Why the trade war could set up Bitcoin's next run, with Samson Mow

Transcript

GM. Good morning. Welcome to the Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show that's confused, anxious, and still pretending everything's fine, just like you. I'm your host, Jay Hamilton. It's Friday, April the 11th. What a week. 75 countries had their tariffs knocked down to 10% for the next 90 days, the 90-day pause. China and the US are at total total trade war right now. This has basically become a China US trade war. It's going back and forth. I can't even keep track. I think the US is up to 145%. I think China on US is around 80 or 90%. I can't I can't even keep track.

CPI came out as well. Lower than expectations. Inflation isn't a big deal. I hope it's heading in the right direction. That's very good. Came out at 2.4% down from the expected 2.5% and down from 2.8% last month. How do you make sense of all this? It's just it's so much noise right now. So, we had to bring in one of the Bitcoin and crypto OGs. I'm talking about Samson Mao to help us wrap our heads around what is going on right now. Now, Samson is the CEO of Jan 3, which works directly with governments and nation states on Bitcoin adoption. He's worked with El Salvador and many others throughout his time.

He's also got a knack for breaking down complex market situations like we're in right now in a way that might be understandable to everybody listening in. Before we jump in here from Samson, if you guys are swapping, if you're trading, and I know you are during these tumultuous times, you're going to want to check out Milk Road Swap. Why? Got some of the lowest fees in the space. You can trade it on Ethereum Base and Arbitum and Salana all in one place. Check it out today. Hey, today's episode is brought to you by Moonay. Trade crypto fee free, fast, and on your terms. It's also brought to you by Coin Shift, powering top crypto treasuries with their yield bearing stable coin, CSUSDL. Without further ado, Samson, welcome to the Milk Road Show. Thanks,

Jay. Great to be on. Yeah, pleasure to have you, my man. Uh, okay, we we got we got to talk with the sorry, we got to start with the talk of the day, which is macro tariffs, CPI. I mean, markets are just they continue to to show a lot of red. We had a bounce after the 90-day pause, which was good to see, but you know, we're still we're still in in a ton of fear and a ton of uncertainty. What is what and is a big question, so you can take it whichever direction. What do what do your what's your take your framework on how you're thinking through all of this macro noise that's happening right now? Well, you pretty much outlined it. This is a time of massive

uncertainty and it's a time at which people should be questioning what do these numbers mean and why do they even matter? So tariffs on China are at 145. I saw there's a correction. It's actually 125. Who knows? Retaliatory tariffs from China are at 83. 90. Does it matter? Not really. Uh a 90-day pause. Well, why 90? Why not 180? Why not 365? Right? These are all arbitrary numbers. CPI at 2.4, arbitrary number, not the other arbitrary number of uh 2.5, right? So, I think in times like this, you have to really think about why Bitcoin matters. And I'm a Bitcoin maxi

and you know, I think Bitcoin is the future. And it is going back to this rules-based system where you have absolute certainty. you're absolutely certain of the upper limit of Bitcoin. There's 21 million. That's it. And that's should be enough to um you know rebase the entire world's economy on. So that's 2.1 quadrillion Satoshi's and it's just a mathematical formula and it does not change over time and that's it. So the way I look at it is this is a ruler and it's a ruler by which you measure every other thing just like you measure water in liters and milliliters and you measure distance in

kilometers or miles if you're American. You know there has to be a unit to measure monetary value and that is Bitcoin and this is why I think we will be seeing hyper bitcoinization and we'll see everything being priced in terms of bitcoin or satoshi's. So yeah, like everything that's happening in the world today really just shows nothing matters except for Bitcoin. That's the only thing that matters and everything else should be readjusted to be priced in terms of Bitcoin. I I had a good laugh at I got to bring this tweet up that you shared earlier today uh which was Eric Bokunis who we've had on the show before from Bloomberg tweeted out that the S&P 500 is as v volatile as Bitcoin is now. Uh

so you talk about everything being measured in Bitcoin. I did not think I would see the day when the S&P 500 and Bitcoin matched in volatility. At least not this not this early. Thought that might be still a few years away. But it's it's a it's a it's a very uncertain time right now. I mean, and as you say, I I really do I like your take that, you know, does all of this stuff matter? You can really get caught up in in the the narratives and right now tariffs is the narrative. Is it going to be the narrative forever? No, it's not. This will pass. It feels like right now like it's going to last forever and it feels like it's going to change the world and it feels like there is no end in sight,

but it will pass and it will change and you really you've got to have that zoom out perspective which is what I think you're leading you're leading towards is not to get so caught up in the moment and start to and a lot of people make mistakes because so much fear leads you to make adjustments to your portfolio and we've we've been saying it for a while you I have all the I'm the one thing I am certain about right now and I'm certainly in a position when you have this much uncertainty where I try not to be overconfident because you can really get overconfident in these moments sometimes and that can be really bad. But the one thing I'm certain about is my conviction for Bitcoin only is growing as a result of this current situation of the last few months because

as you said it all roads really do lead to Bitcoin in a case like this. Let's let's talk about the state of government and nation state adoption of Bitcoin because that's that's really where you spend you all your days, all your hours, and we haven't had a guest on the show really break down the the current state of government adoption. I mean, everybody's aware that El Salvador is big in Bitcoin. I think our listeners might know about Bhutan and some of the other countries and what they're doing.

Um, and everybody obviously knows that Trump signed the executive order to have a US strategic reserve, but I don't think people don't have nearly the the understanding that you have. What's what give us the current state as you see it like which are there countries that maybe people don't know that are buying and owning Bitcoin and and give us that uh that sort of that overview before we dive into it. Yeah. So there are probably a number of countries that are quietly accumulating and you know we see little bits and pieces here and there and a lot of times it's accidental that it's revealed like um Bhutan was a secret until they got caught up in I think the Celsius filings and it was uh revealed that they were holding Bitcoin

and then they kind of came out publicly and said you know we're mining Bitcoin with excess energy and they published some of their balances. So, it's almost like um the incentive is for countries to quietly accumulate until they can't. But then you also have cases like the US where they're making a big proclamation that we are going to go into Bitcoin in a big way. And I think that's actually more likely because it's difficult for countries to hide things from the public or at least ideally it shouldn't be the case because um the governments need to be accountable to the people and if they're doing things in secret that's not really the ideal situation. So, I think going forward you'll see more proclamations like we are implementing a strategic reserve. Uh we're going to be

buying Bitcoin. We're going to be mining Bitcoin. And that's sort of where we come in as Gen 3 is our mission to work with governments to implement Bitcoin strategies for the sake of world prosperity. And I think there are many pitfalls that governments can go into when they're trying to figure out what they want to do with Bitcoin. Right? There are people out there trying to conflate Bitcoin and crypto. And I know some of your audience is crypto, but I think you have to segment the market. There's Bitcoin, there's crypto and then stable coins. So there are distinct pockets of different types of things that you can invest in and you need to really be able to distinguish between the different things. So when Trump was

trying to um uh start the US on the path of uh you know strategic crypto adoption, there was talk of is it a strategic Bitcoin reserve or a strategic crypto reserve and there was a time at which it looked like they wanted to stick a bunch of other crypto in there like Americanmade cryptos and I think um that really opens the door to uh you know real degeneracy right like if if u you start adding every single crypto or selected ones, you're kind of picking winners and losers. And where's the line cut off? Is it memecoins too or not?

Because, you know, what is the difference really between um an old meme coin like Doge that is relatively decentralized and still based off proof of work versus something like uh I don't know the newer dog coins. I I don't even know the names now, but the that can get really bad really quickly. So I guess what we try to do is steer governments to just focus on Bitcoin. If you want to take a libertarian leaning and say everything is okay, then just let everything else proliferate. But focus your messaging, focus your effort, focus your attention on Bitcoin, and that's it. Otherwise, you're getting into a really difficult game of trying to police, regulate, and select good coins to kind of put into a reserve or to

adopt in some form or fashion. Let's be honest, everything in crypto comes with fees. But here's a nice surprise. Moon Balance doesn't take a cut. You heard that right. No Moonay fees when you buy or sell crypto with your Moonay balance. Top up with dollars, pounds, or euros. Then you're ready to trade instantly whenever the market moves. And if you change your mind, withdraw your cash. No Moonay fee there either. Simple, fast, ready when you are. Check it out at milkroad.com/moonay. Disclaimer: Network and ecosystem fees [Music] apply. Meet CSUSDL, the stable coin built for institutions and Dows. Don't just hold basic stable coins. Earn yield all

without compromising security. Backed by regulated real world assets and secured with institutional grade risk management by our friends at Stakehouse Financial. Put your treasury cash to work earning native yields and protocol rewards. Built by the team behind Coin Shift, which is trusted to manage over 1 billion in business treasuries on chain, including A, Gitcoin, and hundreds of leading institutions. CYCSUSDL is gaining traction at milkroad.com/coinshift. And what's the what's the current knowledge would you say of governments and central banks and treasuries

understanding Bitcoin? I mean obviously I think we all understand the US and what their knowledge is and some other countries as well have taken the spotlight but there's really only like it feels like I I can't remember the exact number but I think there's about 10 10 countries that officially hold Bitcoin now. Most of those countries didn't actually buy it. They got it through seizures, right? So like, you know, do you even count those, right? Uh but that that's a low that's a low number in where we all think this is going, right? Where eventually all governments will own Bitcoin and it'll be it'll replace gold as digital gold and be this, you know, global reserve asset, right? So, uh is is is you you give me like is 10 the actual number? Is

it more than that? Can you even talk about this stuff? Well, it's a very fuzzy line. There are, you know, uh, like government entities that are actively involved, right? May it may not be at top federal levels, but there are provincial municipal entities that are, you know, actively involved uh, particularly particularly in mining in uh, different places around the world. So it's a it's not as cleancut as you know this country is adopting and it's a top- down initiative and they have these policies in place. It's a much messier landscape than most people would uh estimate it would to be but I think it will become a more predominant pressing topic especially with the the

tariffs um what's looking like a currency war and what's looking potentially like a a sovereign debt crisis too. So we're going to start to see a lot more movement towards Bitcoin and it has a lot to do with the US. So you were asking earlier, you know, how is the understanding? I think there is a decent understanding, at least there is an understanding that Bitcoin is valuable and Bitcoin is the best performing asset probably ever. But the concern really is career risk or political career risk in this case whereby it's risky for them to push for something until someone else does it in a big way to eliminate the career risk.

And you see this with the ETFs. So Hong Kong and Australia followed suit after the US and SEC kind of blessed it and Black Rockck went out. And I think more and more countries are opening up. I think Korea, Japan now are opening the doors to ETF access. uh Bitcoin ETF access, but it's the same for like spot or mining adoption of Bitcoin. There is a perceived risk which is diminishing by the day as the US moves further and further into implementation stages. But I think it's really just the rest of the world is waiting to see and it's quite kind of sad that countries should be willing to you know take a risk even if it's a small risk and at this point it's

a really calculated and minimal risk too like allocating 1% of GDP to accumulate Bitcoin is almost like a a minuscule insurance policy if anything but you know countries are looking at ways they can protect themselves and as the world is kind of splintering into a more multi-olar, more dissected uh political and power structure. I think countries are going to start to look really seriously at their Bitcoin policies and what they're doing to kind of protect themselves. And it it's like going back to a gold standard, but in this case, it's digital gold whereby you have reserves. And the point of having reserves is for power, negotiating p u leverage or having the ability to mine

bitcoin and process your own transactions which allows you to freely transact without anyone censoring you too. So everything is moving faster. I think we're we're wired to think the adoption is going to take 20 years, 30 years. But if you look at everything that's happening in the world today, the timeline is just rapidly accelerating. like the um the nation state attack was I would say China cracking down on Bitcoin exchanges and mining and then you had a Salvador adopting Bitcoin and then you have countries mining Bitcoin and now you have the US which is a massive indicator of Bitcoin adoption moving forward and it's just a matter of time before legislation turns into

active buy pressure and it could definitely be this year at least I think they're targeting this year But but more so than that, they actually need to be buying this year. It's not about what they want. It's about necessity. And you can see some of this leaking out through initiatives like Department of Government Efficiency. Why the sudden pivot to cut costs and save because I think they realized the US is far too much in debt. the debt is yet to be refinanced and it could be at a higher rate than they would like which accelerates the debt spiral and it decreases the creditworthiness of the US. But all of these things seem to be an effort including tariffs to distract

or mitigate the current economic situation and restore sound money. you brought up uh that it's not just at the federal level, and I got to bring up this news because I just think that everybody's going to miss it otherwise. Uh which is that New Hampshire uh the House in New Hampshire passed their uh bill for a strategic Bitcoin reserve at the state level. We've seen Texas has also done this. Uh I think Utah, I can't remember exactly where they are, but there's a bunch of states in the US that are in progress to having their own strategic Bitcoin reserve. Is this is this is this a is this a milestone? I mean obviously the US the federal is a bigger milestone. Is the states doing this a milestone? Does it move the

needle at all or I guess let me ask you that question first and then I'll ask you my follow-up. Well, it depends. The real litmus test is buying. The legislation is kind of the the setup to get to the point of buying and it takes time. like even after legislation is passed I would assume there are more procedural things like is it self-custodied how is that set up is it with a custodian there is u an order of operations to get to the stage at which you're buying but I think they have to accelerate that and you know there are lots of um really wellqualified bitcoiners and companies in the US that are positioned to help with that but you know the the race is on either it's

going to happen first at the state level or it will happen first at the federal level or another country is going to step in and start buying. But the tariff situation and also the weakness in demand for US treasuries I think will start to funnel money from other countries into Bitcoin because if you think about everything on a very high level where are you going to park your capital are you going to put it in real estate and it certainly doesn't help that Bessent is saying things like you know Chinese stocks can be removed from the the the stock exchanges um there there's rumblings of like you know uh eminent domain like seizing assets all of these things will spook other

sovereign nations to do anything with US assets right whether it's a US-based ETF or if it's just equities or if it's treasuries or real estate and when you ask yourself that question what is the answer where do you go it is just Bitcoin there is really nothing else that is um fully decentralized permissionless and uh- without any interested party controlling it. So I see that we're going to see a massive flight of capital into Bitcoin. And you compound that with the tariffs and the trade war and fear of uh the yen deval the Chinese yen devaluing and that just makes it even more likely and faster

that capital will flow into Bitcoin. one uh there's so many so many ways that we can take this right now and so many questions I have uh one um one thing that's been brought up uh was was was the narrative and the narrative is changing so fast right now but a lot of people early this week were talking about Bitcoin is finally decoupling from the NASDAQ and from trading like a I got tech stock a high-risk tech stock which is how it's traded historically if you look at the patterns for its most of its existence.

Um, and because we're all waiting for that moment, right? that that that feels inevitable that it will happen because Bitcoin is digital gold and we have this a real um we really in the last six months I think we have this shift that's happening uh in the biggest players recognizing that and Trump signing the strategic the executive order saying that we should have a US strategic reserve you know things like that really indicate that Abu Dhabi buying was it 500 $600 million of Bitcoin in Q1, right? They're solvent wealth fund. Like these things really say to me, hey, uh we have a different buyer of Bitcoin is

going to see it as a reserve asset that's different than in the past. Uh and but but then what happened this week was everyone's like, "Oh, we're decoupling. We're we're, you know," but then Bitcoin did drop eventually. And this tends to happen every time the the stock market will drop first. Every time there's some sort of macro event or scare, stock market js first. I don't know why actually. I can't tell why. I don't know if anybody knows. If you guys know, comment and let me know why, but usually a few days or a week later is when Bitcoin drops.

Um, do when do you think we might get this decoupling or do you have any ideas of what what is the point at which Bitcoin will truly start to trade more like gold? And you know gold's rising right now as that you know hedge against inflation right it has been you know compared to although actually bitcoin gold is fairly similar in terms of where it's been in the past uh I think if you look at the past like 3 six months but when does that when do you think that decoupling might happen? Well, from my perspective, we've been decoupling for the last 16 years, right? You don't go from zero to, you know, what are we at now? Like 70 80,000 without decoupling from the

system. And I think the recent decoupling where equities went down and we stayed steady is a very pertinent indicator that people should be paying a lot of attention to because when we are aligned with stocks and we move with stocks, people kind of assume Bitcoin is a tech stock, right? But it is not. It is a it is the ruler by which you measure everything else. There are only 21 million coins and I don't think people really understand that that level of scarcity means there are no undesit it it is gone once it's off market into the hands of a seller with

no intent to sell that's it there is no more you can't make more you can make an altcoin but you can't make more Bitcoin right so I think you're going to see sailor and micro strategy or strategy now keep buying, taking coins off the market. They've already took double the amount of mine coins off this year. We're already seeing the public mining companies stop selling and just borrow and get more Bitcoin. You're seeing GameStop making their foray into this. And as we talked about before, states, nation states, they are all starting to get ready to buy. And most of the Bitcoin supply has been mined already.

There's like maybe 1 million coins left to be mined for the next 100 odd years. So where are we going to get more coins? As soon as all of that buy pressure culminates, you're going to see the price move. You're going to see everything massively decouple. Bitcoin is going to take off like a rocket ship. And that's the thesis behind the Omega candle, right? We're just going to see a supply shock that triggers a massive green candle up. And that's going to trigger more green candles because FOMO is really what drives everything, right?

Nobody thinks ahead. Nobody does the research. Nobody understands it. But when it goes up and it decouples, people pay attention and they allocate and that's it. Yeah. Certainly nothing makes people allocate like price go up. Uh which is uh backwards for investors. You should buy when price is not going up and sell when price is going up. Not that you should ever sell your Bitcoin. I don't I'm not trying to cue that up, but it is it's a difficult thing to and I mean and and the Omega candle which you've been promoting for a while and I mean you put out a tweet just the other day and I mean you're known for putting out tweets like this. Bitcoin is just going to skyrocket upwards and no one will be expecting it. Any any thoughts on like timing right now? I know you're

not a macro expert. It's very difficult to predict timing in macro situations like this. Uh, but what's your what's your short medium term thesis on what you think we could see for the rest of this year? I mean, I honestly think we are we should have hit 200,000. And it shocks me every day that we're not at 200,000 yet. And that sentiment is echoed by, you know, a macro expert. The CIO of Bitwise has said the same thing. We should already be at 200,000. It's just a It's just crazy that we're not there and we're sub 100 now even. So, I think it's just fear. Fear can push it down. There's 2 million coins on exchanges that are slloshing around that allow for price to be suppressed. And

the hodlers, the long-term holders of Bitcoin don't really have an impact. All they do is they they coil the spring more tightly because they're not selling and they're accumulating more. So, the price is a very short-term thing that can suddenly dissociate. you can suddenly see a big jump and we've certainly seen this in Bitcoin's history, right? in um you know 20 2017 we went up uh 17x right it's definitely possible that this happens again and you just see a massive jump especially with the state of the world as it is today all those things we talked about economic uncertainty trade wars currency wars sovereign debt crisis these things

can definitely move Bitcoin if we can do a 17x when absolutely nothing was happening we can definitely do a 17x X when the world is on fire. Yeah, it's it's I mean I your your comment from Matt Hogan uh CIO of Bitwise who's come on the show a bunch and has expressed the exact same thing that he you know is it this is it feels like a bit of a gift right now and a buying opportunity that I don't think any of us thought we were going to see mainly because uh tariffs were were a shock although the liquidity cycle quantitative tightening has has been

going longer than any of us expected as well. And the liquidity cycle is not picking up as much as we thought it would early in this year. And so that is also pushed out later, which is also a a big factor in this current event that's happening right now. A lot of people are saying, "Oh, it's only tariffs, only tariffs." But there is other factors at play for sure. Yeah, I would say the uh hash rate is a good indicator of what's to come. So if you look at hash rate, it's just going up non-stop. And what that should tell you is that there is a structural and fundamental change in the nature of miners. They are price insensitive now or profit insensitive.

They don't really care about profitability. It used to be that they would be very worried about when they're going to recoup their initial investments or when they're going to break even and then when they can start making pure profit in Bitcoin mining. But that's changed now. And I think it has a lot to do with sovereign mining where energy cost is effectively zero. It is their own energy. It's excess energy or whatever it is. I don't know. But they don't care. So they're just adding more and more hash rate. It could be Russia. It could be other countries with uh excess and who knows. But that's definitely a structural change. And what that means is we have that same structural change coming for Bitcoin buying. And it's evident too like micro

strategy it it is indiscriminate at which price it buys because I think like us sailor believes this is also a gift. Anything under 100 or even 200 is a gift. He doesn't care if he's paying a premium at this point. And then the question you have to ask yourself is is GameStop the same? Is Rumble the same? Are all these other companies that are starting to add to their corporate balance sheets also priced indiscriminate? And then what about nation states? I think they're definitely priced indiscriminate. Once it becomes a a race to print your money to buy Bitcoin, then all the gloves are off. It's just let's escape the fiat system while we can.

I want to come back to your comment on sovereign nations using their energy to mine Bitcoin. So, this is like is Bhutan I mean El Salvador is doing this, Bhutan is doing this, correct? So this is where they're they're using like excess energy that's like available nobody it's not being used for anything else and then they use that energy to mine Bitcoin for the nation like that is and is that a when you talk to nation states is that is that the way that they're interested in getting involved versus buying that should be the way they're interested but like I said before there is a lot of concern over career risk like are you going to be the MP or congressman in your country that's going to stand up and say you know here's a bill to start

mining Bitcoin and risk something, right? I don't think that's the case yet, but Bhutan is a very powerful beacon because they've done it. There is a track record that you can look at and you can see what they did exactly and how much Bitcoin they got. And you can see the benefits, too. Like this is free money and they're going to be selling some Bitcoin to build an airport, a really cool looking new airport. Really? Really? So they're they're profit they are now monetizing some of the Bitcoin that they have mined in order to benefit their and and we're talking about Bhutan which is not a wealthy country. Yeah.

Well now it is but it just goes to show you have to present the full playbook. Like theoretically everyone should have realized this 10 years ago but you have someone's got to do it first and everyone's got to copy them because that's just the way it works. But we've been engaged with governments with a lot of geothermal potential and we've talked to them for years and I think now the wheels are starting to turn because you can point to this thing and say, "Hey, they did A and now they're at B." And it's just you cannot disregard that anymore. And I think that's just going to accelerate because what else are you going to do with all that stranded energy or untapped energy? You have to do something with it. Especially if you

want an airport or you want highspeed rail or you want new highway infrastructure or you want uh you know whatever. Mhm. Yeah. It's it's very interesting to consider that they need the full playbook. That's a really good point. I had more considered more thought about it from the perspective of a a government buying Bitcoin in the same way that they would buy gold as just a reserve asset but mining it as part of the playbook of reserve of this excess energy. Yeah, fascinating to really think that through. Uh what's going on with Thailand? I know that Thailand is also been talking a lot about adopting crypto, adopting Bitcoin. What's happening there? We'll see. But uh we've

we visited we've met with um some of the government officials and I I think uh that definitely could be a interesting one to look at in the coming months and weeks. Okay, take that for what it is. Thanks Samson. That's exciting. Uh we'll see we'll see what happens next with Thailand. Uh I I've got I've got to ask this question and shoot me if you get to ask this all the time, but uh just because of the the documentary Money Electric that came out recently and you working on that and being involved with that, do you know who Satoshi is? No, I don't think Satoshi is anybody that's out here doing interviews or going to conferences. I haven't met anybody that kind of um would indicate that uh that's

Satoshi. And does it do we need to know who Satoshi is? Um, no. Because if we did know Satoshi, then I think Satoshi would be in a world of trouble because, you know, you can't create this new um monetary paradigm and not have people try to influence you to influence that protocol. Yeah. And is there the the only reason why I think people are so obsessed with Satoshi is quite honestly the the money side of it. He's just got so much Bitcoin which is worth so much. If if he didn't if he didn't hold all that he she whoever it is, we don't know. Uh hold all that then people might

actually quite frankly not be so obsessed with it. Is there concern around the amount of Bitcoin that Satoshi has? Like does that cause concern for you if they were to come back and if they were to, you know, sell it or put it on the market? Is that concerning at all for you? Not really. I mean, you could say that Satoshi has a million coins, but that's an estimate. There is no concrete proof, right? That's the whole point of Bitcoin. You can't really You don't concretely know actually how many. It's a presumption.

It's called Poshi and you can say maybe it's him, but you don't know for sure, right? Just like if you passed your private key to someone else, do you still have the Bitcoin? If you destroyed your key and gave it to them, then it's, you know, not yours anymore, right? So, you have to be comfortable with Bitcoin and this idea that you can't really know who has Bitcoin or how much Bitcoin anyone has, right? You can estimate and approximate and guess, but you don't know for sure. The only way you know for sure is if someone proves it. And you know there is no proof that Satoshi has those coins. But assuming he does still have them, it doesn't really matter because a million coins is nothing. If you look at the rate of consumption of Bitcoin by all of the these entities, if

he wanted to sell, that would just be absorbed in, you know, at this rate a matter of months, right? It's a good point. It would be absorbed relatively quickly. I mean, we saw the market absorb German's bit Germany's Bitcoin last uh last summer. How do you think Germany feels right now? I mean, I guess you know, it's been actually when they sold what they would have sold at what we would have been around 60 50 somewhere there. How do they feel? Did you ever talk to them? Like what were they doing? Why why did they sell it? Well, it was uh it was saxony. It wasn't federal funds of um of Germany but um I was we were engaged with Joanna

Kotar and her group the Bitcoin and Buddhist group and you know they were actually writing letters to Saxony the Saxony government saying don't sell but uh they didn't respond. So I I think a lot of Germans that are aware of Bitcoin, especially Bitcoiners, of course, they're are just in disbelief that that happened. But, you know, there's still a chance to buy back some of it. It's not too late. But, you know, they it will become too late at some point. But I think Germany has bigger things to deal with. There is a massive influx of um ESG think, and you know, that's destroyed their energy sector.

And now with um security an issue, I think they're going to ramp up military spending. But it's almost like for the for Germany, Bitcoin is the least of their troubles. They have several other higher priority things to deal with first before they look at Bitcoin. But it's definitely up there in the mix. Like you need Bitcoin as a sovereign nation now. And the reasons are the same as any country wanting gold. You wanted gold, now you want Bitcoin. Yeah. It's it's it's a good reminder that uh we're we're not the only uh only only show in town and there is other things happening and other things to worry about and other priorities other than Bitcoin and crypto and uh the

future of finance. But it is so it is it is so fun and we we love talking about it. So everybody else jump in, right? Uh Samson, absolute pleasure to get you on the show today. Really appreciate your time. Before I let you go, uh any any predictions for what you think where you think Bitcoin could go once this macro stuff clears out? So whether it lasts a week or two weeks, I know you said you think we should be at 200k. Any predictions where you think we could be end of this year or within the next few years? Well, my prediction is that we'll hit 1 million this year. So, we'll see what happens. Really? You're a 1 million this year? Whoa. Yeah. It's not once the macro stuff clears out, it's the macro

stuff pushing us there. If you look at the state of the world, you know, debt is not getting less for any country. Um, it's getting more and it's getting higher and higher and something has to break eventually. And in this world where trust is rapidly declining, alliances and partnerships at the nation state level are dropping, you everyone's going to look to defend their own. And to do that, you need a Bitcoin strategy. Yeah, I'm 1 million within five years. I'm not 1 million within this year. Uh but uh I'm I'm I'm bullish. Maybe just not quite as perma bullish as you are.

Uh Samson, thanks again for joining us today. Really appreciate your time and shout out to the whole Jan 3 team because the work you guys are doing is very important work for the entire space and really leading the way with so many countries. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Jay. It's been fun. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode, y'all. Hope you enjoyed it. If you want to go to one of the best crypto conferences of the year, you got to check out Avalanche Summit in London May 20th to the 22nd. One of a kind. It's a retreat style conference, retreat style experience. Super interesting. They've got a whole blend of sessions for developers founders investors the future of crypto. It's going to be a

really unique and different type of conference. Highly recommend you guys check it out. Don't miss your chance. Grab tickets. Click the link in the show notes. Hope to see you there. As always, if you liked today's episode, please hit subscribe and make sure you follow us so you don't miss out on the next one. There's also a link in the description to our free 5minute daily newsletter where we simplify crypto for you while making you laugh. And if you're willing to step up your crypto investing game, we're going to also leave a link for Milk Road Pro. You get access to our portfolio where you can see exactly what we are buying. This is your number one resource to help you invest successfully in crypto. One final note, this show is

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