Famous Interviews with Joe Dimino: Georgine Hodgkinson Interview | Crypto Island, Puerto Rico, Midlife & Personal Transformation

Monday, August 31, 2026

Georgine Hodgkinson Interview | Crypto Island, Puerto Rico, Midlife & Personal Transformation

Welcome to a new edition of the Famous Interviews with Joe Dimino series. On this episode, we talk with College Professor, Former Program Director & Debut Memoirist Georgine Hodgkinson about her fascinating new book, Crypto Island: A Memoir of Midlife Relocation to Puerto Rico.

What happens when a risk-averse academic leaves California during the pandemic and relocates to Puerto Rico, only to find herself immersed in one of the world's most controversial cryptocurrency communities?

What begins as a front-row seat to Puerto Rico's crypto boom becomes something much more personal.

In Crypto Island, Georgine explores how experiences with childhood poverty, addiction, fear, insecurity, money, privilege, identity, and belonging can continue shaping us long after we've achieved stability and success.

Her unexpected journey places her inside a culture built around cryptocurrency, speculation, disruption, entrepreneurship, and radical risk-taking — a fascinating contrast to her own cautious academic background.

Along the way, Georgine is forced to reconsider what it means to start over, what we carry with us from childhood, and how relocation can challenge our assumptions about success, identity, community, wealth, and personal transformation.

In this conversation, we get into Crypto Island, Puerto Rico, cryptocurrency culture, midlife relocation, memoir writing, childhood poverty, addiction, privilege, identity, belonging, risk-taking, personal reinvention, and the unexpected ways life can change when we step outside our comfort zone.

It's a great story about moving somewhere completely unexpected — and discovering that the biggest journey may actually be the one happening inside you.