Meet The Orange Pill App
Welcome to The Orange Pill App,
A Conversation with Matteo Pellegrini
Initial interview by Anthony von Dessauer
Article by Anthony von Dessauer and Psyduck
So you’ve read The Bitcoin Standard, The Fourth Turning, and a bunch of other Bitcoin books; you listened to Guy Swann so much that he’s now your internal narrator, you’ve run your own node and opened some lightning channels, now what? What’s the next level of Bitcoin? I’ll tell you: go meet Bitcoiners out in the wild. There’s nothing else like it. When you meet actual Bitcoiners in the flesh you not only learn that you are not alone in the Bitcoin world, but that you have a place in it. Let me introduce you to the Orange Pill App.

Founded in November 2022 by Matteo Pellegrini, the “Orange Pill App is a social network for Bitcoiners to find local Bitcoiners, Bitcoin Events, and Merchants,” as described by Matteo in an interview he did with Stackchain Magazine. He added, “If you like to meet other Bitcoiners in person, this app was built for you”. Like many of us, Matteo had spent years reading all the books and listening to all the podcasts and felt ready to take another step down the rabbit hole and start meeting other Bitcoiners in real life. Unfortunately, as many of you know, even if you live in a big city, finding like-minded people interested in talking about the hardest money humanity has ever discovered isn’t exactly an easy task. Matteo saw this as a problem that someone needed to tackle and so the idea of a geolocation based social network was born.
For those of you new to the app, a geolocator for finding Bitcoiners may sound like a fed’s dystopian wet dream but those of us who have used it, can verify it’s not really the geolocator your local CBDC gestapo wishes they could have. Contrary to the description, the app lets you set a location instead of broadcast it if you choose, and even if you decide to broadcast, the app only uses an approximate location that can at best be pinpointed to a 10 mile radius. Additionally the app doesn’t make you dox your fiat name, picture or any other identifying information if you don’t want to. Yours truly is still a psychic/water type pokemon on the app and the only people that know who my meat self is are those whom I’ve chosen to meet in real life. Furthermore, true to its philosophy, you can pay with Bitcoin over lightning to add that extra layer of privacy should you so desire.
You read that right: payment is required to use this app. To quote Matteo, “The easiest way to understand the Orange Pill App is to think of it as a private club for Bitcoiners that lives in your pocket and works. The paywall is there to deter spammers and scammers and it keeps us focused on building the best possible product instead of selling our users’ data to the highest bidder. At a price of $3/month the app is unaffordable to anyone running a bot farm but it’s a bargain for those of us who value access to a community of like minded plebs. As much as we all enjoy connecting with strangers online, there is nothing more powerful than spending time and bonding with like-minded individuals in person.” The Orange Pill app aims to be the social layer of choice for Bitcoiners to find each other and build a Bitcoin world in their own communities. Matteo put it best when he said, “Bitcoin exists because of all the Bitcoiners running nodes, mining, and hodling; each of us plays a vital role in the health and growth of Bitcoin, and being able to quickly find and meet each other locally can only accelerate adoption. Lastly, if (when?) CBDCs are rolled out, finding local plebs to buy your meat, fix your car, or get your groceries from might end up making all the difference. Ultimately, the most censorship-resistant relationships are those formed in person, so we better make as many as we can.”

Bitcoiners are using the app to do all sorts of amazing things. Matteo says that currently he estimates there are over 300 local meetups across 175 countries, started by plebs. Many of them, much like I did, thought there were no other Bitcoiners around them and felt like they were a lone voice shouting against the tide of fiat FUD and propaganda. Amongst the many use cases, I’ve seen people start group chats to help each other find jobs in the Bitcoin space, to connect with Bitcoiners in other countries before visiting, to learn how to run nodes and set-up lightning channels. There’s also been unique stories like when one of the first members, Matthew Dellavedova, who played in the NBA for the Sacramento Kings, used the Orange Pill App to invite local plebs to games and hang out with them on the court. People have started market places in their home towns where artists, artisans, craftsmen, farmers and professionals of all kinds have been able to meetup and trade services or goods for SATs. Matteo adds that with the new merchant feature, “Merchants and Professionals (plumbers, dentists, accountants…) who accept Bitcoin as payment can create a business account on the Orange Pill App and be discovered and connected with local plebs. So think Yelp/Google Maps but for Bitcoin! Our goal is to kickstart the Bitcoin parallel economy into high gear.”
All of these are use cases Matteo couldn’t have envisioned when he first conceived of the app. He built a tool that Bitcoiners found useful and began contributing time, effort and ideas, to innovate on top of his creation in ways that surprised themselves as well as the app’s inventor. Bitcoiners are a creative and resilient bunch. We find tools we like and use them to craft the world around us into the Bitcoin world we envision for the future. We are not the type to sit around and wait for the government, Elon, or anyone else to tell us what the future will hold and how we will use it. Much like Matteo did when he recognized a problem, we roll up our sleeves and get the job done with the help of other like -inded people.
As Matteo so eloquently stated before, “As much as we all enjoy connecting with strangers online, there is nothing more powerful than spending time and bonding with like-minded individuals in person.” We are the network – the bonds we build don’t just make us stronger, but they also make Bitcoin stronger. If you haven’t taken that step to go and break bread with fellow Bitcoiners, consider giving it a try, and why not use The Orange Pill App to help you find your next level with Bitcoin.
Meet the Team
Core Staff:

Matteo Pellegrini (founder & CEO)
Federico Frappi (CTO)
Matteo Innocenti (Dev ops)
Brian De Mint (Marketing)
Lukasz (CFO)
Advisors:
Natalie Brunell
BTC Sessions
Daniel Prince
Knut Svanholm
Joe Hall
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Note from Stackchain Magazine: No Bitcoin (or inferior monies) were exchanged for this article. The Orange Pill AP is fantastic and if you don’t already use it, you should check it out.