Ansylla has built the life she has always wanted: the flexibility to set her own schedule (nothing before 10 a.m., of course) and maintain just a few commitments, rather than busy days packed with back-to-back clients at the salon.
This sense of ease and control over her day-to-day life was a long time coming. Before moving to North Carolina, she spent 17 years as a natural hair stylist, stressing over when her time would actually be her own. Some of her services ran 12 to 15 hours at a stretch, and between clients, she'd have to scarf down food to keep up with the pace of the environment. She felt like she was meant to do something else, like something was pulling at her. But she felt stuck with hair as all she knew, and the reality that the bills would keep coming.
She started thinking of new ways to work and make money, with a schedule that would work for her. Instead of putting in more hours at the salon chair, she started looking into crypto as a way to earn money on a timeline she could control.
What crypto taught her
In the middle of one of her appointments, she suddenly experienced her first panic attack. This was a wake-up call, and she took it as her sign to close the salon and take a much-needed vacation.
When she got home, she was ready to explore crypto more seriously. Since investment was new to her, she went headfirst into learning. And the resources that exist today weren’t around back then, so she had to spend extra time tracking down answers on her own. For those starting today, check out our Learning Hub to help guide you through your learning journey - without any confusing hype or jargon.
Ansylla started to learn through her everyday life. With the market climbing, her investment gains from crypto covered new appliances, a new laptop, and even a vacation, proving that she could keep earning, even if she wasn’t behind a chair.
The student becomes the coach
As she began to understand crypto, Ansylla noticed that some people were missing from the conversation. Older women, in particular, were overlooked. The communities that were supposed to welcome beginners talked over their heads instead, treating a simple question as something to be embarrassed about rather than answered.
Instead, she decided to become that answer herself. Ansylla started small, focusing on teaching her friends before expanding to educational webinars. And in 2019, she founded Crypto Confident Over 40. Now, her coaching clients span the globe - mostly seniors who also consider themselves non-techy.
“There needs to be a space where someone can come in, ask the stupid questions, get the simple, jargon-free answer so that they can move on.”
– Ansylla, Crypto Confidence Coach
Protecting what people build
The work with her clients starts with getting organized, making sure newcomers have a handle on their holdings and recovery phrases. She has also become a trusted first call on scams - the person clients forward a too-good offer to evaluate before acting on it - and she teaches them to recognize the patterns so they can stay protected.
Over time, her clients' questions have shifted toward family. What happens to their crypto when they're gone, and would their loved ones even know how to find it?. Crypto held directly belongs entirely to the holder, which means passing it on requires careful planning, because a beneficiary needs to know what exists and how to access it.
When a longtime client facing a serious health diagnosis asked her to help him put that exact plan in place, the request became her current focus. She now helps clients prepare their crypto for the people they love, and she is exploring how digital assets can fit into trusts and estate planning so a family is never locked out of what a loved one built.
Key takeaways
Ansylla believes that everyone deserves access to financial opportunity, whatever their age, gender, or background. Crypto gave her the room to redefine what success looks like, and education is what turned her curiosity into confidence she could stand on. These days, she spends that confidence on the people the conversation usually skips, one jargon-free answer at a time.
Her story is an open invitation to anyone the conversation has skipped. It's easy to start with the fundamentals in the Learning Hub, even if it's just ten minutes at a time. And once you start to hold crypto, she encourages everyone to write down what you have and make sure someone you love knows how to access it.