An interview with Carol Souza on consumer adoption of bitcoin

Part of Azteco's “Adopting Bitcoin / Action Leadership” series to celebrate the people and companies driving consumer adoption of bitcoin.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

“Hopefully in the future every company will have a bitcoin strategy. The sooner you start the better for your company and for you.”

“Area Bitcoin is a school where you can learn and develop the bitcoin mindset”

Carol is a dentist and the co-founder of Area Bitcoin. In 2018 Carol and her partner Kaka wanted to learn how clients could pay with bitcoin at their dental clinic.

In order to educate themselves and others about bitcoin they started to create free content for information on social media (YouTube, Instagram, articles etc).

Providing practical and technical information to help people understand how bitcoin works and get familiar with the tools that are available. How to use bitcoin wallets, how transactions are processed through on-chain and through lightning. Everything that's in their reach to help people to go step by step of sovereignty.

The demand was huge and from there on other merchants began to consume the content and Area Bitcoin started to grow.

“When people are curious and ready to learn they will use the tools available”

Carol explains she’s experienced a big shift. When she started, usability in lightning was not a subject spoken about within the communities. Bitcoiners were not interested in sending and receiving bitcoin.

“It's amazing to see the growth of lightning - how easy it is to exchange bitcoin and that people are starting to use bitcoin in their daily life - the growth of lightning is the biggest mark for me.

“Helping people to learn how to best use bitcoin wallets, to have autonomy and responsibility to take care of their own bitcoin is to give people more financial freedom and opt out of the fiat mindset.”

The challenge of bitcoin consumer adoption and CBDCs in Brazil

Carol believes that CBDCs (central bank digital currencies) will likely be the biggest challenges for bitcoin consumer adoption. But highlights that bitcoin was made to survive and grow even in challenging environments. Explaining that both the process of launching the CBDC and the banking system in Brazil is quite advanced.

“Brazil has a history of hyperinflation which created a lot of poverty in Brazil. But people forget about it as they are really comfortable with the banking system.

“With the hypothesis that every CEO wants a company that lasts forever and to be profitable, Forecasting that people will want to pay in bitcoin in some way or employees wanting to receive payment in bitcoin. Carol believes that companies are going to need a bitcoin strategy.

“Keep studying bitcoin, keep learning and at least have an educational moment with your clients.”