Samson Mow: BIGGEST threat to Bitcoin priced in millions, CBDC/Swift, NEXT region to adopt

Why bitcoin will suck all fiat and debt in like a black hole

Brandon Gentile

Mar 30, 2024

Samson Mow Explains: BIGGEST threat to Bitcoin priced in millions, CBDC/Swift, NEXT region to adopt

Another playable character graced us with their time..

Samson Mow: Omega Candles and Nation State Adoption

Playable Characters Show Ep039

Summary

In this conversation, Samson Mow discusses various topics related to Bitcoin adoption and the challenges it faces. He talks about the concept of the Omega Candle and the inevitability of Bitcoin reaching higher price levels. He also addresses the threats to Bitcoin, including government crackdowns and the centralization of money. The discussion then shifts to central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and the potential impact on Bitcoin adoption. Samson emphasizes the importance of engaging with representatives and spreading awareness about Bitcoin to speed up adoption. This conversation covers various topics related to Bitcoin, including its game theory, exponential growth, institutional adoption, and the importance of meeting people where they are. The discussion also touches on the distinction between Bitcoin as property and currency, the focus on infrastructure in the Bitcoin space, and the need for financial education. Additionally, the creation of Bitcoin trading cards and the goal of making Bitcoin more accessible to the masses are discussed. The conversation concludes with a look at the future of Blockstream and Jan3.

Presented by Bitcoin Trading Cards - https://btc-tc.com

Bio of Samson:

Working on nation-state #bitcoin adoption. CEO @JAN3com, developer of @AquaBitcoin, architect of #BitcoinBonds, CEO @Pixelmatic, & creator of @InfiniteFleet.

Connect with Samson here:

Twitter - https://x.com/Excellion?s=20

Nostr - primal.net/p/npub1excellx58e497gan6fcsdnseujkjm7ym5yp3m4rp0ud4j8ss39js2pn72a

Website - https://jan3.com

Timestamps:

00:00 CBDCs and Swift Announcement

25:28 Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and Nation-State Adoption

29:47 Actions for the Average Person to Speed Up Bitcoin Adoption

31:45 Bitcoin's Game Theory and Changing People

35:45 The Exponential Growth of Bitcoin

37:10 The Institutional Adoption of Bitcoin

40:45 Bitcoin as Property and Currency

43:13 The Importance of Meeting People Where They Are

44:35 Bitcoin as a Defensive Shield

45:22 Blockstream's Focus on Infrastructure

50:26 Distractions in the Bitcoin Space

51:59 The Lack of Financial Education

54:29 The Creation of Bitcoin Trading Cards

56:00 Making Bitcoin Palatable for the Masses

58:06 The Future of Blockstream and Jan3

Transcription:

Brandon Gentile (06:46.98)

Mr. Samson Mow thank you so much for joining me today here in the Playable Characters podcast. Appreciate everything you do. Samson, for those of you that don't know, working on nation state Bitcoin adoption, the CEO Jan3.com, developer of Aqua, which we'll talk about obviously, architect of Bitcoin bonds, CEO of some cool things, Pixelmatic and the creator of Infinite Fleet, which we can touch on today too as well that I'm sure not everyone knows about.

but I know is something that's, you know, we can talk about. I actually have your card here. So let's talk about right here too. Bitcoin trading cards, Samsung on here in the gamer world. So those of your fans there that have seen that, you got to check that out. So thank you, sir, for coming on today and being part of the show.

Samson Mow (07:33.834)

Yeah, it's good to be here. Let's go, Brandon.

Brandon Gentile (07:38.316)

I've got a few shirts in the back here. I get people sending me these shirts all the time. So appreciate it. So let's jump right into it. The Omega candle, we were just talking off stage. There's obviously a lot of things going on between the Swift announcement and then, you're people going back and forth with Tether and Bitcoin and how are they opposed and you have such like a nuanced take on this. And it's so smart, so brilliant. But the Omega candle.

reframing of the God candle. Please elaborate on this and in what, those who can't see what's coming in Bitcoin adoption, you get to have a ground floor view, obviously talking to nation states. Please elaborate on where this kind of emanated from and why again, your big call of, hey, it's a million this cycle and kind of reframing, shifting context, I think for Bitcoiners, please elaborate on those thoughts.

Samson Mow (08:31.314)

Sure, so the trading circle has the concept of a god candle, a 10k candle for some time. And then I just figured it's time we have a bigger candle, so it's a 100k candle. And I just, I posted some ideas for it. I picked Omega candle as my favorite and people started liking it. So it just became a thing. So now 100k candle, green hopefully, is an Omega candle. So

The funny thing is, it's already happened. Since I created the concept of the Omega candle, if you look at Egypt, they had like a 14 Omega day. So 14 Omega candles. It went up 1.4 million Egyptian pounds in a day, Bitcoin. And then in Turkey, they're regularly having Omega candles every couple of days now. So if you think about what it is, it's really a failure of the fiat system.

And I think we're going to see this in the US dollar soon, simply because everything is becoming untenable. You have debt at, accumulating at $1 trillion every 100 days. That is $10 billion a day. So is it crazy to have a 100K candle on Bitcoin? Not really. I mean, when you're printing...

$10 billion a day is equivalent to $140,000 Bitcoin a day, roughly, based on Bitcoin price. So that's a massive amount of money printing, just as debt, not paper, but as debt. But it's the same thing at the end of the day. It's all contributing to that failure of that legacy financial system. So $100,000 candles are not really crazy when you think about it, and $1 million Bitcoin is not crazy either.

the trajectory, everything else is going on. What do you think?

Brandon Gentile (10:30.1)

I couldn't agree more. I'm not a math major. I'm by no means a sailor. I'm not as smart as you guys. I'm not gonna pretend to be, but it does feel that way when you have this supply shock of the system in essence. Well, I don't know if you can call it shock necessarily, but it's just like, it's all there is, right? There's only a certain amount in everyone piling in. That seems low, you know? And I think that's what we were just kinda talking about to those who get it.

It seems obvious, but to those who don't, it seems absurd. And I think, I don't know. And you tell me, is it just our brains being wired? It's the whole like, is a fish, does he know he's wet if he's grown up in the water his whole life? We've only known inflation, right? Like we've only known central banking, everyone alive only knows printing of currency and your dollar devaluing. No one would stake their life on fiat. No one, not one person. I don't know anyone that would stake their life and say, I'm defending this to the end and I'm keeping it. No, we all sell them to acquire and buy assets. So to me, it seems obvious.

Is it the reframing? You know, like.

Samson Mow (11:31.402)

Yeah, it just seems to be difficult for people to understand. And I think big numbers have a thing to do with it. It's almost like the, you know the concept of the big lie? The bigger the lie, the easier it is to believe. And fiat is the biggest lie, and this is why the numbers they keep throwing at us are so big, like billion, trillion. Because the average person has no conceptual basis for what a trillion is. It's just bigger than a billion, which is bigger than a million.

Brandon Gentile (11:42.313)

Mm, yeah.

Samson Mow (12:00.714)

So you can hold up a stack, I don't have anything around me, but you can hold up a stack of money. And a hundred dollar stack, a thousand, maybe a couple thousand dollars is like this thick, right? You kind of know, okay, yeah, it's reasonable to have a stack of money like this big. But then when you get to a trillion, it's the size of a football stadium. If you were to print the actual physical cash. So they kind of get you by making, using these large numbers and they've just been normalized now. So when you hear,

You know, we're at the $34 trillion in debt. Yeah, it's okay. But you know, that's actually massive and it's totally unsustainable. And when we're getting the trillion dollars more in debt every day, every 100 days, 10 billion a day, maybe it's okay. It's just a bigger number. But it's gotten to the point where these numbers are actually meaningless. That's why when you're denominating Bitcoin in fiat terms, if dollars or yen or anything or Turkish lira, it doesn't really matter.

Like a million dollar Bitcoin, it doesn't matter. 10 million dollars of Bitcoin doesn't matter. What's going to happen is you just lose that fiat denomination eventually when we hit hyper Bitcoinization. Things will be priced in sats. You're gonna pay five sats for a hamburger. That's what's going to happen. So you might think it's crazy now, but it's actually less crazy than believing in a dollar holding its purchasing power.

Brandon Gentile (13:26.477)

I mean, yeah, there's nothing more to say because it's like what all the currency has gone to zero and all of human history every single one. So it's I don't know what game it is. Funny. I only think the only analogy that's ever stuck in my head. Samson is the Titanic and it's like the macro bros and.

You know, I know we know some of them and, you know, they're great people, but it's like you're rearranging chairs on the Titanic. Like you're still ending up at the bottom of the Atlantic. It doesn't matter what you do in this system, but you're still whether it's gold guys or whatever it is. You know, it's like I'm going to tell you what the Fed's doing and inflation rates and we got to let you know. It's all going to the bottom of the Atlantic, you know, and we're on the life raft, you know, going away saying, guys, your thing's going down. And they're like, yeah, you're in this small little boat. Good luck in the ocean. And it's like, yeah, that's our only hope, man. Like, that's it. It's just.

It's this weird like cognitive dissonance we're dealing with right now. Because like you said, it's we still pricing. We have to a lot of the world still is in dollars or whatever. So we have to denominate and we talk in like doublespeak like Bitcoiners. We like have to talk in sats and we talk in dollars. I think it really confuses the average person because they're like, well, yeah, you're still going to like sell out like the whole sailor. We call them poor video. Like she doesn't get it right. People can't get it. It's hard to see that nuance.

Samson Mow (14:34.622)

Yeah, the thing is unit of account is so sticky. The dollar itself has no longer a store of value. It has not been since it lost the gold redemption. And it's even not so much a medium of exchange anymore. Because if you think about it, when the value of the thing goes down, it loses the ability to store value. It's not really a good medium of exchange. And they're actively trying hard to make it not a medium of exchange, too.

because they're limiting how much you can send to another person. Like in Europe, they don't want you to send money to other people. So the ideal situation, I think, is you get a job somewhere, you're earning money, you're paying taxes, and you can consume what you need, but only what you need. So sustenance earning and sustenance spending, which is kind of crazy. So not saving at all. It just exists in the hamster wheel, and you can spend exactly what you need to keep yourself alive. But...

not save and not send to anybody else, not accumulate wealth. So the erosion of MOEs increasing for the fiat money, even in the US, right? Your limit is now to report $600 transactions to other people. But what does $600 get you? Maybe a nice lunch in New York these days, right? And eventually it's going to be your groceries for the week. And then it's going to be a cup of coffee. So it just.

these limits are based on fiat numbers just don't make any sense because the fiat doesn't make any sense. But what is happening is you're stuck with the dollar because unit of accounts are very sticky once you achieve it. If you're operating a corner store in New York and whatever, you're pricing your candy bars in dollars still, right? You're not going to price them in sets. And you're probably not going to make a change until there is a catastrophic failure in the system.

And examples of this in the past are people denominated in hyperinflating currencies. Even though it's hyperinflating and you're carrying a wheelbarrow of old German marks around, you're still going to price your bread in marks because it's so sticky. And that's the magical thing about Univ account. Once you hit that, it's just difficult to remove it. And I think that's all that's keeping the dollar alive and the fact that a lot of countries' debts are denominated in dollars as well. But

Samson Mow (16:56.162)

That's the last thread. It's like hanging by its thread. And the only option is to go into Bitcoin. But you can see like, even though you have a superior option, the fact that you have to learn something about it and study a little bit and understand it, versus staying poor and denominating with this old unit of account, people would still rather denominate in that old UA.

Brandon Gentile (17:19.144)

This makes me think of two things I want to touch on here with you. First is, you mentioned the George Gammon stuff and you have like the macro guys, which you kind of touched on just now, which is this network of the dollar is so big, right? It's like, it's like the greenies trying to change or, hey, we're just going green. Well, you know, that's fine. If the market wants to do that, but you have this network of oil, everything's made with oil, you know, so like good luck. Where's the infrastructure for the green stuff right now? We don't have it. It'll get there, but it might take, I don't know, decades, centuries, who knows, but

Same thing with the dollar. That's where I think a lot of them, you look at a gammon verse booth and their argument is distilled down to, again, like a gammon, like, well, hey, this network's just so big. There's no way Bitcoin can overtake it. You just, how does that happen? And so my question to you is, is it like black swan events? Is it Trudeau freezing bank accounts? Is it walls of institutional money coming? Is it nation-stake? Is it Russia saying, hey, guess what? We're denominating things in Bitcoin. I mean, what do you think some of these linchpins are where just all of a sudden the floodgates, it's just like.

Boom, and it's just, then we've got Omega Plus candles.

Samson Mow (18:16.822)

Well, the thing is all of those things are possible. And we're getting closer and closer to that reality every day. Every day the fiat system is staggering on and limping along is just a little bit closer to that point. And I think the biggest thing to look at is debt. Like we're at 34 trillion in debt in the US and we're accruing 10 billion a day. That's not sustainable. You can't outgrow those levels of debt.

Brandon Gentile (18:19.835)

Yes.

Samson Mow (18:45.418)

So something has to give. And at the same time, you have the erosion of trust in the ability to store money at another central bank. And this happened with the Russia-Ukraine conflict, right? So when that happened, their funds were seized. I think this sent a massive signal to everyone, every country in the world, that you can't keep your money at another place. It's gotta be your own. But there's definitely...

wrap their heads around the fact that they should just use Bitcoin, so they're trying to create a BRICS currency or whatever, but these are still currencies based on circles of trust. That's no different than using the US dollar. You're just distributing that trust with others when you could distribute that belief into Bitcoin and just use Bitcoin and believe in math and trust math. But that whole system doesn't work anymore. So who's going to buy T-bills aside from Tether? I don't know. But I think demand for that is going to drop massively.

And nobody wants to be holding the bag for the US when they give up on their debts or default on their debts. So all these things combined just show that Bitcoin is really the only option that is out there today. And we have come to that realization, but the broader world has not come to that realization

Brandon Gentile (20:01.78)

I guess it leads to the question of, I'm trying to like aggregate them all into one, I guess in a way, but whether it's the normie or again, it's someone who's almost orange-pilled, like there's a spectrum of people, right, that aren't Bitcoiners yet or don't totally see it. What, you know, you get a lot of like, well, it's, you know, what if you get rug pulled? What if the government shuts it off? What if it, and again, we could go through a million objections. However, is there,

Is there a looming, you know, to you, I guess, what is, you know, Samson say this is the threat to Bitcoin? Is it psychological? Is it people losing interest? I think that's sailors thing. Like, Hey, if people lose interest in sound money, that's the number one threat. Is it technical? Cause there's so many people that think it's a technical thing. It's a, it's a computer. What if the internet gets shut off? What is the threat or if there is a threat in Samson's head, what is it? I guess to making it like, we make it sound so easy, right? You make it sound so easy. Like how was this not happening today? But then you have, well, what about this?

What is that? What is it? Or if anything in your mind?

Samson Mow (21:02.018)

I don't really see any threat to Bitcoin. The threat is always to people. And the threat is people itself. Bitcoin is simply a network. We use Bitcoin as money, but Bitcoin is not money in the sense that it is designed to function as a monetary system. We say it is a monetary system because we can use it as a monetary system, but it can't really fail because Bitcoin doesn't really promise you anything. It is just a measuring stick for value.

much as we have ways to measure distance in kilometers for most of the world, but for you guys miles, or volume, right? Ounces, liters, we have all these different ways to measure things. But how do we actually measure money and value? There is no way. It is just with Bitcoin because it's a 21 million unit ruler. It's just a ruler that doesn't move. And...

You can try to measure things in fiat terms, like in dollars, but everything is always fluctuating against everything else in the fiat world. That's why you have the four FX markets, right? You can move against each one. It's like hundreds of rubber rulers all stretching at different points trying to measure each other and people are making money on arbitraging between them and providing liquidity between them. But at the end of the day, it's still a bunch of rubber rulers trying to...

measure each other. But Bitcoin is this absolute finite instrument that can measure everything. And it happens to be digital, and then we can have bearer parts of this ruler, and therefore we can use it as money. But all it is a ruler, so it can't really fail. You can ban the ruler, but then someone will just have to use a rubber ruler in whatever country they're in.

Because it is digital, you can't really shut off access to that without shutting off access to the internet, because it is just information. So it's like a immutable ruler that is in your head. I think that's the best analogy for it. So when it comes down to cracking down on it, you can only really crack down on the people, right? You can ban them, throw them in jail for thinking about the ruler. But, you know, that dystopia is always going to be dystopian. So that can always happen.

Samson Mow (23:22.934)

We've seen country level attacks on Bitcoin banning mining, but that doesn't really do anything. It hurts the miners in that country. They have to shut down their operations. They have all the capex that they've expended already and it's lost, but it doesn't hurt the network. It benefits the other people that are not getting cracked down on. So we will see the US try to impose a tax on mining and all these other things, or the EU trying to ban self-custody or limit self-custody. It's hurting their own people.

And as long as people are mobile, fingers crossed that they will be, because we've also seen governments stop people from being mobile too, then Bitcoin will always be fine. As long as you can leave and go somewhere else and take your wealth with you, then you're always going to be okay. Bitcoin will be okay. But if you can't leave, then you're kind of screwed. So that's why I think nation-state adoption is important, because as more countries start to adopt Bitcoin, you have more optionality. You have...

the choice to go to Argentina, to El Salvador, to Prospera, wherever. And these will be places that welcome you and welcome capital. And that's another angle too, which is a lot of governments and politicians forget what money is. They think that it's something they can create and manage, but it's not. Money is really directly related to people. You want people that can create businesses, jobs, innovations, inventions, and economic activity. So

That's why, oh, I guess they do understand it. That's why they didn't want you to leave. But they don't understand where money comes from and the origin of it being from people generating prosperity.

Brandon Gentile (25:00.952)

Yep. Yeah. So speaking of that, it's a great kind of a great segue, um, to the nation state stuff. We briefly talked offline about, you know, the CBDCs, you know, the swift announcing stuff. I know, you know, over the last couple of years, we've, we've seen it coming for really years, I guess, right? They've kind of been telegraphing stuff and they, I would love for you to kind of, again, just briefly touch on the, they're trying to centralize, you know, so you're out there talking, you know, Jan three and what you guys do, you're out there talking to nation states,

And I've seen you talk about obviously that the mining, because they are had this weird relationship with money at times or their currency, it's easier to talk about the energy and the use cases that has rather than like, hey, regulate the cash or make it legal tender. But you have the central bank trying to centralize everything into one ledger now. And it's careening that we're careening down that those tracks obviously faster and faster is getting closer to us where we're all sitting here the 99% trying to decentralize.

I would love for you to kind of touch on what this fight, I guess, is gonna look like going forward, kind of maybe what you're hearing on the ground, but also how this is gonna kind of play out in the next few years.

Samson Mow (26:05.782)

Yeah, well central banks are going to central bank and centralize. That's just what they do. With the recent thing with Swift, I think it's a network for, it's a platform for CBDCs. But again, as we touched on, trust in centralized institutions is at an all time low. So who's going to use this? Maybe some proxy states of the US, but any major player is probably not going to do it. That's why Brics is trying to make their own thing, right? But.

You can't have a global financial system without the globe. You'll have a US centric, US aligned financial system that might interoperate with the Europeans system. But at the end of the day, there is no competition. Nobody wants to use a centralized form of money. And you have examples of this in the world, like the eNira from Nigeria, no one used it. 1% usage, and then they started limiting ATM withdrawals. And now they're going after crypto exchange executives, blaming crypto.

But anytime there's any optionality, no one's going to use that. The only chance I think a CBDC would have is if the currency was hyperinflating and you make the new currency, the new German mark in a CBDC and you say this is the new thing. But it's too late. Bitcoin already exists and people gravitate to the freest money. Because money has to be free. Anytime you mix, anytime you centralize money, you're

automatically intertwining it with morality of different types. Either it's what you can spend it on or what you should spend it on, and it becomes highly politicized and it loses the properties of money. Money is supposed to be inert, apolitical, elemental. That's what Bitcoin is. It should not care if you're buying a gun or paying for an abortion or whatever, or any of these things. Or even like...

financing terrorists. If you want to go off to terrorism, you should go off to terrorism, not the chance that someone financed terrorism, because this is a very slippery slope. Because who defines terrorism? The government. So you have the Trudeau government saying, we are all terrorists because we financed the trucker protest, which was a peaceful thing. So all of a sudden, we're all terrorists, and we all get our bank accounts frozen.

Samson Mow (28:24.93)

But this is how dangerous it is to be using a centralized thing, and people are increasingly aware of this danger. That's why they're never going to use a CBDC if there is a choice. Whether there is or isn't a choice is outside of our control, but I think people will leave if they can leave. You'll see a mass exodus if it becomes forced. But I just don't think economically it is feasible, because no one will use it. I don't think the US will impose it onto the population. There'd just be riots at that.

and it would just all come apart. So it'll just be a failed experiment in my view. They'll try to launch it, no one will use it, and then they'll just say, okay it's over. But you know, we all know it's nothing new. You already have a digital money. Like everything's digital. Venmo, PayPal, dollars, your bank dollars are all digital already. This is just digital but controlled by one entity, a central bank.

Brandon Gentile (29:21.18)

What is something that in your mind, again, you and not everyone can. And it feels like at times we should all be doing what you're doing and like going around and on a pilgrimage and trying to have nations adopt Bitcoin. But what can the average person do besides besides, you know, just buying Bitcoin and huddling, put it in cold storage, you know, that type of thing. I mean, is it can we speed it up through elections? Can we vote in Bitcoin or politicians? Like, what is it that?

you think this average person can do to speed this up? So, because where I'm going with this is I think 10 years, you know, 20 years from now, a lot of this is moot, right? Like a lot of things we worry about today probably never happened, right? It's kind of the classic humans fearing things where like a lot of it never happens and never comes to fruition. And like you said, these things dissolve or get defunded and never have a chance. But what can we do to speed that up in the average person today?

Samson Mow (30:10.35)

I think it's exactly what you outlined. It's engaging, talking to your representatives, your MPs, your senators, whatever, and telling them about your concerns and about Bitcoin. They should represent you in theory, so they should listen to you. But just going out there and trying to let people learn about Bitcoin, or even about money, that is even a simpler thing. Talk about money, right? I was in the, sitting at the UK Parliament,

listening to some discussions from some MPs there, and they're all talking about inflation. And I don't have a mic, but I would have said just by Bitcoin, you know the problem, you still know the solution. So the biggest thing that we can do is to tell them that there is the problem and there is the solution, or at least point them in the direction that the solution is something to do with the money supply being broken. So it's difficult telling a fish that you're living in water and water is wet or.

It's debatable, but you know what I mean. You're in water. You can't really tell you're in water. But it's just talking to people really at the end of the day. But even at a higher level, what we do at Gen 3, it is all built upon individual ordinary Bitcoiners that want to help us. So the meetings that we get are just Bitcoiners in their country saying, we think you should talk to our government and we get a connection there because, you know, ourselves, we cannot get...

connection and a meeting in every single country around the world. It's always Bitcoiners and there are a lot of Bitcoiners already trying to get these meetings and to try to make things happen

Brandon Gentile (31:45.224)

Is that why, and thank you, that kind of helped me even formulate what I was thinking through, whereas a lot of this, it seems like it just feels like you go into spaces, you go into a meetups or conferences, and a lot of things, again, we fear or we talk about, it just doesn't happen because, again, that's the game theory of Bitcoin playing out, right? Where a lot of these politicians, their family owns Bitcoin, their kids themselves, and they're like, well, wait, what am I doing to myself and my family? It changes you, right? And that's, I think, the big thing.

Going back, coming full circle, like the macro guys, whether it's gold guys or the George games of the world, not to pick on George, but you know, where he's sitting there telling Jeff Booth, I just don't think we need to educate people. We need to change how people think. But I just don't think Bitcoin is going to change people. All I've seen in people or in Bitcoin is people changing. You know, I myself have changed my life. I left real estate, you know, for 10, 15 years of building a business and accumulating real estate to come put my life's force into Bitcoin. And all I've seen is people do that.

stake their life, their fortune and their sacred honor on Bitcoin. But I've never seen anyone do that for the dollar. I've never seen anyone do that in some fiat, you know, like on real estate or in stocks or something like that. So is that, you know, where is that the I think the best explanation of it, where it's Bitcoin is just changing people and a lot of this is going to be moot almost. I mean, I hate to say it, but it feels like it is.

Samson Mow (33:07.062)

Well, it's difficult to say. If we do nothing and we never took any action, maybe Bitcoin adoption doesn't happen. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But there's a danger in thinking that I can just be complacent and do nothing and it'll just happen. I mean, things can get pretty bad when people don't take action. It's usually someone takes action and things change. But Bitcoin is so powerful. It's almost a necessity that we're tempted to think that it will just steamroll everything.

I believe in that point in which they fight you and you win, there are people actually fighting back too. You don't just win magically at the snap of your fingers, bang. It's some people engaging or doing something and then you win.

Brandon Gentile (33:54.32)

Yeah. And I appreciate you saying that because that's where it does feel like at times where it's in the Bitcoin or ethos. Sometimes it just feels like people are like, Hey, I'm just going and hodling and I'm not doing anything, which, Hey, everyone's got their own thing. Everyone's got their own calling and how they're going to go at this. But I think that 3% like the revolutionary war here in America was 3% of people, you know, or it was just started a couple percent of people, right? And it was the irate and transient Jim and Dornie and that was it. So it had to build from somewhere.

All right, so going back really quick though to this, which we were kind of talking about price earlier, and I want to just touch on something with Sailor. I know, I don't know if it started in Prague last year. I think it must've been what it was, but he had his presentation where he gave and talking about Bitcoin, and then coming all the way up to Madeira now where he just gave the one about, you know, just the gold rush and Bitcoin, you know, being exponential. And you talked with us the other day too, actually, with-

the exponential and people having a hard time seeing exponential, obviously humans and this linear where you have to look at a log chart to see it, which is one of the things that really orange pill me five, six years ago, seeing a log chart of Bitcoin and the network effect and really kind of seeing that. But a sailor talking about it coming down to this 14% diminishing returns. Now I don't, I don't think those words came out of his mouth, but you had mentioned that the other day of people not understanding this step change. So I'd love for you to kind of touch on all this and just the kind of

his thoughts and his gold rush really next 10 years and probably that S curve, the exponential S curve going forward and how important it is to, like we said, take action by Bitcoin and hold, and then, but take action because this really is, it feels like this step change, this exponential part right here, this next 10 years. Would you agree with the sailors assessment and kind of corroborating with things that you said in the past?

Samson Mow (35:45.642)

I didn't hear his talk at Atlantis, so I'm not sure, but I think the gold rush might be over already. You know, if you're looking at Bitcoin, the production rate is very low right now. It's getting down to 3.125 per block. Technically, gold rushes are frenzy and it's quite frantic and people are able to get a lot of gold out of the riverbeds or whatever. If you want that direct analogy.

And I think we're past that. The gold rush is probably the 25 block era, 50 block. People didn't know enough. 25 to 12 and a half. I think that was the gold rush. But I'm happy to be wrong. And maybe this is the gold rush still. But I do believe, and I agree with Saylor, that this is the institutional part where the people are going to try to buy the gold. They may not be mining it. And gold rushes typically are mining it. But now they're going to try to accumulate it.

some sort of rush, but it's a different thing. And I think it is probably going to go on for the next 10 years, because we're in this transition phase where the Bitcoin standard is starting to emerge, where people will denominate things in Bitcoin, and central banks around the world are going to hold it as an asset for future use and just to preserve purchasing power.

Brandon Gentile (37:10.748)

Yeah, and I'm actually glad that you didn't see his talk in Madeira because you gave a different nuanced approach to it, because yes, his was similar. His was the next 10 years is there's only, what, five, six, seven percent left to get. And then in 10 years from now, 99% is gone. So the next 10 years, like you said, that's where the institutions, all the massive.

you know, wall of money is going to come in chasing it. You're right. To your point, the mining part is done technically, right? Like that's pretty much done for the most part. But everyone now the frenzy part that you mentioned is coming in. So that's really interesting. Your two approaches to that. That's really, really cool.

Samson Mow (37:53.518)

Yeah, I don't agree with everything that Saylor says. Like he said Bitcoin is his property. It's not money. It's not currency. And I think the two are interlinked. So if you can one day no longer buy drugs with Bitcoin, then I think Bitcoin loses a significant value proposition, which is its money that you can use to do anything you want. If it is simply property that is held with a custodian,

Brandon Gentile (37:59.508)

Please tell.

Samson Mow (38:20.258)

then it'll become captured like gold was captured. Even though we can still run a node, if the vast majority of Bitcoin is simply stored in BlackRock's coffers and, you know, at all these different ETFs providers, you're not gonna be able to use Bitcoin to do anything anymore. And it's not gonna be movable, right? It is more susceptible to executive orders seizing it, like a 6102.

And it's not going to be as powerful a phenomenon. I think the bigger phenomenon is that Bitcoin is money for eight billion some-odd people on the world. And that means that they have to be able to spend it and use it. So I believe his words were the Bitcoin is a currency, is a distraction, is property. You know, it's the best property. And he's not wrong. It is the best property, but it cannot be only property. And Bitcoin breaks down so many barriers at so many levels.

that I think it's difficult to fully conceptualize all of this stuff. But the origin of Bitcoin is that people use it to buy drugs. So if you can't buy drugs, then you've lost something there with Bitcoin. But yeah, there is traditionally a separation between money and currency. If you look it up and you look at some charts, there's money on this side, which is more of a conceptual abstract thing, and currency on this side, which is physical form, the method you transact it with someone else or

a coinage or something. But with Bitcoin, that's deconstructed. It's one and the same. Money and currency is unified. And that's one of the big game changing things about Bitcoin is it changes that. Also, the evolution of money historically has been SOV, sort of value, sorry, unit of account, sort of value, medium of exchange unit of account. It's gone in that sequence. But with Bitcoin, it can evolve it on all three points at the same time.

Like back in 2017, we were using Sats on the Lightning Network as a unit of account, tipping people in Sats, paying to draw a picture on some app with Lightning and Sats. It's all Sats. So because Bitcoin is digital and is information, it doesn't have to evolve in the same historical manner that money has usually evolved. So I think Sailor has to think about this a bit more and understand that

Samson Mow (40:39.062)

without the ability to transact freely, Bitcoin will lose something. It'll just become a gold.

Brandon Gentile (40:45.404)

Yeah, it's really interesting you say that because it's funny. I was listening to him, you know, sometime this week and I had a similar thought. It wasn't as deep as what you were saying. But my thought was I just I noticed him continually saying it's like you said property, obviously, but like a store of value. He really emphasizes that. And it seems like to me and this is just my opinion that.

He's almost trying to speak to governments. You know, again, you speak to governments a lot, but he's trying to, in essence, get him off his back almost in a way, where it's like, hey, this can be for you. Don't look at me, man. This is just a, it's a property and it's a great store of value. I'm not fighting you on the currency money thing, man. That's kind of what it seems like at this point. Am I off base? Do you feel that too?

Samson Mow (41:25.908)

Yeah, well...

Samson Mow (41:32.674)

It's interesting you point that out because that could be exactly what it is. He is a billionaire with a large part of his wealth in the fiat system, either as a security or as holdings in Bitcoin ETFs or with custodians. So I think for him, the safest thing is to go on the route that Bitcoin is property because you can't dispute it. America is built on ownership of property and private property and property laws and all that stuff.

it's the safest thing for him to discuss. The money currency part is more challenging because money is dirty. Nobody wants you to spend money. Don't send money to anybody. Keep it with the banks and don't even touch it. Whenever there is some bust, they always take a picture of the money like it was an illicit good. Some stores don't even want to take cash anymore because it's been, it's become associated with

bad things, right? So money is largely become demonized as a currency. So I think that's probably the danger that he sees and maybe that's why he's focusing more on the property aspect of it. But the value in this in this construct of store value comes from the monetary use because it's people transacting. And I think that's probably a more dangerous thing for someone in his position to talk about. But reality is you have to have people being able to

keep their own money and store their own money themselves and spend their money without intervention in order to create that store of value for everyone else.

Brandon Gentile (43:13.02)

transitioning just a little bit here. What have you and I just thought of this and you know bring up sailor and some of this stuff. Have you read software by Jason Lowry. Do you have any thoughts on him.

Samson Mow (43:24.458)

Not really. I haven't read most people's books, to be honest.

Brandon Gentile (43:29.176)

Yeah, you're just having an offline how you got a lot of things going on, which we're going to touch on here in a second. But yeah, I was just I was curious to see because he again, he has like the it's kind of this nuanced, right? Like the bit power and just the way people are like, Whoa, whoa, it's not this isn't a Second Amendment thing, bro, you know, so like, it's just this constant evolution of like, what are we what is it being framed as right? And everyone has their different frame. So anyway,

Samson Mow (43:50.726)

Yeah, he said Bitcoin, I think I read James's LOP summary, but he was saying Bitcoin is a weapon, it's an offensive weapon or something like that, but it's not really, it's more of a shield. It's a defensive shield, like Captain America's shield, or it's the Master Chief's shield, the bubble shield when he throws it down. It protects you from everything else around you, but it's not something...

Brandon Gentile (44:03.488)

Mm.

Brandon Gentile (44:10.018)

Yeah.

Samson Mow (44:14.79)

you can use offensively unless you say Captain America throwing a shield means the shield is an offensive weapon, right? Maybe it's a stretch, but it's not something you attack each other with and it's not something you can push a button with to nuke someone else, right? It's more about protecting your assets and storing your value

Brandon Gentile (44:35.76)

So nation state adoption, we touched on this a little bit already, Jan 3 and what you're doing there. Let's touch a little bit on, because again, we mentioned that mining, energy, things of that nature, whether it's Bitcoin bonds, the volcano bonds, stuff like that, that seems to be a better way to...

approach things. I know that I've heard like whether it's a Dombe talking to pensions or you know, he always said like, yeah, it's just it's better to kind of like you said, kind of indirectly like, oh, we're starting with 100 bucks, you know, like little chunks, we're not attacking like this direct issue. What if what else have you guys kind of found when you're talking, I mean, touch on I guess your transition from blockstream to Jan three, and then in what you guys are doing, and then maybe someone like those who said some of those lessons that you guys have kind of learned along the way here.

Samson Mow (45:22.538)

Right, so I think, well, Boxstream is very much focused on infrastructure. And I think we are too, but more at a consumer level. So we created the Aqua Wallet to onboard the next billion people to Bitcoin. We want something easy to use and we're ready to meet them where they are. So I guess you could say that's our whole premise at Jan3. We're willing to meet them where they are in their understanding or appetite for Bitcoin, whether it's an individual or person, a government.

So at the government level, they have their things that they are concerned about, maybe emissions targets, maybe it is funding infrastructure, maybe it's eradicating debt, I don't know. But Bitcoin can solve a lot of those problems, right? You can issue a Bitcoin bond to tap into energy infrastructure. You can use Bitcoin mining to mitigate flare gas and other emissions to hit targets. Maybe it's onboarding the unbanked and Bitcoin can do that too. So we look at what they're interested in and we engage them more.

in terms of alignment of incentives. For the individual person, one of the things that some people don't like about Aqua is that we have Tether issued on Liquid in there natively. So it's on the Liquid sidechain. But we allow interoperability sending and receiving from Tron Tether. And this is because we're willing to meet the people where they are. In Latin America, most people are using Tether because they're seeking dollar denominated value. They don't understand the value of Bitcoin or they do understand it but they think it's volatile or...

they are scared of it. But we'll meet them where they are at because they want dollars, so they want tether, so we have that in the wallet. So they can self-custody their USDT and still send it on the altcoin rails. But we're not forcing them to only use Bitcoin. But we have Bitcoin very prominently in the wallet as a spending checking account and a savings account, and the Bitcoin price at the very top. So the thinking is we get them into liquid, the fees are lower than all of the other altcoin chains, it's more reliable, faster.

And then they'll see Bitcoin and they might take Bitcoin when they meet some tourists that's traveling there from the EU and get some Bitcoin because that tourist guy will say, hey, take it over lightning and keep it in Bitcoin. And they might do that. And then they'll see it, appreciate it. So we're trying to really engage them at a level that they're comfortable engaging at with the ultimate goal of onboarding them to Bitcoin.

Brandon Gentile (47:43.356)

Yeah, and I've had I've been using the because you guys just launched. I think it was Jan 3rd, right? When you launched the new version because I've had I've been using the aqua for a number of years now. So that was the can you what was the new? What was the new I guess version coming out? Because I don't even know what the change was. I just I know I've been using it for a while.

Samson Mow (48:02.938)

Okay, that's good. You're one of the original Aqua users then. Yeah, so Aqua started at Blockstream because I wanted a very simple, easy to use wallet that showed Bitcoin and liquid stuff all in one view and with one seed phrase. So the goal is it's an accessible wallet for noobs. And one of the taglines for Aqua is that it's the wallet your grandma can use. So you don't have to learn about too much, deal with all that complexity. You don't have to deal with Lightning Channel opening, closing, balancing. It's just...

Brandon Gentile (48:05.244)

Yeah, I'll tell you when I read it.

Samson Mow (48:32.538)

works and we can still interface with Lightning, but the base of it is Liquid. But when we took that over at Gen 3, we added a lot more functionality to let you swap between Tether and Bitcoin and also Mainchain by integrating SideSwap. And then we had that on and off ramping with Liquid to Lightning using Bolts. And then for USDT, we use SideShift. So basically, it's a lot more integrations to deliver utility to the end user.

Because if you just create a really good wallet, and all you can do is receive lightning payments, you're already ignoring a large chunk of the world, right? They, you have to one, be a Bitcoiner, one, be a Bitcoiner, two, be willing to deal with all the complexity yourself. And some people debate, is it that hard? It's still harder than not doing that, right? So, you're already limiting yourself to a smaller market.

But we think with Aqua, with a very simple user interface, it's so simple, but under the hood, it's actually very complex, all the stuff that we're doing. And we try to deal with all the complexity so that it's not burdened on the user. But that is meant to onboard people that may not understand Bitcoin at all. And I think this is the market that is worthwhile going after because you want more people to be using Bitcoin as money.

Brandon Gentile (49:57.18)

So cool. Yeah, and Blockstream Jade, awesome. Aqua is great. And that's where I found Aqua initially, because getting Blockstream Jade a number of years ago, I don't remember when now, but yeah, very cool product. So people have checked them out. I'll link to everything here too, so people can find stuff. What, I know we have five, 10 minutes here. So we're getting towards the end. What, really quickly, do you see any, just for people coming into this space, or people learning about Bitcoin, do you see, what are the?

affinity scams. What do you what do you see? Is it what's the ICO this cycle coming up? What's the NFTs this cycle coming up? Is there anything on the horizon you kind of see like we got to kind of keep our eye on that?

Samson Mow (50:37.57)

I mean, keep your eyes on Bitcoin only. Everything else is a distraction. I think this cycle's distraction was ordinals, right? People were trying to push that as if it's new, but it's not really new. Counterparty did it a long time ago. And people have short memories. They seem to think that this time is different for their thing, but it's all been done before by somebody. And all you're doing is rehashing something with a slight twist on it. And...

Brandon Gentile (50:46.184)

Mmm.

Samson Mow (51:06.078)

It works, it makes you money in the near term maybe if you sold something to someone else, but like all fad-based things, they disappear over time. I saw some news yesterday, some influencer sold his board ape, yacht club ape thing for I forgot like 30, 40 thousand and he paid 200 thousand for it. So all of these things have a finite life cycle. So the best thing is to focus on Bitcoin and only Bitcoin.

Brandon Gentile (51:24.788)

Peace.

Brandon Gentile (51:33.66)

Wild. Yeah, great advice. What really briefly as well, what was your orange pill story, I guess, but what was your journey, I guess, even from a kid in understanding money and your first lessons in money to being where you are today, I guess, just again, to help the average person, the person that's kind of getting into Bitcoin or understanding what money is.

Samson Mow (51:59.862)

Yeah, so I think I'm like everyone else. Like growing up, you're not taught about money. You're taught very surface level things about money. Like you should save money and you should invest your money. I remember going with my mom to her investment advisor at the bank and listening to them talk about mutual funds and how it's so safe because it's a basket of things and you have exposure to many different things like minerals, precious metals and...

bank stocks and it's a safe way to invest your money. But it's just like talking about a cake, but only the icing, not the inner layers of the cake. You can spread the icing around or like you said earlier, arrange deck chairs on the Titanic. You can do different things with the icing on the top, but you never go into the cake. Why do you want exposure to precious metals?

Brandon Gentile (52:42.156)

Ha ha!

Samson Mow (52:59.934)

makes precious metals even valuable? What makes gold valuable? What makes money valuable? And these things are just not taught. I think it's like a lost art. And it has a lot to do with incentives too, because the powers that be, they probably don't want the population to understand, right? Their motivation is bred in circuses and maintaining their power. It's not for individuals to become more sovereign and exert pressure over the political system.

a constituency of a lot of poor people that depend on you and want you to give them more bread, right? Food stamps, whatever. And then they'll vote for you because you can give them something. But if they don't need anything from you, well, you'd have to do a good job and you have to be very competent. So it's dangerous, I think, for the powers that be. But yeah, my journey is really just learning about Bitcoin and going down the rabbit hole just like everyone else. It's just I might have done it for a little bit longer than some people.

Brandon Gentile (53:59.54)

So cool. All right, so Bitcoin trading cards, Samsung's on a card. Again, if you didn't know, you gotta check these out because they're on, and at them as well. So Blockstream, Jan 3. So cool, how did this come about? Briefly, let me know how you and Latin gotten in touch and how this kind of came out. And you advise us, our company as well, in trying to educate people in a very different way than what you guys are doing, but all, you know, nonetheless, still trying to educate people. How did this come about?

Samson Mow (54:29.902)

Let me think for a bit. Who was it that introduced us? Maybe it was Tone Vase.

Brandon Gentile (54:35.884)

it might have been actually now that you say that. Yeah, because he was probably on first advising. Yeah. Yep.

Samson Mow (54:37.35)

Yeah, he's an advisor. Yeah, he's an advisor. And then I think he connected me to Aladdin. And then I could be wrong. Maybe it's someone else. If it's someone else, then you get the credit. But I met Aladdin. And I think his message really resonated with me about making something that can get people interested in Bitcoin. And being from the game industry, I don't see things that are not a scam that can onboard people to Bitcoin as a bad thing. Like...

Brandon Gentile (54:47.818)

You know who you are.

Samson Mow (55:06.062)

Collectibles are not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you don't say, you know, it's very unique because it's a unique Satoshi, and it's unique because we counted from left to the right. You know, that to me is not a good way, but a trading card, like as a kid I collected baseball cards, you know, upper deck and all that good stuff, and you know, there's Pokemon cards, like there's nothing wrong with it if you know that you're collecting something that is a collectible, is not pretending to be better money.

Brandon Gentile (55:24.852)

Classic.

Samson Mow (55:33.77)

Aladdin is not out here saying this is a better Bitcoin. It's gonna appreciate and value more than if you bought a Bitcoin, right? At that point, I would say like, you know, go to hell. But that's not the message. He's making something that people can use and understand and learn about Bitcoin, which I think is invaluable. If we want to get more people into Bitcoin, we really need these tools at our disposal, whether it's Aqua or Bitcoin trading cards or anything.

It has to be palatable for the masses. And sometimes we forget this as Bitcoiners because we're so far down the rabbit hole, we think that if we tell you 21 million cap, that's enough. But it's not. Maybe it's a physical card that someone is accustomed to collecting because they collected baseball cards or Pokemon cards. Now there's Bitcoin cards.

Brandon Gentile (56:21.264)

Yeah, yeah, well, well said. It's it's helping people talk about things that are, you know, in a funny, easy way that make you normally want to cry, you know, so it's just incepting that Trojan horse. Last segment here, the quick word association presented by the coin trading cards. So for anyone who like follows Caleb Presley in the Sunday conversation and Barstool Sports will know what that means. But I'm going to just throw out some words of like 10 or 15 words. Samson.

And then I do want to talk at the end, you'll see here, I want to just touch on the game thing for a second, but just give me like your thought, just like the word or, you know, word or two that come to your head right when I say it.

Aqua Wallet.

Samson Mow (57:05.07)

adoption.

Brandon Gentile (57:06.912)

next region to adopt Bitcoin.

Samson Mow (57:10.42)

Let's go.

Brandon Gentile (57:12.548)

macro thinkers.

Samson Mow (57:17.618)

early Bitcoiners.

Brandon Gentile (57:20.392)

Bitcoin conferences.

Samson Mow (57:23.552)

BTC Prague.

Brandon Gentile (57:26.523)

small meetups or big centralized meetups.

Samson Mow (57:30.158)

small meetups.

Brandon Gentile (57:32.856)

Women in Bitcoin.

Samson Mow (57:39.383)

Oh, Dan. Nat Brunel, standard answer.

Brandon Gentile (57:44.716)

Satoshi Nakamoto.

Samson Mow (57:47.038)

Adam back. Just kidding.

Brandon Gentile (57:51.91)

Javier Malé.

Samson Mow (57:54.23)

Bitcoin.

Brandon Gentile (57:56.613)

Naib Bokehli.

Samson Mow (57:59.714)

Bitcoin also.

Brandon Gentile (58:02.835)

Bitcoin trading cards.

Samson Mow (58:04.854)

Aladdin.

Brandon Gentile (58:06.92)

Blockstream.

Samson Mow (58:09.814)

Bilderberg.

Brandon Gentile (58:12.072)

Pixelmatic.

Samson Mow (58:14.387)

Infinite Fleet.

Brandon Gentile (58:16.953)

and Jan3.com.

Samson Mow (58:20.918)

World domination by Bitcoin.

Brandon Gentile (58:24.372)

Love it, love it. Awesome stuff about that. You passed the test, you passed the test here at the end. So, oh man, anything before, you know, let people know where you can define you and stuff like that. Anything you, that we missed that you would like to touch on, any special announcements, anything like that at all that you have been kind of stewing on.

Samson Mow (58:45.226)

I want to know when the next series is coming out for the cards and am I in it?

Brandon Gentile (58:47.804)

Cool.

Oh, so that I can tell you a couple of those a couple of things. I can't tell you if you're in it or not. Some of the some of those are secrets still. So who's in it? What's going on? But Bitblock Boom will be coming out. We'll have a series which are going to be awesome, like retro cards coming out in a couple of weeks at Bitblock Boom. And then we'll have so all next month or so we're going to have Spears Satoshi with Svetsky, we partnered and collaborated with him and what he's doing there. Those will be coming out. Three things all to printer.

Sphere Satoshi, Bit Block Boom, and the Having Edition Whale Packs, which will be once every four years. They look incredible. So those are all coming out here in the next, basically four to eight weeks. And then we will have Series 3 dropping in Nashville. So that will be in a few months at that, basically middle of the year will be Series 3, the flagship. And then we'll have another big partnership that we should be announcing at some point here. And that will be later this year.

and we'll probably have Pacific Bitcoin set with maybe tone, depending on when he has his conference. I know he's trying to figure that lock that down. That will probably do that too. So yeah, it's gonna be, it's crazier. So thank you, Samson. Appreciate, where could we find you at?

Samson Mow (01:00:00.388)

Nice.

Samson Mow (01:00:09.266)

I'm on X, my handle is Xelion, and then you can also find Jan3 at Jan3Com.

Brandon Gentile (01:00:16.668)

Samson, thank you so much for your time today, brother. I really, really appreciate it.

Samson Mow (01:00:20.714)

Yeah, thanks, Brandon. It's been fun.

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