Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of
Simply Bitcoin IRL. Today we have a very very
special guest Samsung Mao. I have so many questions, so
many things to ask him. But before we jump into it, I do
want to give a shout out to the Bitcoin company that makes this
show possible. Swan Bitcoin.
It's the best place to build your Bitcoin stack.
It's being built by bitcoiners. It's for bitcoiners.
Go to swanbitcoin.com today. Start that DCA plan.
Anyways, no more delay. I want to bring Samsung up on
stage. Samsung, I'm just going to rip
the Band-Aid off. Just jump straight into it.
You are saying $1 million Bitcoin?
What? What's the logic behind that?
Well, like not only $1 million Bitcoin, which we all know is
going to come eventually, but $1 million Bitcoin in a very, very
short amount of time. Right.
So I think the key message I'm trying to get across is that the
macro environment has fundamentally changed.
And then I did some analysis and other people like Macronaut and
Bitpain and others have also done the math too.
And Bitcoin going up 20X is not a difficult thing.
It's done it sometimes in the past.
So the key here is that everything is different now with
the ETFs with the amount of money able to flow into the
Bitcoin ecosystem and we can very rapidly go up to 1,000,000.
Whether we stay there or not is a different question, but just
the lack of supply because we are constrained.
It's about 1.4, maybe 1.6 million BTC on exchanges right
now. That's not a lot, and at some
point it's going to dry up, especially at the rate at which
the ETFs are hoovering up all the coins at the moment.
Gotcha. And so I'm, I'm assuming based
on that statement you do not believe in the diminishing
returns theory because that is one of the narratives this
cycle. You know, every cycle you have
different narratives, right. One of the big narratives by the
crowd is this idea of Bitcoin has diminishing returns.
You know, I think a lot of people have PTSD from the last
cycle of us not breaking 100 Ki have my theories.
I think it was the China ban that played a huge role in that.
So I'm assuming you don't believe in the diminishing
returns theory. Not really.
I mean, we talk often about hyper bitcoinization and if you
believe in hyper bitcoinization then it's impossible to believe
in diminishing returns because there should be no cycles to
Bitcoin. If you're going to reach the
point of hyper bitcoinization whereby we replace all Fiat
money, then there is nothing to go back to.
So what are you measuring the returns in, Right?
If the US dollar no longer exists, then how can you have
diminishing returns? So I guess there's two parts
there. One is, will there be another
cycle? And I'm not really sure.
Like just because we had three similar looking cycles in the
past does not mean that we're always going to have this cycle,
right? Because it's like flipping a
coin. You get heads three times,
doesn't mean the next time it's more likely you're going to get
tails. It's a different it's a
different equation every single time.
And the other part is, well, if Bitcoin does replace Fiat, then
there is no diminishing returns. You're just Bitcoin now, so it's
not really possible to measure returns.
Gotcha, gotcha. Interesting.
Very, very interesting. And then, so let's talk a little
bit about the ETF you were mentioning earlier, But I, I
want to back that up. And I just want to comment on
the absolute disaster release, the behavior by the SEC, the
tweet, the early tweets, and then it was deleted, and then
the next day it was approved. And then the very vengeful,
spiteful post by Gary Gensler, I'm sure Elizabeth Warren was
tapping on his shoulder. So what's your take on that?
What's your opinion? Well, I think it's highly likely
Gary's going to lose his job, but that was probably the worst
possible way they could have handled it.
And even just getting to this point where they denied it for
pretty much close to a decade is another big kerfuffle.
So I mean if they had approved it on a reasonable timeline,
let's say five years ago, they probably wouldn't have had that
debacle at the launch now. But it is what it is and I'm
just glad it's all out of the way.
But there's probably no way it could have gone any worse than
it went because like if you did mess up and the announcement did
look OK, does it really matter if someone wrote it for you or
if it was a pre drafted unapproved tweet?
I don't know all the details but no one will.
But it would have been better to just ride on it and say, yeah,
it's launched now because you launched the next day and then
you would have saved so much face and saved yourself from so
much embarrassment just by saying, yeah, it's approved a.
100% And I also tweeted out some type of meme.
It wasn't really a meme, but it was just a picture of the
Bitcoin price graph and it just a Wick up and then a Wick down.
And then I put consumer protection brought to you by the
SCC. So they it seems like they
failed the job that they were supposed to do.
And then it got worse than that Samson, because essentially if
you look back on their tweets, it's like don't trust anything
unless it comes from the SC, CS official handle.
And then it said something like make sure to turn off your two
FA. And then it was discovered by
Twitter that they didn't have their two FA on like this super
projection. I did a a a satire tweet and I I
wrote you know breaking SA, CS delaying ETF approvals until Q2
because compromise social media accounts can result in market
manipulation and extreme volatility.
And a lot of people ping me after that in DM saying you
should delete that because it's too real.
So I did delete it and then whatever like some some other
guys posted it, but it it's pretty funny like they could
have done that and said yeah, well it's a it's a risk so we
can't approve it yet. Do you think that's like a like
a representation and of of like the how do I say this nicely, I
don't think you can say it nicely.
Do do you think it's a representation of, like the
inefficiencies of of this very, very bloated government that's
been funded by this money printer for all these decades
and decades and decades? the US government's like one of
the biggest employers in the world, you know, at this point.
So do you think that's a representation of that, Like if
that's happening on the top echelon, the top levels, I can't
even imagine what's happening, you know, on the lower levels of
that. Well, it comes down to what can
the government actually do? Can the government and these
agencies actually protect anybody?
And the answer is probably not right.
They're able to retroactively implement some policy, right,
like take your shoes off when you go through the scanner at
the airport and all that stuff. But they can't preemptively do
anything to protect people. And it really shows the the
inability, really shows in the fact that we have what, 19,000
or 20,000 altcoins on the market now.
And you know, the the they never did go after Ethereum when they
did their ICO because they weren't equipped, educated or
ready to do so at the time. And they're still not doing
anything. So the proliferation of all this
stuff that harms people, that actually does harm people is not
something they can do anything about.
They're just not able to. So I think you're you're right
that these things, these agencies and institutions are
not very effective at what they're supposed to be doing.
100% And do you think that the altcoins are here to stay,
'cause that's another thing where some of the, you know,
some of the charges, whether it was on Kraken or Coinbase.
The SEC did mention that you know some of these altcoins are,
you know, they they see them as security.
Of course, for some reason they left the theory amount, but
perhaps they donated too much money.
But, you know, very popular ones like Cardano and I can't even
the whole shit coin laundry, to put it nicely.
So do you like, do you see the do you foresee that as an issue,
right, that these all coins are really not just gonna go away in
the United States? It's hard to say.
I mean, the problem is it's a losing battle.
Like they'd have to hire a lot of people to go after all these
projects, right? And I think that is the, the
main deterrent to them taking any significant action because
SEC doesn't want to lose in court.
And sadly they pursue things like blocking ETFs and they go
to court for that and they lose for that.
And I think that takes some wind out of their sails to actually
go after the actual nefarious stuff and stuff that could
actually make a difference. So it's hard to say, but I mean
it, it's the, the biggest problem I think is uneven
enforcement, right. You have some enforcement, some
selective enforcement on things that they think that they can
get a easy win under their belt for like like I don't know
something more innocuous like library right there.
It's like a content platform token or whatever.
But then they don't go after the really big stuff and that is the
the biggest impact and harm that can be caused to investors.
So we'll see. I mean, when Gary's gone and
someone replaces him, we'll see what happens, but it's hard to
say that if they will actually do anything meaningful ever.
Yeah. And that was a really good point
that you brought up, which is the amount of resources and it
was actually has to your peers. Also SEC Commissioner, she said
She's like the millions of dollars that was spent trying to
delay this for political reason reasons rather than trying to,
you know, actually focus on other things.
So that was a really good point. Now I want to get your take on
this, Samson. So obviously, the regulatory
environment in the US has been interesting to say the least the
last two years, right? We know the current
administration, you know, is not a big fan of the industry.
And then it was actually yesterday, which I think it was
a pretty historical moment in my opinion.
Not only did you have Javier Malay dropping, I don't know why
they allowed him to have that speech, right, dropping bombs at
the Contilion Air conference, AKA the World Economic Forum.
And you had Donald Trump, out of all people, not quite Bitcoin
friendly, but advocating against central bank digital currencies,
which the current administration is actually a big fan of.
So clearly in terms of the Overton window, it is shifting,
right, which is a really good thing for bitcoiners.
What's your take on the current regulatory environment?
Does it concern you, you know the the not to mention Elizabeth
Warren's bill just currently 20 senators signed up for 20% of
the US Senate and a couple Republicans in there as well.
So what's your take on that? Is that just a temporary thing?
Do you think we're just in the beginning of the then they fight
you stage? I mean, they've been fighting us
for some time. But yeah, it's interesting
dynamic that's come to play here.
And I was going to tweet about it yesterday when I ran out of
time. But I think Donald Trump
tweeting about his stance or not talking about his stance about
being against CBD CS is actually massive.
And like you said, it is a big shifter of of the Overton
Window. Whereas most politicians and
governments were like, hey, this is innovative and it's to help
you now. It's like this is bad.
It's it's been happening for some time.
I think DeSantis was talking about CBDCS and talking about
them in the right light too and then I think Bobby Robert
Kennedy is also talking about it there.
There is this percolation of sentiment against CBDCS.
But Trump blasting out there is is very significant because you
know he's definitely a he's the Republican candidate probably
now. So I think it has a lot of
weight and in terms of all the other anti Bitcoin sentiment, I
don't really think it matters. I think what we should fight for
is to prevent CBDCS because if we can stop that from coming out
and really anchor that Overton window shift to be anti CBDC,
Bitcoin will win. We just have to give Bitcoin
that chance to keep going and it's a finished battle.
It's a done deal. So I don't think it matters if
Trump is pro Bitcoin or not as long as he's anti CBDC because
the market forces always will win.
So I think it's a good thing that more and more politicians
are taking these more pragmatic stances rather than the more
pleasant sound bite, virtue signaling path that you
typically see coming out of Davos.
And this is, I think, why Malay dropping that bomb of a speech
was significant because one, it's at Davos.
And two, it shows how much interest there is in this topic
and manifesto of freedom that is being spread versus the
traditional stuff that comes out of Davos usually.
And you see that in the view counts, right?
I think he's at millions of views now.
And the next best one is 30,000 views or something like that.
So it shows that the people want a certain topic to be discussed.
They don't want you to plan the next World government and
telling you to eat the bugs. Yeah, and and the the thing that
I find hilarious, which is, you know, you have his video just
went viral, right? Everyone's else is just they're
not doing so well. But also the virtue signalling
of, yeah, the environment. Everyone else is flying private
on their G6. There's nothing wrong with that
if you could afford a private plane.
But Javier Malay like a boss travels commercial I think on
Lufonsa, you know and then he goes in there saying freedom,
you know individualism versus collectivism.
So yeah, I I think it was it was definitely a big shift.
So pivoting back to the spot Bitcoin ETF, Samson one of had a
very interesting discussion with with Kaitlyn Long and Lawrence
Lapard and then with Greg Foss and James Lavish and they're
they're on their other camp but essentially Caitlin Law brought
up the point of the dangers of rehypothecation with a spot
Bitcoin ETF. So what are your thoughts on
that? I mean there's always a risk of
rehypothecation and I don't think Bitcoin is immune to it
just because people always, some people will always seek out the
most convenient form of holding Bitcoin and for the majority of
people it is with an ETF or with a custodian.
So there is always at risk. But the benefit and the
advantage that Bitcoin has is self custody is actually quite
easy, right? If you can write down 12 words
you can self custody and if you can drive a car, I think you can
write down 12 words. So it's just about getting more
people into Bitcoin. And I view the ETFs as a way to
orange kill more people, just like I view nation state Bitcoin
adoption as a way to get more people into Bitcoin.
Yes, the ETFs are not the ideal format for us hardcore
bitcoiners that are all about self self custody.
And yes, it's not ideal that countries accumulate out of
Bitcoin. It's better the people
accumulate a lot of Bitcoin, but it's also a way to reach more
people. So I think you have to take the
good with the bad and eventually people will learn to self
custody simply because you have to pay a lot of fees, right?
Even with the low fees the ETFs are charging, it's still
significant and you when you compound that over a number of
years. 100%. And Speaking of self custody,
I'm. I'm really glad that you brought
that up. You just announced your new
project, the Aqua Wallet. I'm gonna pull it up right?
So Samson, what is this? Why don't you give us a quick if
you can? If you if you can, that would be
really appreciated. Quick elevator pitch.
What is the Aqua wallet first of all?
The website's awesome, by the way.
So what is this? So Aqua is a Bitcoin wallet that
supports layer 2:00. We we have the liquid network
integrated as well as the lightning network and we also
have stable coins like USDT. And I think the differentiating
factor here is we are one of the first wallets out there that
actually delivers a seamless experience between all these
different Bitcoin layers and assets.
So your typical Bitcoin wallet might just store Bitcoin and
then you might have a way to access some dollar derivative,
but it's not Tether, right? And Tether is used mostly
throughout the global S like in Latin America, they just call
Tether digital dollars. They don't call it tether.
So that's the level of dominance that it has.
And I think most wallets don't appreciate that or understand
that and that's why they're not supporting it.
And we end up losing a lot of transaction volume and AUM of
tether to the altcoin chains. And the goal is that we can
bring that back to Bitcoin because, well, when you're
storing USDT on on your Aqua wallet, it's on the liquid chain
and there's no need to buy Tron or Ethereum or any altcoin to
send that around. And in fact, we have a feature
coming out soon which will let you pay for USDUSDT transactions
with USDT. So you don't even need Liquid
Bitcoin to send it. And I think this is a way for us
to get more people in Latin America into the Bitcoin
ecosystem, because a lot of them are looking for digital dollars
and they may not be using Bitcoin, but I mean, it's just a
short hop and a jump to get to Bitcoin.
And Aqua features Bitcoin very prominently as a savings account
and a spending account. So that's the idea really to
drive a lot of people into the Bitcoin ecosystem.
But yeah, we we support right now Liquid and Lightning.
Lightning is mainly a rail, so you can send and receive on
Lightning we do submarine swaps with bolts, so it's trustless
and then your funds are stored in liquid Bitcoin, so you don't
have to deal with any channel management and things like that.
So it's it's a pretty good set of trade-offs I think, to
deliver accessible layer two Bitcoin to the average user.
Yeah. And and I love the the tether
integration aspect of it because so my cousin launched a exchange
in Central and South America and currently in in Columbia he's
he's doing volume and and I was like hey, So what what are you
selling? Like you know, people buying
altcoins or people buying bitcoins like Nico, 99% of my
business is OTC tether transactions, right.
And I think that they have like one of the only approvals from
the central bank in Columbia and this is telling me it's like
it's tether. Tether people just want that,
you know that stability versus their local currency.
So the fact that I think you have that tether integration
then not to mention the fact that I think tether on certain
chains is actually extremely expensive.
So that this wallet fixes that, I'm assuming.
Yeah, Liquid tether transactions are about $0.10 right now,
something like that right now. And we have some plans in the
works to decrease it by a factor of 10.
So it should be about 1 cent. Most Tron wallets charge a
dollar for tether on Tron and Ethereum can go up to, you know,
$13 to $20 depending on the state of the chain.
So I think there's a big advantage here.
And plus you have confidential transactions in liquid, so it's
faster, cheaper and confidential.
And I think people will learn to appreciate that over time.
So. We just have to start to pushing
it And the beautiful thing is we because we have this wallet out
now, we can start to engage with local Fiat on and off ramps and
maybe the OTC desks like that one they mentioned from from a
friend there and tell them to support liquid tether because
previously there's not really a good option to use the quid
tether. And the another thing, Samson
that I wanted to ask you, which is the obviously the regulatory
environment for Tether itself, right.
So you know, like DOJ has been on a warpath, right?
You know they they they took down, they essentially they
didn't, they didn't take down Binance, they Co opted Binance,
right. So does that worry you at all
because I know if you're a bitcoiner, you know that Tether
plays a big role in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Does that worry you at all in terms of potential regulatory
hostility coming from the Department of Treasury, the DOJ?
Not really. I mean the all of the that stuff
has been settled a long time ago and Tether doesn't operate in
the US and their main focus is really the the global South and
developing markets. So I don't really think it it in
it offends them in any way. I mean the maybe they could, but
then you're getting into very challenging territory like what
could they actually do to tether because another country can use
the dollar, Why can't you know a company that's serving global S
use the dollar as well. So the question is really what
happens to it. Maybe they could pass some very
specific stable coin regulation, but that would also kill the the
US based stable coins as well. So I I just don't see anything
happening there in terms of like existential risk.
I really don't see anything because the tether is the one of
the largest holders of U.S. Treasuries right now.
I think they're up there with countries like Mexico and others
in the top 20 or top 25 of UST holders.
So I mean, you could do that, but it wouldn't be you could you
could go after it and shut it all down, but it wouldn't be the
smartest thing to do, especially when the demand for treasuries
is dropping. So it's well, I don't put it
past any government in administration to do that, but
it doesn't make sense if you're thinking about things
rationally. And also recently in Davos, the
CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald was on, I think Bloomberg and I don't
know CNBC one of those, but he was saying Tether they have the
money, we've seen it, we manage their assets and that sort of
destroys all Tether Fudd, right. You have one of the largest
prime dealers in the US, one of 24, one of the largest capital
equities companies on the planet saying we manage their assets
and we've seen that they have the assets.
That's a very powerful thing and it essentially destroys all of
the FUD and all the narratives that have been swirling around
Tether for the last decade almost.
And it's also funny because Tether has always been a target
of the mainstream media Financial Times.
You know every single mainstream media rag has targeted them at
some point, but they could have just picked any other project
like I don't know, Celsius Block 5 FTX and they would have been
right. But they picked the stable coin
to go after the one that has attestations from a top five
accounting firm saying they have assets.
So none of this really makes sense.
I think it's people just trying to instil fear in the market,
but tether's a solid product and they have 60,000 something BTC
in their reserves right now. They recently just bought 8888
more coins and you know, as the value of Bitcoin goes up,
there's going to be a point at which their reserves are double
their liabilities. So right now I think they're at
95 billion USDT in AUM at probably 1.4.
Assuming they keep the same amount of Bitcoin at $1.4
million per Bitcoin, they'll have double.
Their liabilities? Gotcha.
No.
And if my research serves me correctly, I believe they have a
direct account with the Fed. Like Tether has an account with
the Fed as well. I don't.
Know maybe. Yeah, so interesting,
Interesting. So Samson, so obviously as
bitcoiners we want hyper bitcoinization.
We want the world to run on a Bitcoin standard.
Do you see tether as a stepping stone towards that What do you
see? How do you see tethers role in
the Cuz right now how it you do a little bit of research it does
play a very important role and. Yeah.
So what is it? A step towards hyper
bitcoinization. Yeah, so in 2018 at some
conference, I think I was on stage and I said tether.
It was a panel of stable coins. I remember a few other stable
coin people there. I'm not sure why I was on that
panel, but they put me on the panel.
But I was talking about tether and I said Tether is a mid step
towards hyper bitcoinization. It's a way for people to get
into this ecosystem and then move on to Bitcoin, because not
everyone has a bank account. Tether serves as the last mile
for banking for much of the world like the We have the
situation of people that are unbanked, and yes, we can bank
them with Bitcoin, but you can also bank them with tether on on
liquid or other chains if you must.
But the fact is you can get people access to the financial
system through this mechanism, and it's not rational to think
everyone's going to suddenly jump into Bitcoin.
That's more of a a Western perspective, like people that
think that probably have a bank account and they can make SEPA
transfers or interact or ACH or whatever.
But you have to remember there are billions of people in the
world that can't do any of that and they do want digital
dollars. And This is why Tether is so
dominant in the global S because they're they're looking for
something to protect themselves from inflation and
hyperinflation. But Bitcoin seems far off for
them. But a dollar is something that
they're familiar with. Like most people know what a
dollar is, that's why it's the reserve currency.
And tether gives them access to that reserve currency.
So I think you need to be willing to accept that tether is
an important part to get to hyper bitcoinization.
And I've talked to Paulo before too.
He doesn't believe that you know tether than a stablecoin.
They do a lot more now. They have energy and mining and
a lot of other things. But he doesn't think the
stablecoin will exist forever because the dollar won't exist
forever too. So I think we're more or less
all in the same wavelength that stablecoins are a mid step to
getting towards. Hypercontension Gotcha.
Yeah. And I agree with that.
And you know, that's what's really interesting about, you
know, the Aqua wallet is that it has tether there.
And Samson, if people were interested in downloading this,
where could they find it? Yeah, you can get it on the iOS
App Store and on Google Play and just search for Aqua Wallet.
The safest way is probably to go to our website aquawallet dot IO
and find the links there in case the App Store has put up a fake
one which is getting more and more common these.
Days Abdi, could you pull up the link while Samsung and I keep
talking? And another thing Samsung I
wanna talk to you about is January 3rd right?
So Jan 3rd specifically, so obviously the mission and you
left, you left Blockstream which is amazing company and you
dedicated your life which I think is absolutely badass I
might add to nation state adoption of Bitcoin.
We've seen some amazing recent developments out of Honduras.
What do you know about that and what can we expect from the
region? In in Honduras.
Yes, like what? Can you what what is the, what
is the current state of Bitcoin? Nation state adoption.
I'll put it like that. I'll say it like that.
OK. So we are engaged in a number of
countries and the level of this discussions varies from place to
place. But last year we went to
Montenegro, met with the Prime Minister there, We were in
Colombia, I met with President there.
We were in Suriname, met with President there, and the Central
Bank, also in Columbia. We met with the largest bank
too. But I think the important thing
about Gentry's mission of accelerating Bitcoin adoption
and in working with governments and politicians and regulators
is that we can get the message out there about Bitcoin and we
can educate them about what Bitcoin is.
And then we can also talk about why CBD, CS are bad and other
topics too. So I think it's a useful tool to
educate a lot of the world. And if we can get countries to
adopt Bitcoin, then like we talked about before, we can have
more people learning about Bitcoin.
Just like in El Salvador when the government implemented their
Bitcoin law and their digital securities law.
Well, that on boards a lot of people into Bitcoin that
otherwise would not have bothered or even cared to.
So the implication really is we have countries that adopt
Bitcoin but at a lower level. A really good outcome is that
they don't have bad legislation like banning self custody or
self hosted wallets or things like that.
So I think the work that we are doing is quite important in the
path to hyper bitcoinization. And so, and that started off
very strong, right? So you had the the monumental
and I remember I never forget this conference.
It was the first Bitcoin conference I spoke at you know
Bitcoin 2021 and you had that amazing announcement Max Keiser,
Michael Saylor on stage F, Elon, you know the whole all those
moments. Right.
And you had the video announcement from Naimbu KLA
basically saying we're gonna make Bitcoin legal tender And
then it it seemed like the general consensus is it seems
like it it slowed down a little bit after the after that.
I have a theory on that. I think El Salvador caught them
by surprise and then all of a sudden I think they're a little
bit, they have their, their, their brace for impact.
So what's your thoughts on this? Like, you know, are are you
seeing pushback from governments?
Are they, you know, is the IMF in there?
Is the World Bank like, no, no, no, no, no.
So what are your thoughts? And of course, Naimbu Kele is a
is a great leader. You have someone who's very,
very convicted in his beliefs and not to mention the fact that
the popularity he has in his electorate is extremely high as
the most popular president in the Americas.
So, you know, what's your take on that?
Are we gonna see a a country this cycle?
Follow the steps of El Salvador. Yeah, so El Salvador took the
large brunt of, I guess, animosity from the IMF on all of
their Bitcoin things. And fortunately, they did really
well for themselves, right? They boosted their economy,
their GDP, their traditional bonds are rallying.
So there's not that much that the IMF can say because
everything they've done has been a success.
So I think it makes it easier for subsequent countries to
implement a Bitcoin strategy without fearing too much of the
ire of the IMF. Basically they they they they
went at the king and they have one shot but they they lost.
So like what can they say with the next country?
Like you shouldn't do that because El Salvador is
successful. I mean they could but it doesn't
make any sense. And if you look at the the media
and all their publications, a lot of it is quieted down.
The IMF is not criticizing them anymore and I think with good
reason. So it makes it easier for us as
Janet 3 to go and talk to the different countries and say,
well you can do a Bitcoin strategy and it's OK because IMF
is not going to say anything. Now I'm I'm sure when they do
it, there will be a little bit of Sabre rattling.
But at the end of the day, countries have to look out for
their own best interests, not the interests of the IMF to keep
loan sharking, right. So that is really a litmus test.
Can the leader of our country take the decisions that are that
are in the best interest and get that country out of debt, out of
subservience and be sovereign? And the interesting trend that
we're seeing now is we're, we're seeing politicians come out and
talk about this and you can take that with a grain of salt, but
that is the trend like Malay with Bobby Kennedy and a number
of others. So the tide seems to be shifting
towards more about pragmatism and being actually sovereign
countries. Yeah, no.
And I agree. I I think it's the things are
definitely shifting and not only in the political sphere but also
on an individual level. I think people are starting to
question the the old just cause like to be frank like the amount
of BS that has come out you know over the last five years and
just how they're the SEC, how they how they handled that is a
great example right. And I think people are just
questioning the very what should be, what should the role of
government be in my life? And I think I think that's good
for Bitcoin. Everything's good for Bitcoin.
So Samson, I don't even know what is, how do you go about,
you know orange peeling a nation.
How do you go about convincing a nation to adopt Bitcoin?
I did. I remember I I did see those
pictures with you and and the president of of Columbia.
So how do you approach that? Well, we have a lot of help.
So we have this network of Gen. 3 associates in all these
different countries that help U.S.
Open doors. And it's really just ordinary
people like plebs and bitcoiners from all walks of life that want
to help and they have a connection to somebody that
might know somebody. And then eventually we work our
way up through meetings and discussions and then we get that
in person meeting and hopefully we get some real Bitcoin
strategies coming out of that. And this is what we're mainly
focused on for 2024, following up on all the things that were
started in 2023 and just getting that next step.
But it's really encouraging because I think with the ETFs
being approved with Bitcoin price action going up, it makes
it easier and it makes people more interested in Bitcoin.
It's the Veblen effect, right? So when Bitcoin is down at 16 or
15, nobody wants it, but when it's up, then people are
interested again. So we have to use that and use
what's in our favor to leverage that and take advantage of that.
Absolutely. And the the the question I have
for you right is, so let's say a government has a very strong
yacht currency like you know like the the United States or
you know the European Union, Oregon, you know Switzerland for
example. What incentive does the
government there have to adopt something like Bitcoin because
it essentially would be a competitor to their Fiat
currency. And then of course, we all know
that governments all around the world love to deficit spend,
love to spend money that they don't have and they do that via
money printing. So what incentive does, you
know, do these countries have to not only make Bitcoin legal
tender but even put Bitcoin on equal footing to their to their
currencies? Because then at that point it's
game over, right? It's it's just like you said
about, you know, Donald Trump. It's it's not necessarily
important for him to be advocating for Bitcoin.
The market forces are gonna do their thing.
Just him stopping CBDC's just gives us time, right.
So yeah, what incentive do? How do you approach that in the
first place? Well, it's challenging because
if you have a strong Fiat currency, you're not
incentivized to do anything with Bitcoin unless you're able to
see past the short term and understand that all Fiat
currencies will fail eventually. It's just a matter of time,
right? And it's all relative to one
another. Everything is sort of pegged to
the US dollar in some way. So if the US dollar goes and
that's getting more and more likely, if you look at debt and
the amount that you have to pay to service that debt, it is
starting to get very cumbersome. Like they cannot keep paying
hundreds of billions of dollars to service this debt.
That's going to keep ballooning because just like with compound
interest, well, it is compound interest, but it's compound
interest on debt which is just as powerful as compound interest
on savings, right. So it's not a really good
situation I think for the whole Fiat system.
And if you can see further ahead, a few steps ahead, then
you would want to make a Bitcoin strategy and implement some form
of Bitcoin holdings either at the central bank or through
mining. And this is what we're advising
countries to do because you can see that you're future proofing
your country against the Fiat collapse.
But it is challenging and I think This is why we don't
really pursue A wealthy, well quote UN quote wealthy Western
nations to to pursue a Bitcoin strategy.
We more more focus on Latin America and other countries that
need Bitcoin and they have the demand for it right now because
they they need money they need to build roads and
infrastructures or anything like that.
So we just go where we're more needed and we'll be
opportunistic and we'll we'll try to work with Western
countries but it's really an uphill battle because it's so
insular and they're they're so unaware of the the Fiat money
system but there are inroads, right.
So in Germany you have Bitcoin in Bundestag, Bitcoin in
parliament and this initiative that's set up to educate the
politicians in Bundestag and I'll be going there to speak
later this year and they have a a stellar lineup of all these
other speakers like Block Trainer and other guys.
So we'll go and we'll try to educate the the parliament and
see what we can do. But it's not like we're going
not for for Gen. 3, we're not going to you know go all in and
focus on the Western countries. We'll, we'll do what we can, but
the efforts, the biggest payoff for our efforts is probably in
the global South, in Latin America and maybe Africa and
other countries. Gotcha.
I mean so some being from Venezuela originally, my parents
and my background, I understand the culture a little bit and I
completely 100% agree with you. And I had Jeff Booth on maybe a
couple months ago or so and he said something very similar.
He said. I'm optimistic about the global
S because they're farther away from the benefits of being able
to print their own money, right? If you're someone like
Argentina. I said this as a joke the other
day when Malay got elected. I'm like, guys, now we have a
blueprint. All we need is 150% inflation
and we can get a libertarian elected.
But but yeah, I 100% agree. Could you drop some hints?
Maybe? I don't want to put you in a
corner. What what?
You know Latin American country you're optimistic about?
Well, to see, I mean, I'm optimistic about all the
countries we've had engagements with because the presidents
there are very receptive, but they are not Bitcoiners yet,
right. So the benefit and I think part
of the misalignment of expectations is in El Salvador,
the President Buchelli was a Bitcoiner that became president.
We're starting from zero. So the presidents in these
countries are not bitcoiners first.
We're trying to get them there. So it'll take more time.
And even if we get them there, there's still a lot of
bureaucracy to deal with to implement things and different
factions and. Different ideologies at play.
So it's it is a really challenging Rd. but we are here
for the long run, right? We never expected we're going to
get a ton of countries like tomorrow, but we can engage with
a ton of countries and of that we should have a subset
relatively soon doing some concrete Bitcoin projects, maybe
mining, if not legal tender, maybe it's mining right.
But actually better than legal tender is what Malay did in
Argentina, which is deregulation.
You can use whatever you want and let the free market compete.
So there's all these different paths towards Bitcoin adoption
and we just have to be strategic and choose the best ones that we
can push forward. How do you feel about the fee
environment? So Bob Burnett, a good friend of
mine, came on the podcast a couple of weeks ago and he said
that, you know, the era of low fees is over.
Now we're heading into an area, era of, you know, this is the
most valuable real estate on the planet.
You're gonna, you know, potentially have a high fee
environment moving forward in Bitcoin's history and you know
that prices out a lot of people in a way, right?
So you know, let's say you want to have $100 worth of bit, let's
say bitcoins at, you know, half $1,000,000, a $1,000,000 and you
want to buy $100 worth of Bitcoin, You know, just to send
that $100, you're gonna be paying a, a, you know, big chunk
of that, right? So you know, of course, you
know, been in Bitcoin for eight years now.
Samsung, I'm sure you've been in Bitcoin a lot longer.
That's OK for us. We're just like fine.
But you know, for is Bitcoin for everyone?
Like, you know, like what happens to someone who just
wants to buy a small portion and their feed out?
Yeah, Bitcoin is for everyone and the fees are going to be an
issue if you want to transact on chain.
But fortunately we do have things like layer Two's like
lightning, like liquid that can enable people to transact also
fetiments too. So I think the way that we will
onboard most people is through some combination of Lightning
plus a fetamine or a liquid federation because that is
really the only way, right? I did some testing when we
launched Aqua with some of the non custodial Lightning wallets
or sorry, there's one more path to which is custodial Lightning.
But that's challenging in and of itself because you can see
wallets like wallets of Satoshi being removed from app stores or
their self removing themselves from app stores in certain
jurisdictions. So the the key is that lightning
is bound to the main chain, right?
It works really well when it's relatively cheap on the main
chain, but as soon as fees go up it all breaks.
And This is why having a a mid step in between Lightning and
the main chain like Lightning Light Liquid is useful because
you can go down to liquid and come back up.
And what we've seen is a lot of people have started using that
use case. They're using pure swap to
rebalance channels or they're using bolts to rebalance as
well. And bolts volumes for lightning
rebalancing are through the roof on liquid.
And I think this is really the only way because if you go to
look at some of the non custodial lightning wallets out
there, they'll charge you 1% to open a channel or some minimum
fee of like $11.00. So you can't really just get
someone in, I don't know Columbia to download a lightning
wallet and send them a couple Sats if it's non custodial,
right? The only way to do that is with
something like Waldo, Satoshi or with Aqua because we will swap
to Liquid. But if you want them to be, you
know, in the ideal coin operation area of self custody
and everything and non custodial, then it's not really
possible unless you're willing to pay $11.00 to send someone
100 sets. Yeah.
And I think you you, you, you better delete there for for a
second, Samsung. So you're saying that if you can
download Aqua Wallet right now, you could start receiving
Lightning transactions? Very little fees, similar
experience to Wallet of Satoshi? Yeah, exactly.
So right now it's it's not ideal for that size of a transaction
like sending less than 1000 sets because it is an atomic swap and
it is, it is a swap to Liquid. So there is like probably a 2019
cent fee right now to send and receive.
But we are working on an update that will allow us to use
unconfidential transactions or non confidential transactions on
Liquid and that will decrease the cost by a factor of 10.
So you'll be able to do that for you know two cents maybe.
And I think that's this gives you that same wallet of Satoshi
experience where you can say, hey, download the Aqua and I'll
send you 1000 Sats or 2000 Sats. Gotcha.
Very, very cool. That is really interesting.
I really, really want to play around with it now and just kind
of experiment. So I do wanna ask you this
Samson. So well, that just got me so
excited. I lost my train of thought.
OK, so part of the reason that the wallet of Satoshi pulled out
of the US was, and I posted this the other day by the way on
Twitter. And it was like and of course
they were trolling in this because we're not available in
the app stores in China, US and North Korea.
Like it was such a like that's such a strong statement.
It is. And the reason that I believe
they pulled out is because of the DOJ press conference with
finance when they literally mentioned terrorism 15 times
even though we know that less than 1% of illicit finances, you
know, used you Bitcoin. But that is a great excuse for
government, right? So is, is this like a custodial?
Is this custodial? Is it self custodial?
How does the Aqua How's Aqua Wallet work?
Yeah, so Aqua is a non custodial.
So when you create a wallet, you have one seed that generates
your Bitcoin wallet and your liquid wallet.
And that and hold on and and that's associate.
So the the main wallet of course is not custodial, but I'm saying
the lightning wallet as well is not custodial.
There is no Lightning wallet, so it's swapping from Lightning to
Liquid. So Liquid is what's holding that
balance, and then you swap back out when you send out over
Lightning again. OK, and could you explain,
because I know that Lightning is very very popular amongst
bitcoiners, but Liquid's always been around for a while now.
But it seems like the use case is starting to ramp up, and of
course people are looking looking at it.
Now what is liquid? So Liquid is a Bitcoin side
chain. It's a layer two of Bitcoin.
And I think some people were critiquing saying it's not a
layer 2, but I mean when Blockscream started developing
side chains and Liquid, this is like in 2014, 2015, we're all
calling it layer two, so we're calling it layer two.
Before many of these people that say it's not a layer 2 even knew
about Bitcoin. So it's kind of funny that way,
but it's a side chain, so it's another chain that's anchored to
Bitcoin. It's the almost the same code
base. It's like 99% the same as
Bitcoin except for you have assets in there and other things
like Confidential transactions and Liquid.
And the that software suite has largely been a testing ground
for a lot of things that eventually do make their way to
Bitcoin, like SegWit and other things.
So it's it's definitely very tightly bound to Bitcoin.
So when you want to get one Bitcoin in liquid, you have to
peg in one Bitcoin from the main chain.
So it's always a one to one relationship.
You can't have fractional Bitcoin in Liquid, so once you
have that then you can transact it with a one minute block.
Times. Fees are about 19 cents or so,
and you have confidentiality, so when you send someone a
transaction, you can't actually see the amount or asset type
that they're sending, which gives a lot of privacy benefits
to users. Absolutely.
And so another thing you you you mentioned this I think in your
tweet in regards to the $1 million Bitcoin that it was
going to be painful. I feel like the and and and I'm
sure you read this right Ben the car Man's post in relation to
the state of lightning. I don't think we're ready for
you know this hyper bitcoinization.
I don't think we're ready The Bitcoin is ready for this
massive influx of of of users you know.
So what would you say on that? Probably not and that's the the
basis of Max Payne theory. So the best case scenario I
think is Bitcoin. Price goes up very gradually
towards a million over a number of years, and we all have a lot
of time to stack SAT's and filled out everything that's
needed. And Max Payne theory says, well,
you probably won't have that time.
It's going to be a mad scramble and you know we won't be ready
with their twos and all the wallets.
We won't be ready to on board all the people and a lot of pubs
out there that have been DC ING are going to get stuck with
unspendable UTXOS because these are now, I don't know, 100,000
SAT's or something like that. So that's the idea.
Like, it's probably going to happen and catch us off guard
and we're we're all going to be unprepared.
That's the basis of Max Payne theory.
So OK, and then let me ask you something why you This is
fascinating. So why you OK Max Payne theory?
And then could you explain the theory?
Like where? Where does it come from?
It's. I think it comes from options
expiry. There's a certain point in which
the options options expire. That's Max Payne.
Like that'll cause the most losses for the most number of
people. So you can apply that, I think,
to Bitcoin in the world at at at whole.
So if Bitcoin does shoot up to 1,000,000, that's probably Max
Payne for the largest number of people.
Because instead of being able to make a material difference in
your financial, financial, economic situation by acquiring
a lot of Bitcoin, the contillionaires are going to buy
up all the Bitcoin, drive the price up, and you'll still have
this divide between the rich and the poor instead of that being
equalized. So basically, 8 billion people
are not gonna be able to get in early, they're just gonna be
earning Bitcoin AT1M per BTC. Interesting.
OK, so OK And you think, and you said something really
interesting, which is the, the almost as if Bitcoin would be an
equalizer between, you know, cuz right now the wealth inequality
is caused literally because of the Fiat money printer, right?
The more money they print, the lower middle classes are saving
and earning in Fiat and the wealthier are saving in assets.
Therefore they benefit from asset inflation.
They get richer and then everyone else just gets left
behind and and you think Bitcoin is a We'll fix that.
Well, it will fix that in some ways, but if the price rises
very rapidly, then you lose some of that fixing effect because
you're not going to get Bitcoin at sub 1,000,000 anymore.
You'll be getting it at, you know, a million or more even,
right, Sam? So you're making me incredibly
bullish right now also also, energy is coming through the
screen. Well, is the price going up,
that's the best but. It is it.
It actually went from 4040 thousand to now it's back to
4041.5. Yeah, but the main point is all
of this is a rounding error, right?
If you believe that Bitcoin is going to become the new base
currency of a financial system and the money of the world, then
it doesn't matter if it's 0.04 million per Bitcoin or if it's
0.5 million per Bitcoin. OK and so and by the way, I'm
obviously my show's name is simply Bitcoin.
I'm I'm on the camp of hyper bitcoinization.
What what is the timeline here? So are we talking about
$1,000,000 Bitcoin with, you know, you're saying basically
very, very soon, but let's say it takes a little bit longer.
Let's say we take the least painful route, the less painful
route, right, And give everyone an opportunity to stack cheaper
Sats. And by the way, I love the
denominator thing. I think it's absolutely
hilarious and I'm gonna adopt it myself to .04.
It's so good. It's so good.
But let's say you know it it takes a little bit slower.
You know, I think it was Kathy Wood that released her base, Her
her bear, her base, her bull. Her bear was 250 K her her base
was 650 K and her bull was 1.5. And this was by the year 2030.
Where do you stand on that? Well, I think it, it should
reach something like a million within the next year.
I would say that's my more Oh my God estimate.
And the reason why I put it, I front loaded it and I said it'll
be very, very soon before the halving is because typically we
make new all times high. We make new all time highs after
the halving, after some number of months after the halving.
And that would just mean that there is a a cycle and I don't
think that we will continue to have that cycle.
So that means it has to be before the halving and before
halving means very, very soon. Got you.
But yeah, like when we make our so the the 1,000,000 thing is
really for fun, it's for entertainment.
And I some people are really angry saying you shouldn't make
predictions, but I think bit pain also gets a lot of Flack
for it too because he's also making it.
But we don't believe that you can one, predict and two,
Bitcoin is gonna go to a million sooner or later.
So it's just like we're predicting, you know, next year
there's gonna be a summer, right?
It's inevitability. So it's it's for fun, but it's
really just a number out there that we can anchor to and you
know, have fun with and entertain ourselves as we go
into this next bull market. Absolutely 100% and and so and
we were talking about the diminishing returns thing
earlier on. Right.
So and I think that's an American huddle did a great job
covering this you know and he, I think he put like a Squirtle
with the with the saxophone like someone tells me that's like we
can't hit 500. My brain is thinking this so OK
so then if you were to put I hate getting into price
prediction stuff, maybe let's just avoid that topic
altogether. But OK, I think I forgot one
point. I was saying when we make
projections for things like Bitcoin bonds, we use a 60%
median returns every year. So if we started from 30
something last year in 10 years time, we should be at just about
3 million per coin. So that's a very, very
conservative estimate and that's based on historical price
appreciation after 2014 or so. So you know 1,000,000 in the
next couple years is almost definitely in line with a very
conservative estimate. Yeah, yeah.
And I I would agree with that. And let me let me ask you
something else. So you know we are getting to
the top of the hour and I do want to be respectful of your
time. What are you most excited for
within the next 5 to 10 years? Like what?
What do you, I mean obviously nation state adoption, but what
is you know at at the top of your mind?
What is something that you feel so passionate about?
You're like wow this is this is going to happen.
I'm a content creator so for me it's like media Bitcoin content
cross crossing, the breaking the Bitcoin echo chamber.
Now it's being talked about in the mainstream consciousness as
a content creator. That's my dream.
That's what I'm seeing. That's what I hope for.
So what are you most excited for, Samsung Mau?
Well, I think I'm most excited about reaching the state of
hyper bitcoinization where everyone is just using Bitcoin.
And I think we'll we'll have so much more efficiencies in the
world where you can travel and just spend Bitcoin without
having to go to the little kiosk and converting your your your
dollars to pesos or EUR or whatever.
And you just save a lot of time. And I think it'll make
international trade better too if everyone is trading on that
Bitcoin standard. So really it's just being able
to enjoy life on on Bitcoin whether you're traveling or
trying to save. Because right now, if you're
trying to save, you can't really do it in the Fiat system.
You have to invest your money to save.
But on a Bitcoin standard, you can simply save.
So Bitcoin just streamlines so many things when we all adopt it
as a standard. 100% and I think the Aqua wallet is just one step
towards that, enabling that seamlessness where we are
currently in time. Anyways, Samson, this was truly
an honor. I really, really enjoyed this
conversation. Guys.
Check out the Aqua wallet, go to aquawallet.iocheckoutjan3.com
and Samson, thank you so much for coming on the show and hope
to have you back on in a couple months or so.
Yeah, Let's do it. Thanks.
Really appreciate it guys. Thank you so much for tuning
into another episode of Simply Bitcoin IRL.
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