Luke: [00:00:00] You’re listening to a new episode of The Brave Technologist, and this one is recorded live at the rare Evo conference. Earlier this month, we had a chance to sit down with one of the most popular creators in the Web3 space, Wendy o. She’s the host and founder of the O Show, an influential YouTube channel focused on bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and blockchain technology with a global audience of over 1 million.

Luke: She’s been recognized for her contributions to the crypto community through content and analysis since 2017. In this episode, we discussed the importance of interoperability in crypto and her efforts to educate the community of crypto on risks and rewards, the need for financial literacy, privacy, and barriers to access like the accredited investor laws, advice for women entering the crypto space, and the role of creators and the future of crypto adoption.

Luke: And now for this week’s episode of the Brave Technologist.

Speaker: Wendy, welcome to the radio technologist.

Speaker 2: How are you doing? Thank you for having me. I’m excited. Yeah. How are you [00:01:00] doing? I’m

Speaker: doing great. I’m great. I’m happy that you’re here. Um, we’re here at Rare Evo. what brought you to the conference and, and what are you hoping to get out of it?

Speaker 2: So, I’ve been coming to Rare Evo for the last three years, and one of the things I like about it is it’s.

Speaker 2: It’s a smaller, more intimate event. It’s, in the States, which I love. Yeah. Because it’s not super hard for me to get to. And then each year it just keeps getting better and better and better. And one of the cool things that, um, that I like this particularly well, obviously I come to network and hang out.

Speaker 2: Sure. Like, you know, you guys are one of my channel partners. Yeah. We, we share each other’s content, stuff like that. And it’s absolutely amazing. But one of the things I kind of like really like this year is I do like midnight. Yeah. Because midnight has actually been able to help rare Evo expand outside of just the Carano ecosystem.

Speaker 2: Totally. And truly allow for interoperability, which as you know, you’ve been in the crypto for so long. Yeah. Interoperability kind of seems like the future.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I mean, and and you’ve been in crypto for a while too, since 2017, creating content, right? what originally pulled you into the space?

Speaker 2: So I just kind of got tired of the, the traditional system. Yeah. It just is really, really predatory and I feel like one of [00:02:00] the biggest problems we have in America are not necessarily the social issues. Social issues will always be around. Mm-hmm. But when people have access to money, equal access to where if they work hard that they can, you know, make more money, it really kind of helps with things ‘cause people have access to better products and services and better quality of life.

Speaker 2: But crypto and Bitcoin really kind of, it, it seemed. Like a level playing field for me. Yeah. Because I went into a TD Ameritrade back in 2016 or 2017, and I wanted to invest like, no, you need $25,000, $20,000 to open a brokerage account. I’m like, what? do you know anybody that has like $20,000 just kind of chilling like Right. In a bank account. Right. It’s, it’s especially with the economy right

Speaker: now. Right, right. It’s just a barrier to entry. Yeah. Yeah. No, I totally agree. I mean, what do you see kind of as your responsibility to the community and when it comes to kind of educating cryp people about crypto risks and, and rewards?

Speaker 2: So to me, the cool thing about crypto is you get to be your own bank. Yeah. You get to move those predatory third parties. You get to fully be in control of. You know, of your life, of your money. ‘cause [00:03:00] again, without money, you can’t really do a whole lot in the world.

Speaker 3: Right.

Speaker 2: And my whole thing is, is like, I like to educate people on the, on, on the fundamentals of different projects.

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Like why they’re important, why they matter, why they should potentially check them out, but really also to help keep people safe. Mm-hmm. Um, with, with all this power of being your own bank and owning your own money, there’s a lot of risk. Mm-hmm. Because that risk is simply clicking on something that could be malicious.

Speaker 2: For Google, for example, um, some of the, there there’s been crypto scam projects that have been sponsored. So they, they, they come up at the very, very top. So people will just automatically click those.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: And you know, I’m, I try to educate people about opsec, which is not sexy. Brave makes it a little bit more, you know, we’re trying a little bit more entertaining.

Speaker 2: Yeah. But really at the end of the day, like OPSEC is hard. Yeah. And one click can destroy your life.

Speaker: Totally. Totally. So

Speaker 2: I just try to, you know, keep, remind people you know, about profit taking, about risk management, about self-education and, you know, not to click stupid things.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. It’s awesome. It’s awesome.

Speaker: Um, you know, you built trust [00:04:00] with global audience. How many, how big is your audience these days?

Speaker 2: I think we’re at 1.1 million, globally on YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and I might be missing some stuff.

Speaker: What do you, what do you see kind of like the role of creators and independent analysts will play in the future of crypto adoption?

Speaker 2: I think people just want to be able to, well, one of the things I tell my audience is to hear what I say, but to listen to themselves. And that basically means like. Here, here are the stuff I’m talking about. Mm-hmm. And then maybe go to Creator X or maybe go to creator Y or maybe go here and take what you like and leave the rest.

Speaker 2: Yeah. But I think it’s important. I think that we’re like, you know, crypto, with all this mainstream adoption, I feel like we’re starting to really lose the ethos of accountability. Yeah. And that simply is, is like we’re not supposed to trust, we’re supposed to verify. Right. We’re supposed to take a responsibility for our own actions.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think that that’s a, a very, very, very, kind of important thing that they should, they should take that. And especially when they’re doing their due diligence. ‘cause at the end of the day, [00:05:00] you and I might be completely on opposite sides of a, of an idea. Yeah.

Speaker 3: But

Speaker 2: if we can’t sit down and have a conversation like civilized human beings, then I’m not gonna learn anything. And you’re not gonna learn anything. Totally. Like it might just end up in a big blow up fight. Right. But, or it might be like, Hey, you know what? I didn’t really think about that aspect. I’m gonna do a little bit more research.

Speaker 2: I, I, I, my opinion is still valid and I’m still gonna go with that. But I also, you know, wanna research a little bit more about that. And I think that’s. S part of cri Critical Thinking and Accountability and, and all that.

Speaker: How has it been being a creator? Like, I mean, we’re, we’re things have warmed up in, in regulatory space and, and just in like more things turning on that were off, but like how has it been kind of navigating in this, like, in the Gensler era of like, uh, of, of the purpose?

Speaker: I should

Speaker 2: be asking you that.

Speaker: Oh. I mean, yeah. I, I know how it was for me. I was miserable, but, but still, I mean, right. Like, ‘cause there was a lot of, a lot of. Creators, a lot of projects kind of got after. Was it, was it tough to navigate that?

Speaker 2: I mean, I don’t do financial advice on my channel. Yeah. Like I’m, [00:06:00] I’m really thankful I’ve got a wonderful network of people.

Speaker 2: Like I’ve got a, a crypto, CPA crypto attorneys, um, a crypto financial advisor. So I just kind of, when people ask those types of things, I kind of de uh, delegate that. Yeah. Yeah. But it was kind of worrisome for a while. Yeah. Because it’s like, this is what I do for a living. Totally. I’m good at what I do for a living.

Speaker 2: Like it allows me to be a stay at home mom. My whole entire schedule is built around my kid, but it was scary for a while, not knowing if I was gonna get sued, just because I had talked about a news article that Right. You know, mentioned a certain crypto or whatever, you know. And that was the type of regulatory landscape that we were in.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Which is ridiculous. Yeah. Because nobody should be punished for something when there’s not a law in place.

Speaker: Right, right, right. Exactly. what do you think kind of needs to happen for the next wave of users, uh, to feel confident stepping into crypto without getting burned?

Speaker 2: You see that one’s a hard one because we have, you know, you have to remember, well, you know this. when you were in public school or school in general, were you taught about traditional finance? Were you taught about finance at all? No. So I think that’s the hard part. I think that America, especially primarily America.

Speaker 2: I don’t know [00:07:00] about the other countries, ‘cause I know we got a global audience here, but I think the hard part is, is that we are not taught this in public education. Yeah. But we’re somehow expected to know. So I feel like a lot of people just don’t necessarily believe in themselves. And they don’t think they’re smart enough, or they don’t think they’re good enough, or they don’t think that they can understand crypto as a whole and not take that step to custody their coins or really focus on privacy.

Speaker 2: And I think that they’re doing a disservice to themselves because everybody’s capable of it. Right. For the most part. So I, you know, I just, yeah.

Speaker: Stay educated.

Speaker: Yeah, stay educated. But I think the challenge really is, is now we have. The spot ETFs and the banks coming in and tradify and this all, all these different things and people are just gonna go, go that route.

Speaker: And that’s not what Bitcoin was created for.

Speaker: Right, right, right. Well one of the super interesting things that I’ve been finding out because we’re going along is like a, I had Hestor purse on from the SEC. Right. I love her. She’s such, she’s amazing.

Speaker 2: Dude. I got, I got the pleasure of meeting her and she’s just such a wonderful person.

Speaker 2: Like, yeah. She’s so smart and she’s so, she’s [00:08:00] so logical too. Yeah. Yeah. Like her big, her big thing was disclosure. Disclosure. Disclosure. Yeah. And that, to me, that’s fair.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Like

Speaker 2: they’re public servants. They, to an extent, they, there’s things that they have to, to abide by. And a lot of people don’t understand that when you’re dealing with entities that have more power than you, if you’re able to get them to compromise to an extent.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. And

Speaker 2: just with the disclosure.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that,

Speaker 2: that, that’s kind of a win.

Speaker: Well, one of those interesting things she mentioned too is that, you know, the regulators can’t necessarily even use the. Crypto like, or, or the tools or anything. So they’re railing something that they can’t touch, but they go to podcasts and podcasters to learn a lot because they can’t touch it themselves.

Speaker: So it’s really, I thought it was kind of like super interesting that like creators in the space are actually like the influence that they have. It’s not just just new people and onboarding, but also like even the regulators are kind of watching what we’re doing.

Speaker 2: Yep. I’ve had, um, I was at a. Conference on a panel, and apparently there was feds or there was someone there and that no one told me till after, but I didn’t say anything wrong.

Speaker 2: Yeah, like, I mean, like you can’t get, like [00:09:00] we’re in America. Yeah. We do have the first Amendment, right, like Right. My, this is, I, I’m not breaking laws, but I can have an opinion about something.

Speaker: Yeah. Totally.

Speaker 2: And that’s what makes America special.

Speaker: If you could sit down with a regulator for five minutes, uh, and or a lawmaker, right?

Speaker: Like, uh, what would you want them to understand about the space?

Speaker 2: I would want them to understand that crypto is made for everyone. Um, it, it actually offers equal access. And I would also respectfully demand that they. Remove or heavily revise the accredited investor law. ‘cause that is, it is the most predatory thing in

Speaker: the world.

Speaker: Why don’t we go into that? What? What is that law all about?

Speaker 2: So basically, if you do not, I think it’s 200,000, 250,000 and for a couple 300,000, if you don’t make that much.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Or you don’t have a million dollars in assets. You are not allowed to become an accredited investor. You’re just a retail investor where you’re an accredited investor.

Speaker 2: You get access to special products and services like early IPOs and hedge funds and all these different types of investing that may be a little bit more risky, but at the end of the day, people should be able to do what they wanna do with their money. Right. And I think, I think passing like a basic [00:10:00] competency test, like just to show that like you’re okay up here.

Speaker 3: Right, right.

Speaker 2: Because it doesn’t make sense like, like where I grew up, my mom’s house. There is 1, 2, 3, there’s, there’s three buildings that you can buy. Alcohol, scratchers, lottery tickets, cigarettes all around. Yeah. And that’s within that, that’s just on one street corner. Right. And that lottery ticket, like to me, lottery tickets are the biggest scam effort.

Speaker 3: Right, right, right. Plus

Speaker 2: they, some of those places offer payday loans. Yeah, like payday loans. Extremely predatory.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: So it’s like, I think that everybody should be ac have access to, to getting mo money, but, but I understand the compromise, like maybe only 10% of your annual income or maybe under do a competency test.

Speaker 2: But that’s exactly what I would ask to be. Well, I’ve been demanding it all over the internet. Yeah. I went on, I went on A, B, C and did it. Just said it because it’s just, it’s not just because you weren’t born with wealth or you weren’t because let’s face it, not everybody. Is, is, is cut out to have a high earning job, right?

Speaker 2: Like, like a mechanic. [00:11:00] Mechanics are important. Electricians, plumbers, like construction workers, like they keep things going right, but their salaries, they’re not making a hundred thousand dollars a year in some ca in, in not all cases, but in some cases. But they should be able to have a. Just ‘cause they don’t have access to money doesn’t mean they’re stupid.

Speaker: Right, right. No, they should have access to markets. I mean, it’s kind of a crazy thing too because, you know, people, we allow people to take the risk of driving a car when they’re 16 if they go through a certain test. Like why not let them have access, you know, with their own money to earn more money, like, or, or have the upside, you know, and, and take the risks themselves.

Speaker: Right. Like it makes a lot of sense. Um, so, uh, you know, there’s a lot of hype in Web3. Um, how do you separate signal from noise?

Speaker 2: You know, I pay attention to, I, I kind of have my like eyes and, you know, paying attention to everything, but at the end of the day, I try to find things that, that, that actually make sense mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: that retail can relate to. Because at the end of the day, it’s about crypto. Bitcoin are about providing. Yeah, everybody [00:12:00] with a equal access. Like equal access, yeah. Level playing field. And I like to talk about things that are relevant to them. Yeah. And that, you know, that are relevant to myself and that, that makes sense.

Speaker 2: And it like really just making a better future for our kids.

Speaker: Yeah. No, that’s awesome. Um, you know what, uh, what’s a common. Barrier to entry that you hear, because I’m sure that a lot of people that are new to crypto might tune in to learn more from your channels. Like what’s something that’s consistently difficult for people that are trying to get in this space?

Speaker 2: Self custody is really hard. Yeah, it’s really hard. Like. I mean, to me some solu like easy solutions off the top of my head. Like they can go to like a Kraken. Yeah. You know, dollar cost average that way. And then when they’re comfortable go to self custody or they can use brave and browse and earn, you know, earn the native token bat and then start, start to get a little bit experience.

Speaker 2: Yeah. With that crypto. Because at the end of the day it’s not gonna be a lot. So if they make it, they screw up with their private seed phrase, you know, it still sucks, but it’s not like

Speaker: they’re losing their whole Yeah. So,

Speaker 2: so I don’t know. I like Brave is, is great in that aspect. ‘cause I feel like you can play around and [00:13:00] test out.

Speaker 2: You know, not your keys, not your coins over there. Right,

Speaker: right.

Speaker 2: It’s not, it’s, it’s not stuff that you’re essentially losing.

Speaker: Right, right. Yeah, it, it’s, it’s just a lower risk, um, way of going about it. For sure. So you’re one of the most recognizable women in crypto. Um, what advice would you give to other women looking to make an impact in the space?

Speaker 2: Well, two things. So the first thing is, is if you wanna get out there, if you wanna be a content creator, you wanna work at marketing, you wanna work at whatever it is you wanna do, just get out there. Yeah. What’s the worst thing that’s gonna happen? Somebody’s gonna tell you no, and you’re gonna fail.

Speaker 2: Well, you’re gonna learn a lot of life lessons along the way, and you’re gonna do, you’re gonna kind of, you’ll be able to, to pivot into something that works. Yeah. And also too, it is a very, very, um. Very, um, male dominated industry, and sometimes police could be mean, but it, that’s how it, that’s just kind of how the world is.

Speaker 2: It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I highly recommend that, um, if you’re struggling in working in male dominated industry, there’s a book called Parachute Women. It’s about all the women who help, basically, the Rolling Stones become who they were, Uhhuh, and it kind of just talks about how, you know, the women propped them up, but they were overshadowed by, you know.[00:14:00]

Speaker 2: But like Anita Linberg and, uh, Maryanne Faithful. But a lot of those, a lot of those stories about powerful women in the history and in history are actually kind of helpful and motivating. ‘cause totally. It’ll teach you how to navigate certain, certain things in a different manner. Open up your mind. And again, it’s not a bad thing.

Speaker 2: It’s not a boy versus girl, but there are some. Different societal norms that happen, but just put yourself out there and you never know. You, you honestly never know what’s gonna happen. If I didn’t get myself on crypto Twitter back in, back in 2017 when it was like a basically four chan.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: It was, it was, it was a, a swamp. It still kind of is. Uh, but, you know, yeah, it’s a, I mean, are there channels that you would, uh, recommend they try in any particular order or just go for it?

Speaker 2: I just think like, you know, I, I do content on a lot of different, um, socials. Platform. So I just, I think, you know, I really think it’s important always to start off reading the Bitcoin White paper.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Like Binance has also got a really, really great, their blog area has a really great, like, like free articles that kind of teach you about different [00:15:00] things in Investopedia. But just like, you know, just, just spend 10 minutes a day self-educating yourself. Like, you know, take a look at different YouTube channels or different socials and.

Speaker 2: Take what? Take what resonates with you and let the best. Yeah. That’s

Speaker: awesome. That’s awesome. Yeah. Ha. Have you ever dealt with any issues, kind of like as someone creating crypto content with platforms like flagging you or dealing with any censor? Oh, types of things.

Speaker 2: Yeah. There’s, there’s censorship all over the internet and it’s, you know, crypto, like X is so much better.

Speaker 2: Yeah. But there’s a while that YouTube is deflap forming people, and then TikTok is like a fricking hot mess. Facebook, YouTube. So, again, not to get too political, but this administration was kind of pivotal in that.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. Totally. Totally. Um, you know, finally kind of what legacy do you hope to leave as a leader in the crypto community?

Speaker 2: I’m, at the end of the day, I am just a mom, so I just, I just, I hope that I can motivate somebody to improve their quality of life or do better, even if it’s just me saying hi to them or like, we, I, I don’t, I don’t know. I just, I hope that at least one person is able, that I’m able to [00:16:00] positively impact their life and then obviously.

Speaker 2: You know, just keep my daughter set up and make sure that she’s provided for her. And another thing too, there’s a nonprofit, I support self-care lab and I use boxing as a form of mental health therapy. And there’s somebody that, or they’re, they’re an organization, a small nonprofit that I donate to a lot.

Speaker 2: I know where every penny, if I either tax documents, she’ll give it over like that.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: But I think it’s important to give back to, and that’s another really cool thing I’ve been able to do with my platform, is give back to certain entities that I feel, um, are worthy and that I’ve used and. Yeah. So I guess I answered, I, I gave lots of answers.

Speaker: Fantastic. And that’s why you’re here. And, um, you know, is there anything that we didn’t cover that you want our audience to know about?

Speaker 2: No, I this, well, actually, one of the things I wanna say is crypto’s wonderful. But you guys also have to understand too, your privacy really, really does. Privacy really is important.

Speaker 2: It’s like the least fun thing to talk about. Nobody wants to hear about it. Nobody will watch any of those things, but really at the end of the day, don’t, and that’s something Hester per se, she says, don’t sacrifice privacy for quick regulation.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: And that [00:17:00] basically means is like your privacy is valuable.

Speaker 2: your data is valuable. And just don’t throw that away for ease. Like spend a little bit more time on protecting yourself because a lot of the bad, bad actors and bad stuff, it’s happening online. Yeah. getting your house robbed or getting, you know what, carjacked Yeah.

Speaker 2: those things still do happen. Yeah. But there’s a lot more crime that’s happening online and it can be prevented if you take simple steps to, you know, just strengthen your offsets a little bit.

Speaker: Well, Wendy, uh, really appreciate you coming on. Um, where can people find you on the webs?

Speaker 2: Sorry, there’s a doggy. I know. There’s dogs. There’s lines to take that, so it’s like, it’s like, it’s like the A DH ADHD is like, ah. Oh my God. My gosh.

Speaker: Yeah. Robo dogs. Oh no, that’s in the conference. Is that his butt? I don’t even know.

Speaker 2: Crypto wind o.com. Awesome. You guys can find me there. Those are all my socials.

Speaker 2: I have a lot of impersonators. Don’t talk to them. And, um, I recommend to start your EC journey. You consider downloading brave start, you know, earning some bat and really. Take initiative, if you’re gonna be in crypto, if you wanna, if you wanna make [00:18:00] money. And, and once you do get wealthy, if you do not take privacy steps to protect your wealth, you could get wrecked with one simple click.

Speaker 2: So I know it’s not fun, but gotta do it.

Speaker: Awesome. Well, thank you Wendy. We’d love to have you back. Appreciate everything you’re doing and, uh, yeah, thanks again for your time.

Speaker 2: Thank you so much.

Speaker: Awesome.

Luke: Thanks for listening to the Brave Technologist Podcast.

Luke: To never miss an episode, make sure you hit follow in your podcast app. If you haven’t already made the switch to the Brave Browser, you can download it for free today@brave.com and start using Brave Search, which enables you to search the web privately. Brave also shields you from the ads trackers and other creepy stuff following you across the web.