to do that and how I'm going to move to the business side. And I had no intention to go back to university for another degree. So I decided to open my own business, small business of jewelry and accessories and just try, try it out myself. I like experiencing, I like learning on my own. So I hired people and I learned about procurement and export import and hiring people. And yeah, it was a really great school for sales, marketing and business. And once I've done that for a couple of years, I decided I'm going back to Israel. This was after six years in Australia when I already got my citizenship. Yeah, I got a second citizenship just by being there and, and you know, going through the whole maturing process of being a resident and then being a citizen. I also met the father of my son to be at the time. So we, we started a relationship and when I decided to go back to Israel, he wanted to come back with me. His parents are also Israeli like in origin, but he was born and, and raised in Australia, but he was speaking Hebrew and he had an Israeli idea as well. So he was like, yeah, let's give it a try. And so we went back to Israel in 2007. And being in Israel, if you're not Israeli, it's tough. Like the culture is very stressful and there's high demand for Excell. If you're not like really hardworking or knows how to manipulate the system, then it's really hard to get by. And when you come From a place like Australia where life is a little bit more chill, it's kind of hard. So it was hard for him as a small business owner to, to do well in Israel. So he was kind of struggling with assimilating with the culture as well. So our relationship was kind of going a little bit downhill. Nevertheless, we got married and after one year we had a son together. When I was 30 years old, I had my first, my first and only son. And now he's almost 16. It's kind of incredible that I'm a mom to a 16 year old. It's unbelievable. I can't believe it. And after bitcoin he is actually, he is almost the same age. Almost the same age.
- [06:06]
Natalie
We're going to be at the 16th.
- [06:07]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Yeah. And after one year, when he was one year old, we got divorced and his dad decided to go back to Australia. And here I am finding myself at 30, 30 years old, 31 years old, with a one year old baby, with a career that is going upwards, with a relationship that's going downwards, with a baby on my own. I do not want to stop my career. But how do I make it all work? How can I stay a mom and take care of the baby and have a full time job? That was almost impossible. So I decided to move next to my parents and I also took off the debt from my ex husband because when he left, as I said, it was not easy for him as a small business owner in Israel. So he had a lot of debt. And because I really wanted this relationship to end, I wanted to start over, I was like, I'm going to take off this debt. I was, I was better positioned to work and save money than he was. So I just wanted to start a new chapter for both of us. I took it on and my parents helped me. And so I'm 31 years old, one year old baby and, and almost a 100k dollars worth of debt that I have to pay off. And I found a new job, tripled my salary, worked really hard and within two years managed to pay off the debt. That's incredible. Yeah. For me, breakdowns during my life were never a reason to get depressed or feel like a victim. It was always a calling to grow. It was always a calling to change something in my life and to learn how I can expand and beat that, that breakdown. Because breakdowns are there in my, in my eyes just to invite us to find something new within ourselves. And so that's what I've done and managed to pay off the debt. I was, I put for myself. I was like, my son is going to have a happy mom. Like, I'm going to make it all work. I'm going to be a career woman and I'm going to be the best mom I can. So I went to a psychologist and I was like, really determined to, you know, recover from the divorce and do well in life. And I really wanted a boyfriend. Boyfriend. That was really hard. So for like five, six years, I didn't have a boyfriend. I kept on dating people and it never worked. And I'm like, I'm gonna stay alone for the rest of my life. When I was 35, I told my psychologist, I think I'm gonna end up on my own, like in this lifetime. She's like, shut up. You just need one. One. I told her, yeah, one. But the funnel is so narrow, it's so hard to find that one. And I did find him on a dating app after all, and we were together for nine years. It was. And that taught me a lot about relationships. We broke up recently, but I I had the most amazing relationship of my life.
- [08:55]
Natalie
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- [10:49]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Yeah. So my parents are still happily married and they're, they're a lovely couple. And I think the first example for me were my grandparents, actually two Holocaust survivors. They both came from Europe, from different places. My grandma was hiding in Switzerland for five years with her little brother as she was 14. She came to Israel when she was 19. And my grandfather finished the Second World War after 13 concentration and death camps and made it and came to Israel and they met in Israel and they were the most amazing couple. And even though they went through most horrible stuff in life, especially my grandfather and all of their families were murdered during the 40s, they were so positive and they were so loving. And my grandma never said anything negative about people, ever. The only thing you could see my grandma do when she didn't like someone or she didn't approve of something was like moving her nose in this funny way. She was like, I don't like, like you could see she's not happy, but, but never talk badly about anyone. And my mom, when I. Yeah, right. And when I looked at them knowing, because I was the first one in the family to investigate both of them about what they went through in the Holocaust, apparently they did not speak to anyone in my family about what they went through. So when I did my. How do you call it, the.
- [12:11]
Natalie
Oh, yeah, your family tree.
- [12:12]
Ephrat Fenigsen
The family tree work. I investigated them and they started telling what they went through. And so I knew. And then my question became, how can you go through all of this and still be so happy and positive and loving and good? Because they were vibrating, just goodness and love. And they taught me that just by being who they, who they were. And I had other grandparents on the other side that were a lot more, you know, it was, they were a lot more bitter. It was harder for them. So I could also see the differences and I could. Yeah. And I was always very sensitive to to people and energies and, and I always love doing good in life and helping people. So. And I also like, I have this really strong moral, moral duty and values and ideology and I always have, I always looked for justice even as, and my son is very much like that too. It's a little bit stubborn, but I guess it was like I was born with this, but also saw the example in my, in my house. And so until today, this is one of my guiding stars. I really want society to open their hearts more, to kind of let go of the violence and the, you know, the, the conflicts. We're always talking about peace, how, how we want peace, but people really on the most part don't understand. But peace starts from within. So if you are carrying so much trauma and you have, and we all carry trauma, right. There's no one who is immune to that as human beings. We're all prone to that. The only question is do you know how to work on it? And there are many different ways to work on it. And if you do and you're also not afraid to, to look the truth in the eyes and confront your, your fears, then you can really bring something beautiful to life and you can bring peace from within and that will then go further to the world around you.
- [14:11]
Natalie
That's beautifully said. What's crazy is I actually think that bitcoin can help us achieve some of that. So I'm curious, how did you find bitcoin?
- [14:18]
Ephrat Fenigsen
So when I was 40, as I told you, in life I always look for breakdowns and growth opportunities. That was another one. Covid. I was a chief marketing officer in a global company in Corporate Company, 250 people based in Tel Aviv. But it's a global company with 40 offices around the world and I'm like traveling around, have a big team and managing budgets of like tens of millions of dollars, bringing tens of millions of dollars in revenue for the company I was working with. I was one of the best CMOs in Israel at the time, global CMOs. And I had a great reputation in the industry. I was also running seven years of a community of global CMOs like myself with 150 CMOs. So I was well known and I was doing well. But then Covid came and there was a, a gradual slow process of violating my human rights and, and autonomy of over my body and deciding for me what I should or shouldn't do. And same for my son. And as a mother and as a justice freedom lover, as I told you before, I stood on my, on my feet and said no way. This. This is not going to happen. Not with me. I mean, I will make my own decisions. I'll make my own research. I'm gonna find out what's good for me and my son. And if I decide to participate in any experiment, I will. But if I don't want to, I will not, no matter what the consequences are. So consciously, I made a decision to belong from that moment onwards to a minority, not just in Israel, but around the world. And I was called names and I was ridiculed. And I was like, people were gossiping about me. People were. Were sending emails to my boss trying to get me fired because I have different opinions and because I do not want to participate in this. And it was really. It was a tough moment, but it really made me resilient because at that time, I decided to take to the streets and I became an activist and I had my megaphone and really, like.
- [16:27]
Natalie
You, participated in protests during the pandemic.
- [16:30]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Fully, Fully. I'll send you photos of mine. At that time, because of the measures, the COVID measures. It started actually with the.
- [16:41]
I forget what it's called, but it's the law that they put in place that really violates democracy. It ruins the separation between the three entities of the democracy in Israel and happened at the Enabling Act. It happened. It happened everywhere in the world where they basically gave all the powers to the government because of the emergency. Right? There's a crisis. There's an emergency now. So I was like, hold on. I studied democracy. I studied about being a citizen, a good citizen, and democracy at school. This is not what it looks like. You guys are breaking the rules. I went out to the streets. I was protesting like dissident voice to the government. You know, Tanya was never a good friend of mine, so I was. I was being vocal about that. And then Covid started gradually coming in more and more, and then the. The vaccines, coercion, and the discrimination. One day I went to the beach and saw a big sign in English for tourists saying, reserved on a. On a bench. Reserved for vaccinated. Only in English. And I'm like, oh, my God. On a. Yeah, just randomly like that.
- [17:42]
Natalie
Our beaches were shut down in California for a while.
- [17:44]
Ephrat Fenigsen
So I think, yeah, they also put people in jail if they went to the beach in Israel. It was the same. But, you know, it brought me back, speaking about my grandfather, to his story where he was in the 30s walking around in the park in Belgium, and there was a bench there saying, not for Jews. So that kind of discrimination. I was like, it happened to him already. I'm here to continue his legacy. It stops with me. I'm going to speak about that. And so I did. I create a lot of content in English and I made videos and started protesting. And I was in the streets for two years. And then this guy happened to be, I didn't know, happened to be the biggest bitcoiner in Israel, was, like, lurking around the corner watching me. He was in the protests too, but he didn't speak out because he didn't want to lose his business. But he saw everything I was doing and he's like, she gets it all. Like, she gets the government corruption and the scams and everything. How come she's not a bitcoiner? And he came over and he's like, how come you're not a bitcoiner? I told him, because I'm waiting for someone to teach me. I. I really was. As I was in tech for 25 years, I kept hearing about bitcoin, you know, and so many startups, especially in Israel, there were so many ICOs and crypto and all that. And I conflated them too. At the time, I never went into crypto, but I kept hearing about it. I remember hearing about it for the first time in 2009, to be honest, because I was around techie guys and they were talking about it. I'm like, it's going to go away. And it never went away. And so when he came, I was already really ready, especially because I was, I don't know, prosecuted or harassed by my government. And I was looking for ways to hedge myself against government overreach because I knew that if they're coming like that for my rights over my body and over my son's, you know, my parental autonomy over my son, the next thing they'll do is my private property. Like, it's just like the next logical sense, logical step. And so I wanted to hedge myself. And I heard that you could do that with gold. And I mean, that was my starting point and maybe bitcoin. So I started asking him all the questions I had about bitcoin. And. And just another funny story, when I wanted to come into bitcoin as a tech cmo, what do you do? You go online and you google bitcoin.com, there's a website, and you go into the website that doesn't look like an official company website, and then you find hundreds of other websites talking about bitcoin. It's like, hold on, who's the boss here? Where's the bitcoin?.com official website. And there is no such thing.
- [20:15]
Natalie
One of the most frequent questions I get is, do you work for bitcoin?
- [20:19]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Who's your boss?
- [20:20]
Natalie
Do you work for the Internet?
- [20:21]
Ephrat Fenigsen
That's right. So I didn't know that. Right, I didn't know that. And we're so conditioned to live the world in a certain way that we don't question.
- [20:30]
Natalie
Yeah, it's a company.
- [20:31]
Ephrat Fenigsen
The decentralization even exists. Like, nothing is decentralized in life if you think about it. Except maybe for nature.
- [20:37]
Natalie
Yeah, nature.
- [20:38]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Except for. Right. Organic stuff that just grow out of, you know, just God. But otherwise, humans tend to centralize everything. And so I was conditioned too. And when I started searching, I couldn't find it. So he sat with me. He answered all my questions, including where? Bitcoin.com including. That was my first, very first question, can the government really not stop this? And he said, yeah, they cannot. And I'm like, oh, my God, give me a book. Give me something. I need to learn more. And he did. He gave me Safedin's Bitcoin Standard. There's a translation for it in Hebrew, you know. Oh, the irony. And. And it's. It's an amazing book. And I read it very quickly and started watching podcasts, and I was like, okay. Actually, he went with me to do my first transaction and buy my wallet and everything. And then I told him, I don't need you anymore. Bye. Bye. And I kept on diving in, and I was obsessed, as many of us are. Yeah, of course. And I still am.
- [21:39]
Natalie
I love that. So, I mean, I'm sure you still get so many people who were like, maybe you towards the beginning of your journey, doubting it, unsure where to start. What's the most frequent question that you get about Bitcoin and how do you approach it? To first educate people and make them feel comfortable about it, knowing that, knowing their kind of opposition or their concerns.
- [22:01]
Ephrat Fenigsen
So most of my audience today are people that have, like myself, kind of woken up during COVID to everything that's going on and started asking questions. And so they're naturally seeking more freedom and more sovereignty and to minimize the interfaces they have with the institutions as much as they can. And so I think that the top question I'm getting from that kind of audience is, is it really unstoppable? And can the government not stop this? And they really are afraid about blackrock and the suits and, like, is bitcoin hijacked? Because Roger Ver is doing a very good job in making everyone really afraid. That bitcoin is not what we say it is, and that it can be really manipulated and stopped. And so that's the very first thing that I kind of have to go through with people when I. When they come and ask.
- [22:54]
Well, first of all, I explain about the open source protocol. And since I have a technology background, I try to share with them what the architecture of this thing is, what is a protocol, what is open source, just so that they understand how this works and how different it is from Fiat. And then the first place I send them to, and that may be funny because that's not where most bitcoiners are sending people, is a documentary called the Four horsemen. It's on YouTube, it's free. And I think it was done by Dominic Frisbee, if you know.
- [23:27]
Natalie
Oh, yes, yes, I've chatted.
- [23:28]
Ephrat Fenigsen
He's the producer, I think. And he made it about 11 years ago, 12 years ago. And it's an excellent documentary, by the way. Max Kaiser is in it. That's the first place I saw him. And it's with all these university professor, former World bank executives.
- [23:46]
You get silver traders, imf, former imf, people like, really people who are knowledgeable about money. And the whole movie is about Fiat, just to teach you about Fiat. So that's the first place I send people because it's a. It's an easy movie to watch. It's full of great animations and great things. And then the second place I send them to is a documentary you have done, which is thank God for Bitcoin. God bless Bitcoin. That's right. God bless Bitcoin. I've got that on my blog as well. So I send them the link. So movies, I think, are very easy for people to watch, to just. Just get into it.
- [24:24]
Natalie
Yeah.
- [24:24]
Ephrat Fenigsen
I've also done this with my son who was asking, like, questions. And so we watched God Bless Bitcoin and we watched.
- [24:35]
Broken Money of Lynn. Oh, yeah, like the 30 minutes. And we kept stopping and he asked questions like, those are really good places to start from movies. And later on I send them to books and podcasts and things like that. But I have my own starter kit. It's already ready. So when people ask me, I just copy paste and send them all my links. Thanks.
- [24:52]
Natalie
You know, sometimes I stop and I think, gosh, we have so many podcasts now. We've got great books, we've got great documentaries. Why are so many people still sleeping on this? I mean, I recently just did an interview that felt almost like more. More like a debate Rather than someone actually inquisitive about what is Bitcoin? Like, can you explain your thesis? It was more like, no, it's this way. And no, it's not accessible to everyone. And I'm just like, like, why are so many people so negative about Bitcoin today when all these resources are available literally for free to everyone?
- [25:27]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Because we don't like changing as human beings. We are so afraid of changing stuff in our life. We know that it would require us to live differently. We are afraid of life looking different than what we know it to be. And we're afraid of. Of uncertainty. And there is so much uncertainty with. With starting something new, and you don't know what it's going to look like. And people are afraid of risks. And the other thing is that we're, as a species, we're lazy. We're really lazy. So we. We really don't want to start working, learning, doing stuff. Oh, now I have to do this. Oh, my. My husband takes care of all of that. It's like all that stuff, all these excuses that prevent us from growing, prevent us from discovering the new frontier, the next level of the game. Because this is all a game. Like, we're. We're living in this very nice, you could say long game, depending how you look at it. But we're here to experience as many lessons as we can grow and learn and develop and keep on upgrading all the time. And it become. So many people are just on the same level since they were, I don't know, adolescents or teenagers, and they haven't developed much since. Maybe they got a better job, maybe, whatever. But it's really superficial and it's really. It's not significant. If you really want to experience this, you need to strive for more challenges.
- [27:05]
Natalie
You need to put in the work.
- [27:06]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Yeah, you got to put in the work. And that's what makes life interesting, I think. Otherwise we just. We die. And then what? Because we're gonna die anyway. Right?
- [27:15]
Natalie
Well, it's interesting that you said game, because I do think that we are in a rigged game. And I've mentioned this analogy to people before where one of the reasons I have so much hope in Bitcoin is it levels the playing field. There is no one that can rig the rules and no one that has a special advantage. So it makes the game actually more interesting and fun because it's a real competition where merit is what is rewarded, where value is actually rewarded. As opposed to our current system, which is like, if you're at the top, you benefit the Rules are rigged for you. And so of course you have a bunch of players now all across the world who are like, this game is unfair. I don't like the winners because they shouldn't have won. They didn't earn it and it's unfair. Give me a piece of the pie here. Give me like some reorder, reorder the, the, the chess set. Because I feel left out. And that's why I think I relate to a lot of the populism. That's because for the average person, they're like, I'm never going to, I'm never going to get ahead. And these people just get richer and richer off my back. And that's where I think bitcoin is like that antidote to that core corruption where it resets the game pieces and it allows all of us to compete on a more fair board.
- [28:27]
Ephrat Fenigsen
That's why I love the title of your new book, Bitcoin is for everyone because it is accessible for everyone. You are really able to just look at it, learn a little bit about it and start and then learn more as you go. It's really for everyone. It's not that daunting like people make it to be. And you really don't need to be an expert about money or trading in order to get into it. And the whole perception it has as a stock, as something that is, you know, the NGU game, it's, it's a, I think it's a little bit misleading and not great for, for what we're trying to do to make this the, the world's reserve asset for the 21st century. And I believe that if understood first, the principles and the values of private property, of hedging what's yours, of having full control like self sovereignty and full control over your property and seeing that appreciate with time as you learn how that asset is working, I think it would be so much, people will go to it so much quicker and, and so much more. Yeah, the, the whole all like trying to play it out as a stock and just the number go up is not the best angle in my opinion as a marketeer. But at the same time I want to say that I think there's an intention behind this as well. Because when you talk about the way the game is played and the system is rigged and the top down is kind of making the rules and throwing the wealth from up the top and everyone down the bottom is kind of looking up, going, give me some, give me some. It creates that mentality and that, that conditioning that keep people in that victimhood loop where, where they need to continue either begging for more or being angry and upset for not getting more. And they continue that dialogue with whoever is on the top. And then the real slavery that exists is in their head is like they are becoming slaves of the system. Not just because obviously they have to work 9 to 5 and it's really hard and all that. That is part of why we are modern slaves. But the other part is that consciously we are still shackling ourselves to this, to this whole paradigm of someone needs to give me and why did. Did they give them and not me and I want more and oh, there's a new mayor, what is he going to give us? And what kind of stimulus and what kind of checks, kind of benefits? And now the mortgage is growing and instead of 20 years, it's 50 years. Oh, like give me, give me, give me. And that kind of mentality is so detrimental for, for humans because it keeps us dependent, it keeps us reliant on others, it keeps us being needy and victims and it. We are so far away from being sovereign and being powerful and reclaiming back our powers, we keep giving that power and energy away to someone. EL so even on the consciousness level, I think there is a big game that is being played here. And that's why on my podcast and in other places, I always call people to not just learn about Bitcoin, which is the number one thing I want them to do, but to also work on their mental and spiritual state. Because it goes hand in hand, in my opinion. And they have to kind of unlearn a lot of that programming and conditioning that we have. We have been programmed to, to. To have as human beings and we, we want to break free of that too. Because that is, that goes hand in hand. When you start learning about Bitcoin and taking actions in your life, you have to become more responsible, more powerful, more trustful of yourself, more.
- [32:23]
It's like more risk taker and yeah, take more agency. Yeah, take agency. That's right. So it kind of opens a whole realm of possibility for you again and I think that that's lovely.
- [32:35]
Natalie
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- [34:52]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Yes, I did.
- [34:53]
Natalie
Because I do think that we have to take responsibility for ourselves, our mentalities, the way that we enter, enter into any conversation with other people, not to assume too much, to do our best. And that's lost on a lot of people because we do get so programmed and we're in the rat race and we're in the grind and we sometimes forget to step back and look at do we Actually, are we living our lives as freely and as truly true to ourselves and true to our values as we possibly can be?
- [35:18]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Yeah, I think we're not. And I think the striving for freedom is, can be a really great Northern star in life. It can be the thing that leads you to. We talked about that game. Let's play the game with striving for freedom. If that is our Northern star, then we are going to meet so many opportunities in our life that we would have to confront that question again and again. Am I free here, Am I free there? Like freedom is a really good lens to look at life from. And you know, you mentioned oppression and permission in how we, you know, how, how we meet with daily lives today when it comes to the monetary system. And since I'm nomading for a while now, yeah, I've been in so many places and one of the last places I've been to is Bali. And you see there that in Indonesia the women, for example, they cannot have a bank account. And if they do have a bank account because they got a permission either from their husband or their father, which they have to have, then they have to have a certain amount of money in the bank. If they have more money than their husband, for example, they can be taken to jail. Like there are. Yeah. So like speaking of permission, this thing, there's a scale, right? There's a spectrum. And if you're in the west, maybe you're better off in terms of privileges of freedom and permission based life. But if you're in other places like the, the global south or, or developing countries, you may not have freedom at all when it comes to banking or monetary assets and things like that. And so we, we take things for granted. We are programmed to always ask for permission. And we, while being in that loop, we don't understand how oppressed we really are. And even if you're on in the west like us, for example, I have a blog and I want, as, as an independent journalist, I used to be this fiat at big shot and I made a lot of money. But now I'm an independent journalist. I hardly make, I don't make much money and, and it's fine, I'm, I'm not complaining, this is my choice. But I, one of my ways to monetize is to have a blog with some support from paying subscribers. And I use Substack for that. And Substack is connected to Stripe, which is a financial services company. And Stripe has certain KYC rules for, for how you can have your payments Come to you. And so I opened a foreign bank account called Wise. It's online bank, right? And I keyed in my details of the Wise bank account into Stripe and it's a Belgium based bank, so there's a Belgium address there. And it worked. And for one year, I've been getting money out of Substack from my paying subscribers. Thank you very much. After one year, I received a message from Stripe saying, sorry, you're not complying with the KYC policy anymore because it seems like your residential address has not been put into the system. Can you give us a proof? Like they're asking again permission. Give us a proof that you live in Belgium. And I'm like, I don't live in Belgium, I live in Israel. My business is registered in Israel. I mean, I don't live there, but my business is registered in Israel. They said, sorry, we don't work with Israeli businesses, so we have to close your account. I said, but hold on. Well. And they said, well, there is another way you can open a bank account in another country, like in the US for example. And I'm like, but hold on. My whole thing in life is freedom. We talked about that lens. I want to minimize my interfaces with institutions as much as I can. And now you're telling me to go to the US and open a bank account and do all that shenanigans just for what? To work with Stripe, to. To do more fiat. I'm trying to be sovereign. I'm trying to be on the bitcoin standard as much as I can. So I told them, thank you very much, Tribe, I don't need you. I've got bitcoin. I'm going to figure this out. And I had a chat with Zaprite and I'm like, how can I do this? Zaprite is a company for those who don't know that have payments both in Fiat and. Great platform.
- [39:22]
Natalie
Yeah. Lewis is behind it.
- [39:24]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Exactly. So I spoke to Parker and it's like we, we talked about how I can do this and I decided to disconnect my Stripe and to tell them f you and to put the link to my new Zap right on my account. And I knew I'm going to lose like 70% of paying subscribers because not everyone will do that because substack is convenient. So we do sacrifice the convenience for, for the innovation or the, or the ideology. But I'm very happy to have done that. Wow. And now I've got my 30% of my paying subscribers with me through Zap. Right. And I get paid in bitcoin. I give them a discount if they pay with bitcoin. If they want to insist on continuing paying with with Fiat, no problem, you can do that.
- [40:06]
Natalie
But I'll link all of this in the show notes. What made you decide to take it to these? Not. I don't want to say the word extremes because I think extremes is a negative connotation, but why'd you want to nomad and go onto the bitcoin standard? Because it isn't as convenient.
- [40:21]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Oh, yeah, Because I feel like the way I live my life is to. I mean, okay, I know this is going to sound like a big answer to a small question, but that's how I feel. I. When I was 41, 42 and started experiencing my spiritual awakening, I told my good, good friends, listen, if I get fired tomorrow morning, it's ok, because I know I've done my duty in this old world, old life. I'm starting a new chapter. And the new chapter is all about being of service to humanity. So this is bigger than me. I'm okay, I'll keep doing my thing. But the whole purpose of this is to inspire other people to get to their full potential and to speak out and to use their voice in order to try and balance the insanity we're seeing in the world. And so my life is going to be way less convenient from now on, but it's gonna be a lot more rewarding, a lot more challenging, which I like challenges. And it's gonna expand me even more. I love it. Yeah. So that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. And it's. Yes, it may not be convenient to move states or hotels every two days or every week, or is that how.
- [41:31]
Natalie
Much you're doing it?
- [41:32]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Like, the past week when I was in Salvador, I did three conferences, three hotels, like 10 stage appearances. And before that, Argentina, and before that Lugano, and before that Prague and before that, Egypt and Israel. Like, I was all over the place in the last three months. And I re. And wherever I go, I continue doing my podcast and I continue. I try to write and I appear on stages as much as I can because I know that when I share stories like that, that seem maybe small, but they inspire people to take action. And then people change stuff. And then they come and tell me. Like, I see them in conferences or they write to me and they say, because of you, I've done this, or because of you, I've done that.
- [42:12]
Natalie
That's inspiring.
- [42:12]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Or they're just asking, where do I buy bitcoin and then I know that it's working.
- [42:16]
Natalie
Do you miss Israel? Do you see yourself going back ever?
- [42:19]
Ephrat Fenigsen
So I go back from time to time to see my family. And since my son. Oh, that's the next piece of the story. Just to complete the thing about my son. So we were living together. I was raising him on my own until I was 13 and a half in Israel. And when the war started after October 7th 7th, we decided to send him to his dad in Australia because he wanted to live with his dad. Okay. And that was like closing a loop for him and for me, for everyone. For me and for his dad, it was great because we don't want him to serve in the army. We don't want him to take part in wars anymore. We don't want to continue feeding that fiat beast that is robbing us not just from our freedoms, but also from people's lives. Lives like seriously just, just ending lives with no real good reason just so that beast, cold fiat can continue sustain itself. And I'm done playing in that game. So my son is out of Israel and for two years now, and he's very happy and I go back to see my family and I just spent three weeks with him in Israel. We came for the holidays and it was really nice. But yeah, I go from time to time. Time.
- [43:29]
Natalie
Well, that beast that you mentioned, the military industrial complex, it's a hungry, powerful one. Do you think that bitcoin can somehow help defund that, that military apparatus and remove the power of sort of the empire nations where they go in and there's always a conflict that they have to stir up to feed that beast?
- [43:54]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Yeah, I absolutely think so. I think it's just you need a lot of patience because it's a long term game. It's not going to happen like in the next few years, it's going to take a few decades. But I think about it a lot and I try to hang on to that kind of hope because where I come from, war is part of life. And it's not easy to grow up like that. And it's definitely not easy to experience that when you're against that, when you think that we shouldn't be fighting all the time. And I believe that the incentive structure that changes with the paradigm shift I.e. bitcoin is super powerful. The fact that governments, states and military industrial complexes cannot or will not be able to grow in the speed and the reckless. Recklessness. Recklessness. I don't know how to say that, that they are growing right now is giving me a lot of hope. They are, they can just print money, continue making more arms, creating more technologies for war. The export of, of defense tech, they call it defense, which is really arms and, and cyber security and all that stuff has risen year, year after year in Israel for the past four years. And it's now the export is like $14 billion a year last time I checked. And this is only 2 1/2% of the world's trade of arms and weaponry. So Israel is considered to be one of the leaders. But there are many other countries in this game and it's a really rough game and, and people looking at this industry going like, yeah, but it's stimulating the economy and yeah, it's making us stronger. And it's, it's all a patch for the short term. It's all like, yeah, you feel like the economy is improving only for the next one or two years, but the big bang is coming because inflation is going to rob you anyway. Nothing changes in that sense.
- [46:11]
The other thing that changes with Bitcoin when it comes to wars is that, that it can provide another way to finance countries and especially people on the ground that have no access to money at all or hardly. Because for example, in Gaza, right, they don't have a central bank, they don't have their own currency. They are relying on Israel. They use the shekel, which is the Israeli currency. So not only they are, are in war with that country, they are also relying on the currency of the country that they're in war with. And since there was war for the last two years, 90 plus percent of the banks in Gaza have been bombed. So even if you had a bank account, there is no physical bank anymore that you can actually interact with. So no banks, right? So you're relying on cash. Now think about cash coming, coming from Israel into, and the cashier you're relying on is Israeli. So you need Israel to allow cash to come in unless you're using just the circulation of what is. But when the whole place is in rubble, then even the cash is being buried, you know, like it's really a devastating situation. And there was. Just to give you an example, I know it's, it's going to sound weird, but there is this new type of business that has found its way in Gaza lately which is to recover banknotes. Like there are people that are actually washing, ironing and putting to hang banknotes because they don't have cash. Like that's the situation people get it.
- [47:47]
Natalie
Find in like the rubble or something.
- [47:48]
Ephrat Fenigsen
They have it, it's just very used because they don't get fresh cash, right? So anyway, they do get some. I mean Hamas is getting cash, but in different ways. We don't, we're not going to go into that. But the, the point is, and I'm just taking Gaza as an example, this can be in any other war zone. This can be in any other place in the world where people don't have access to money. Bitcoin can be accessed just with a mobile phone. Most people still have a mobile phone and they don't need, not the permission of a bank, not the permission of a government, they don't need a legal tender in their country, they don't need their own currency. They don't need to rely on another country. They can just have bitcoin. So like five steps that we've eliminated just with having this global money that anyone can access. So that's another game changer when you look at wars and how bitcoin can, can change that. But I think obviously, you know, the free and open deflationary market versus an inflationary market of fiat is going to make the long term difference in how we see wars around the world. And countries will be more incentivized to together rather than working against each other. And much smarter people than me have talked about that and written about that and I'm just so privileged and happy to have found all this information and know that there is a hopeful future that we can wait for.
- [49:12]
Natalie
It makes me really upset to think about the human suffering that happens with all these global conflicts. And it's the people that suffer and the elites just manage to enrich themselves and it's their decisions to go to war and their decisions to send these young families to their deaths in many cases. And it's happening all over the world. And I just, I.
- [49:35]
Sometimes it's hard to have hope. And if I didn't know about bitcoin, I probably would have less hope about alleviating some of that like pressure and this friction between those that have versus those that work and don't have. It's like.
- [49:52]
How can people hurt each other that much, right? Like how, how do we get to a place where people find excuses and.
- [50:02]
They program themselves to say it's okay that we're going to war. And I'm just going to listen, hero worship this leader that's saying this, I'm going to blindly follow them. And if I believe in this one leader, everything that goes against him, like, I'm not, I'm not going to Be for. And it's like we have hero worship, right? Like you can't speak out and sort of be in the middle anymore because you're almost going to be more ostracized if you, if you follow this one leader or one politician. You have to ascribe to everything that they do. Even if they're literally supporting wars.
- [50:32]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Yeah, absolutely. And this is, this goes way, way earlier. I think we're really, at the moment, in this point in time, we are experiencing very dark times in humanity. And I think we are looking at a spiritual war of darkness versus light. And that darkness is in every one of us. And unfortunately those who have the power, some call them the power that be, I call them the power that want to be or the power that the powers that were. Because I don't want to think that they control society anymore. I think there is enough of a spiritual awakening to really bring in the light. But they know that and they take advantage of that and they have been taken advantage of that forever and ever. And humanity has been enslaved for centuries, for thousands of years. And the first type of enslavement is related to consciousness and it's taking advantage of your fears, of your emotions, of your free floating anxiety and transmuting that into anger and hatred. And this is exactly what we're seeing playing out all around the world these days, especially more in the west now where societies are becoming more and more polarized and people, people are just clinging onto any thing that a leader would throw them or the politicians would throw them in order to say, oh, I've got a good excuse to now hate on that or fear that or go to war against that because I'm fearing that or, and that works like magic. So in Israel, for example, you know, something has happened like for example, October 7th, horrible massacres, thousands of people die. I think it's similar to the response that have been in the public during 9, 11. At the time you are so horrified by what has happened and the first kind of enemy they show you that is responsible for all of this is obviously your neighbor, no one from above. Like don't ask questions, don't criticize, don't, don't try and think why was this thing even possible to have happened in such a place where I'm supposed to be safe, where I'm supposed to be guarded, where I'm supposed to be living in one of the most advanced, advanced places in the world in terms of technology and cyber and army and all that stuff. And if you do dare, like I did for Example, you can, yeah, like you said, be ostracized or, or be called names. And really, you know, you thought you had free speech. No, no, no, no. You have free speech as long as you're in the allowed sandbox. The moment you step outside the allowed sandbox, you're gonna feel the consequences of that. And so, so if they scare you enough to first of all hate someone else and want to just fight with them, they take your attention away from what's up there, right? Because it's always divide and conquer. You against another group, it's you against the rich, tax the rich. It's all their fault that we are being stolen from and that we don't have money, or it's all because of the Muslims or the Arabs that we are being massacred, or it's all because of, of the Jews that, you know, are controlling the world and they're the bankers. Like, you always will find the group to hate if, if you are prone to it. And if you will take that, that, that, you know, fishing rod that they're throwing towards you at the bait. And they are, they are doing it all the time. And you got to be stronger and smarter than that. You got to stand there and start exercising critical thinking, start asking the tough questions, be willing to lower down your garden, your ego, and be open to new information that would come in even if it does not fit your conditioning, your culture, your upbringing, your identity, your political views, whatever, but just be open because everything is now coming up to the surface. In this era of darkness versus light, there is so much truth being, being bubbled up to the surface. All you need to do is just watch, listen, observe, and try to find, like, the peace and quiet within you to not be so heavily engaged and involved with every bait that is being thrown towards you, but rather take a step back, breathe, go touch some grass, go take some sun, you know, and, and just observe things because it's also accelerating, like the pace in which we are receiving all these baits and all these, you know, new news hooks and, and horrible stories and, you know, this is leaked. And now that those files and, and that information is just overwhelming. And so for the average person, you really need to take a step back and try to understand, am I, are they trying to manipulate me now? Is someone, does someone have an agenda with, trying to get me to believe this or to want to take that action and try to be smarter than that? Just, just start exercising your agency and your, your freedom of thought?
- [55:41]
Natalie
I think that was so brilliantly said. It's a message that we gotta clip that and put that out there. Slay your heroes, too. Stop being heroes. And these politicians and their leaders. Cause I think people just blindly follow. And when you really follow the money, it's like, not a lot of this wouldn't be possible if the money wasn't so broken and corrupted. And certain people had access to that which grows their power and it concentrates and just balloons out. And the average person, again, is at a huge disadvantage. And we have to connect with one another because the average person, like, when you talk to anyone, you sit down, break bread with them. Like, it's amazing. You meet the most incredible people all over the world. And we're just being conditioned to be afraid of each other instead of to embrace each other.
- [56:21]
Ephrat Fenigsen
And I want to give short two examples just on that note. One is in your newsletter, in the news blog, which I listen to regularly. I love it. It's my favorite radio show. I feel like it's radio of, like, the good old times. You always bring examples from the Trump administration and how they're more friendly towards bitcoin and all the different legislation that is being put in place. And you have a really good observation point on what they're doing, because when it's time to also criticize what they're doing, you do that, too. So, like, in the last newsletter, you talked about the mortgages and you did the calculation to show how they're just kicking the can down the road. So it's not about being a fan of Trump. It's about looking. Looking at what's good and giving. Giving credit when credit's due, but also criticizing when it's time. And the other example is with Bukele, which I've just came back from El Salvador and I've been observing him for the past couple of years, learning what he's doing. I've been interviewing. I interviewed 10 different people in El Salvador, expats and locals and also merchants down in the street. I was there three times over the past 24, 15 months because I was really curious to learn him as a case study, you know. And then I met him as well, and I hear him talk about bitcoin. And I had my criticism over what's happening with repealing the legal tender and taking the IMF loan and all that stuff. But at the same time, when we. Jeff Booth was with us at that dinner, and he asked him, what do you think about bitcoin? And Bukele said, bitcoin should be a currency. And so, you know, he's got that vision. He sees the end goal, even if he's taking, like, one step back with the IMF and everything. He. He. He talked about circular economies as being one of the steps to get us there. So, like, you gotta listen, you gotta give credit when credit's due, and you gotta criticize when it's the right time. But just heroes, for sure. Slayer heroes. No.
- [58:22]
Natalie
Yeah, we. That's why it's great. You have no rulers. No rulers in bitcoin.
- [58:26]
Ephrat Fenigsen
That's right.
- [58:27]
Natalie
All right, well, as we start to wrap up, just any final takeaways, I feel like you've so much to think about. I love. I love how you bring out the spirituality in every topic, which is. It just makes it all more human and more relatable, and I love that. So what do you want to leave the audience with?
- [58:43]
Ephrat Fenigsen
Well, true truth, freedom, and sovereignty. I think these are the, like, the three key takeaways of my podcast that whenever I have conversations with people, I want to learn how they develop more sovereignty in their life, how. How they are freeing themselves from consciousness shackles, how they are building more truthful systems around them, how they are bringing honesty to life. So these are the kind of questions and angles that I keep looking at my life from, and I invite people to do the same. I think when we start embracing values, like leading values in our lives, we start living lives. Life in a lot more fun, fulfilling ways. We go to bed with a clean heart.
- [59:31]
Natalie
We.
- [59:32]
Ephrat Fenigsen
We don't feel that we're sorry about things we've said or things we've done. We're more open to closed loops and. And complete things from our past that are just weighing on us, and we are more free to continue to the next level of the game. So that's what I would like to leave people with.
- [59:51]
Natalie
I love that. Everybody, check out Ephrat's podcast. You're the voice and her substack. I'm going to link everything in the show notes. Thank much. You're just such a light to be around, and I'm so grateful that you're in bitcoin.
- [60:01]
Ephrat Fenigsen
I'm your biggest fan.
- [60:03]
Natalie
I'm your biggest fan. Thanks, Efrat.
- [60:05]
Ephrat Fenigsen
You're welcome.
- [60:06]
Natalie
Thank you so much for checking out this episode of Coin Stories. Make sure you're subscribed to the show so you don't miss any new episodes. And if you can, turn on those notifications and leave us a positive review, they really help the show grow organically with new listeners. We have a free weekly newsletter. You can sign up@the newsblock.substack.com com this show is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing should constitute as official investment advice, and you should always do your own research. I'm always open to feedback and guest suggestions, so please feel free to reach out at info@talkingbitcoin.com. i'll see you next time.