FFS079 - JAN3

[00:00:00]

Intro

Samson: I'm optimistic about our mission to orange pill countries and to work with governments and politicians. It seems counterintuitive but I think Bitcoin is the best way to fix it. The problem is Governments are like a machine, and these machines are hungry for capital, and all they know is that they need it.

For how to feed themselves is to tax more and things like UBI. But with Bitcoin, we can present them. It's like a Trojan horse. We can present them with something that is better. And this thing that we're giving to them has the properties of fixing them. It changes you when you get into sound money and you have sound money

Luke: Welcome back to the Freedom Footprint Show, the Bitcoin philosophy show with Knut Svanholm and me, Luke the Pseudo Finn. And we're here today for a JAN3 special with our good friends, Samson Mow, And Prince Filip of Serbia, we're here today to talk about everything going on with Jan3, including a big wallet launch today.

Everything to do with nation state adoption and maybe we'll get into a few other things. So Samson, Filip, welcome to the Freedom Footprint show.

Samson: [00:01:00] Thanks for having

Filip: thanks for

having us.

Launch of Aqua Wallet

Knut: Glad to have you back, guys. yeah, so, so let's get right into it. Like, what is Aqua Wallet, the, the wallet you're releasing today?

Samson: Yeah, so there's a long story about Aqua. It first started at Blockstream, and then JAN3 took it over, took over the development and everything, but it's meant to be an easy to use Bitcoin and Liquid wallet. And since taking it over, we've done a number of improvements. So It's been rebuilt from the ground up. It has the ability to do trustless swaps, swapping like inside swap. It has integration with bolts and a number of other providers. So the goal is to create this All in one wallet that can service Latin America, especially, but all Bitcoiners everywhere in the world. So what you can do is send and receive Bitcoin on chain, of course, but then we have another wallet we call the spending accounts.

So you have a spending L2 wallet, which is Liquid Bitcoin and Lightning. [00:02:00] So the funds are actually stored in LBTC, in Liquid Bitcoin. But you have Lightning as an on and off ramp. So for most people, it'll be a seamless experience. It'll just be like using a non custodial Lightning wallet. And with that same level of, finality and quickness that, most custodial Lightning wallets have, where you don't have to deal with things like channel management and Liquidity issues. So that is a big plus, but we also support, Uh, USDT on the Liquid chain because we are a Liquid based wallet. So we have additional functionality that allows you to transact, um, L-U-S-D-T on a number of rails.

So you can send and receive, to altcoin or coin chains too, like Tron and Ethereum. but You store your USDT in Liquid, just like you store your Bitcoin in Liquid, uh, Bitcoin. So the benefit of that is you have. The robustness of the Liquid network, you have a one minute block times, [00:03:00] two minute finality, you have confidential transactions, and you have the ability to do interesting things like swaps.

So you'll be able to swap USDT out into Bitcoin and then spend it over Lightning. another feature we have is the ability to pay for USDT transactions with USDT. So. Like, if you use a Blockstream Green wallet right now, you'll need to buy some LBTC or get some LBTC and then pay For that USDT transaction with the LPDC, it's sort of like on the shitcoin chains, it's like the gas fee, but with our wallet, you can just receive USDT and then send it out right away paying the fee in USDT itself.

So I think this is a big game changer for Latin America, because you'll be able to travel there as a Bitcoiner, not have to download any other wallet. You can send people that want USDT on Tron. You can convert from your Bitcoin holdings into USDT and [00:04:00] It just changes the whole dynamic of being able to interact with that economy.

Knut: So, and how do people get their hands on the USDT in the first place? Like, excuse my ignorance here, but like, how does that work in South America?

Samson: Well, there's a number of ways. So you can, uh, if you're able to use Bitfinex and you go to Bitfinex and you can change Bitcoin to USDT, you could get paid in USDT, and the guy paying you could be using Tron, and then you can receive it in Liquid USDT. Or if you have, um, Bitcoin in your aqua wallet, then you can just swap that for USDT too.

So it's a really fluid and dynamic system being able to move in, in any asset and convert to any other asset.

Knut: I meant more the fiat rails, like how do you convert your fiat into, like, do you convert them into bitcoins first and then USDT, it seems like, what's the, what's the big problem that this [00:05:00] solves?

Samson: Well, who has fiat in the first place? Do you still have fiat?

Knut: No, no, of course not,

Samson: Yeah, see? So

Knut: I don't even have a share, so, uh, so USDT is used in Latin, Latin America to, uh, remove the risk of the volatility in Bitcoin, right?

Samson: yeah, so people in LATAM are actively seeking USDT. So they, they, they think it's like Bitcoin. So they're looking for USDT. But to answer your question, you can top up your AquaWallet with Bitcoin and then convert that into Liquid Bitcoin and USDT. And you can also have, um, you can use a, we have a marketplace in the app too where you can go and buy Bitcoin and then also convert, but we don't have a on ramp yet that would allow you to just buy USDT through a fiat rail, but that is coming.

Filip: We have personal anecdotes. When we were in Argentina last, not last November, November 2022, we were, [00:06:00] we were actually using USDT to, uh, to, to convert into actual dollars, sorry, to, to buy pesos. We're using USDT to buy pesos on the streets. And they had about, in total, they had about 12 or 13 different exchange rates.

And of those 12 or 13, about two or three of them were linked to USCT. So there's a big market for USDT in Argentina and most parts of Latin America. So yeah, it's, it acts, USDT really does act as a bridge between fiat and Bitcoin. So having it in our wallet really is like a sort of a learning, bit of a learning curve.

So if people, this is, this wallet is not just going to be for, for, for maxi Bitcoiners like ourselves. But it's going to be for people who want that US dollar exposure, but also they have the ability to go into Bitcoin and they have it in the wallet and they'll be like, Ooh, that's interesting. What does that do?

And they realize that that will, that will retain their purchasing power over time. So it's a [00:07:00] bit like let the market, decide and they will see the benefits of having Bitcoin on their wallet.

Knut: So it's a gateway drug.

Filip: Completely, yes. Yeah.

Nation-State Adoption

Knut: All right. So, and, and you've been traveling around quite a lot lately. So you've been around the Latin America mostly, I, I think, right? Uh, I mean, uh, Filip, you've been to, uh, Liechtenstein, I, I believe.

Filip: Beginning of this year, actually, we started the year with a trip to Costa Rica, where I presented at the Legislativa, the Legislative Assembly. Uh, where I presented about Bitcoin, of course, and it was hosted by Congresswoman, I forget her name. Do you remember her name, Samson?

Samson: Uh, it starts the O.

Filip: Oh, Obanda. Yes. Yes.

And we, yes, that was interesting. We met also [00:08:00] with a very high level politician, uh, no names, but he's up there like second in line to the, to the president. So. You could, you can guess how high it was. It was a secret meeting. He didn't want any marketing about it, but Samson wowed him with, uh, with his.

exceptional orange pilling skills and showed him that Bitcoin can actually be given to you in about three different formats on physical, digital. And what was the third one? Um, I forgot how he showed it to him, but

Samson: But it was good right That's

Filip: it was

good

That was. And you could see him in his, you could see him just thinking because this guy's an economist and he, he, uh, he, um, we told him the story and all that, but he could see his brain ticking away thinking, wow, this is actually pretty impressive.

Samson: I think it was one physical poker chip So we're saying it can be a physical object It can also be passed in a card format So I think I had the uh the nation state Bitcoin adoption card Uh well the one from uh [00:09:00] Coinkite you know the tap not tap signer but the other card Um Maybe it is tap signer I got to remember all the branding out there But then we said we can also send it to you in your wallet too like in Aqua So it's kind of impressive because you can receive Bitcoin in multiple formats And that kind of drove home the point that Bitcoin is just information and it's unstoppable

Filip: So during that trip, we also visited a hydroelectric plant as well, where they're mining Bitcoin. Not a very big operation, but there's a few of these in, in Costa Rica.

Knut: And what other countries? Like I know Suriname and Argentina, uh, and Colombia, right? But that was, that was pretty recent. And that was just you, Samson, right? And not Filip.

Samson: Yeah I did Columbia on my own and Suriname with Ben Ben Van Hul

Knut: Oh yeah, yeah, Ben. So, yeah, Suriname is a fascinating country. I was there with the Tall Ship like, uh, 15 years ago. And what I know [00:10:00] about Surinamese politics is that they have like eight state religions, and in order to appease all of the religions, they need to have a day off on each of the religions sacred days.

So they had like 170 days off per year or something.

Samson: So you've heard of Suriname Most people haven't I think when we announced that uh you know Suriname's moving along doing something people were like where's Suriname

Knut: Yeah, but it's a cool place. so how, what is the usual, like, how do these politicians react when you, to orange pilling? Like, what's the, is there a, default answer or, or, uh, are some of them harder to orange pill?

Like, what happens when you talk to them?

Samson: Well it really varies So with our uh Suriname our The primary point of contact has been the Foreign Minister Minister Albert Remden So we've met with him a number of times prior [00:11:00] to going there um and we also met with the Central Bank uh over a series of meetings as well before we went there as well So we've kind of warmed it up before making landfall but uh I think Minister Remden is very uh He's very keen on Bitcoin He understands what it can bring to the country and he's been helping open doors and getting meetings there along with Maya a friend of ours So it's been an interesting experience I would say it's not as challenging as other places because we seem to have a foothold there but it is different There's no uniform way things play out when you go and try to orange pill a country

Filip: Samson was also in Mexico. He presented at the Senate there. yeah, you've been, you've been around Samson.

Countries JAN3 Worked With in 2023

Luke: Yeah, let's let's make this a little more organized. Can you give us a full picture of of I guess the year or something like that or the the countries you got on the go, something to that effect?

Samson: Oh man

[00:12:00] Um

it's on our blog Go read our blog but we're trying we're trying to organize we're trying to do write ups of what happens in every country now So you can see we have a write up of Columbia all the stuff that went down there We have a write up for Suriname and we have a write up for Montenegro So our last three ish endeavors I think uh Mexico We didn't have no we did write up for Mexico too That's also on our blog But yeah just go to Jan3 com and navigate to the blog and you can read about what we've been doing who we've been meeting but we're trying to become more diligent about documenting all of our things that we're doing and all the uh progress that's being made Because I think sometimes it's just us tweeting oh we're here and having coffee

Filip: In, in, in redacted.

Samson: redacted and we don't explain later on what we did which is I think of historical significance So we should we are we should and we are doing that

Filip: And then on [00:13:00] top of that, Samson's also met with, um, the governor of Indonesia. That was, that was quite an interesting meeting and he was in Indonesia as well.

Samson: Yes but there's a I think he was in the running to be a VP and now he's no longer running for VP So that's a that's a bit of a letdown but in the realm of politics things change very rapidly So you can't always bank

Filip: Oh, but still, still, it's, it's, it's a significant, it was a significant guy. You know, he, he was running for a country that has a huge population, Muslim population. And that's, you know, that could be, could have been quite a significant change. Also, Samson met with the RFK Jr as well.

Samson: that was all this year

Filip: Yeah, that was his year.

Samson: you did Republika Srpska and you

Filip: I

did, yeah, so for, I did, I did, I did Lichtenstein as well. I went to a conference there, but I also met with Prince Hans Adam, the, the, the second, his, the guy who wrote, uh, Millennium, uh, Millennium in the, sorry, Millennium in the Third [00:14:00] State, in the fourth term, no, Third State.

Fantastic book where he treats the state, uh, what he says, writes up saying that the state should act more like a service company. Attracting citizens as opposed to the other way around. Um, this was a fantastic conference. It was a, uh, conference, organized by the Austrian school, um, foundation, not, not the Mises foundation, but another foundation.

And it was a debate and discussions about the private money. So Bitcoin was there on the top, top as one of the. Big topics, but there was also some central bankers there talking about how they're so great and how they are going to save the world, but yeah, it was interesting. Met with certain princes, Prince Michael of Liechtenstein, who's Prince Hans Adam's cousin, who I've got good connections with now, but met Prince Hans Adam himself, which was an honor.

We, where else did I [00:15:00] go to, uh,

RIS

Republika Srpska, Montenegro, and Serbia

Filip: Republika Srpska, Montenegro, but first Republika Srpska, no, first Montenegro, where Samson and I and Edwin and Ben, Ben is our CEO, COO, we organized a meeting with the Prime Minister of Montenegro, um, and, Mickey Spajic, who is recently voted in. It's a pro European party, but he is a, he's a crypt, he's a crypto actor.

Uh, he's into crypto basically. Not, he's not quite maxied yet, but he's into crypto. He understands Bitcoin, but he doesn't fully understand, you know, the implications of getting Bitcoin completely. So, I don't know if you know that Montenegro has had some issues, like he was, he was connected to this whole Docon, uh, scandal and things like that.

It's also. Yeah,

Knut: I know there's a Free Cities project there as well, right?

Filip: there was some Free Cities project there that became very, uh, very altcoin y. I mean, very shitcoin

y things

happening there. [00:16:00] Um, Ethereum, Ethereum Foundation have, have a bit of a foothold there as well, sadly. But, uh, I mean They'll, you know, they'll find out the, I guess you buckle back and find out. but we had a very good meeting with, uh, with Mickey himself, the prime minister himself. He's a smart guy, young, and we really like to be, we covered a lot of topics ranging from, um, trying to put Bitcoin on their, on their treasury to trying to start some Bitcoin community to mining. Bitcoin using their hydro, uh, and their energy resources.

And we're working on some projects there. So we're lining up a meeting with him early next year.

Samson: Well that's kind of the theme We've also started those kinds of discussions in Suriname and also in Colombia as well so that's kind of what we do We uh identify a few key pillars that we can work together on potentially and try to drive based on what they're interested in a Bitcoin strategy tailored to the country

Knut: And do you use the phrase, orange pill now or orange [00:17:00] suppository later when you talk to these people?

Samson: I'm saving that for later I

don't want to use it away I

Filip: Uh, I see, it seems mining, it seems energy is, seems to be one of the topics that comes up a lot when, when trying to orange pill these nations, because really that's, that's what drives economies. And that's always one way to try, one way for adoption to happen. The monetary, the, um, the getting as a legal tender approach is This can happen, but I think things like the example of El Salvador won't be replicated as, as quick, uh, any, well, it will be replicated soon, but I think energy is going to be the one that drives adoption most.

And this is one reason when I went, one example is just now I was in Republika Srpska, which is a Serbian autonomous part of Bosnia Herzegovina. And I had meetings with the energy minister there and they. Are interested in getting the geothermal. They have existing [00:18:00] hydro, quite a lot of it, but they have a lot of geothermal.

Serbia in the region and Republika Srpska, it's all the same region, has a lot of potential for geothermal energy. Problem is geothermal's expensive to get going. You know, you need several million to dr to drill a few, uh, few holes to actually find the, the, um, the, the sources. It's not like an Iceland where it's just there right underneath you.

But once you find those sources, once you init, once that first initial capital is, uh, is suspended, you can actually. Attach Bitcoin mining to it to actually make it more economical, feasible, and make it a, a, a, you know, make, uh, make, make the, the project much more short term, which appeases the, uh, the fiat guys, uh, who, who, who are trying to, uh, do business with.

So I'm in conversations with some people there to try and get, uh, geothermal happening in our, in our region.

Samson: think after Montenegro I also went to Serbia and met with the hereditary prince of Serbia

Knut: you did?

Filip: Who

Samson: I

did[00:19:00]

Filip: Yeah. No, he can, yeah. He swung by, it was very last minute, but, uh, he swung by and got to spend some time at our hub. We have a Bitcoin, it's called now Hub21, non profit hub in downtown Belgrade. Great location. And, yeah, it was good to have Samson. Edwin was there as well. And it was a quick trip before we went to Montenegro.

Was it before Montenegro? I

Samson: After

Filip: it was.

Samson: It

Filip: I

Samson: was after

Filip: who's after.

Samson: I don't know It's all a blur We should really

Filip: over.

Yeah

Madeira and Atlantis

Samson: Uh a good good summary You also were in uh in Amsterdam and you met again with Albuquerque

There

Filip: I swear I last saw you, Knut, actually. Yes, it's, uh, I reached out to, to, to President, um, to, to Miguel Albuquerque saying, hey, if he wants to come on stage with me, and thanks to Andre [00:20:00] Loja that, uh, he accepted. So we were on stage together, main stage in Amsterdam, and he, on stage, committed to a Bitcoin hub, a space, an office space for, for in, ?

It's called yeah, for

a

for an

office

Knut: be, uh, on the other side of the island, but now it's in Funchal again, uh,

Filip: I think, yeah, but he can, he showed me pictures of the actual building, so that's great, great stuff for those guys, for them. And we're all, we're all going to meet again now there in, uh, for Atlantis in the beginning of March next year.

Knut: Yeah,

that's gonna be soooo fantastic. Yeah.

Orange Pilling Liechtenstein

Knut: So, uh, so, this prince, uh, what was his name? Hans Adam of, uh, Lichtenstein?

Filip: Prince, yeah, Prince Hans Adam II, he's the, technically the reigning prince, but because he's, uh, he's in half retired mode, he's given it, he's given duties over to his son, Prince Alois, [00:21:00] but he was, Prince Alois wasn't there, but Prince Hans Adam himself was there for the reception afterwards, and I had some good words with him.

Knut: Okay, would you say that any of these Lichtenstein princes are, uh, uh, fully orange pilled?

Filip: I wouldn't say fully orange pill, but they own Bitcoin. Some of them, most of them.

Knut: Excellent.

Filip: spoke to a couple of them. I'm not going to name which ones, but they said they've owned, they've sold, but they still hold.

Knut: Nice.

Aqua Wallet Technical Details

Luke: And maybe before we move on to any, uh, any other, topics here, uh, maybe we can get back to the, uh, Aqua Wallet just a little bit, some of the, the technical details. Cause I, I think, yeah, you're, you're aware our, our show is a little, little more geared towards the already in Bitcoin. crowd at the moment. so, so just a curiosity here, and uh, maybe you can dig into a little bit more about this, but the, Liquid and, and lightning part, uh, is, is part of this done in, the sense that users don't need to have their own [00:22:00] lightning channels, but the Liquid side is, is self custodial? Is that the clarification here?

Samson: Yeah So um if you if you know Blockstream Green it can create a Liquid wallet and a Bitcoin wallet And one of the innovations I had with Aqua was that we use the same seed to generate both So when you create an Aqua wallet in the original version you just see all of your stuff in one view You see your Bitcoin you see your Liquid Bitcoin and assets all together So it Reduces the complexity and makes it easier but I think we've gone one step further now which was which is we support um lightning as well So we can do that with submarine swaps through Bolts but through other providers as well down the road So our plan is to integrate a lot of different services to deal with everything under the hood So Bolts is effectively the LSP and you don't have to worry about any channel management You just get Liquid Bitcoin And when you want to send it out You also go back out through bolts as well And I think this is a very good balance between [00:23:00] having it as a non custodial wallet and still having that ease of using Lightning like just like you'd be using any custodial Lightning app uh maybe even better So I think it's a fair balance and It's going to change things for a lot of people because a lot of the custodial wallets you can see they're um starting to exit markets Because they're worried about regulators going after them So I think the solution is to keep it non custodial and integrate different services So we call this the the model we call the model the non custodial core model So NCC so everything at the root of the wallet is non custodial but you hook in a lot of different services to access the funds and interface with custodial services and centralized services

Luke: Can you still back this with a hardware wallet, or is it entirely a soft wallet because of the, lightning integration?

Samson: it's entirely soft but we're talking right now about doing a desktop version which would be compatible with hardware wallet So it'll still be [00:24:00] doable But we want to keep the mobile wallet very easy to use So we probably will put more advanced features into a desktop version

Knut: All right. And on a more technical side, like how, how, uh, how hard is it for you to provide this service when you have this fee spikes on chain?

Samson: Well that's the that's the big benefit of using Liquid as the layer two So a lot of people forget that Lightning is really cool but when fees are up it starts to become a burden to manage all the channels and open channels right So everything in Liquid Bitcoin So we don't have to deal with the fee spikes unless we see some massive spike in Liquid usage in case in that case we might see something happen but in general Liquid transactions are going to be very cheap and still very fast so it should alleviate a lot of that problem that people have been having with mainchain usage with Lightning So this is sort [00:25:00] of pairing Lightning with Liquid into one one paradigm And I think this makes it a lot easier to use non custodial Bitcoin than using Bitcoin and your own lightning node

Knut: and how safe is Liquid? Like what, what would it take to break Liquid for a malicious actor?

Samson: Yeah so I think people often complain about Liquid saying it's centralized but Liquid has never made any claim that it is completely decentralized It is uh if you're familiar with Fedimint it's all based on federations So Finn and Phillip and Knut you guys could make a Fedimint and be the operators But Liquid is the same thing but just done with exchanges and Bitcoin businesses So like Bitfinex BitMEX BullBitcoin JAN3 ourselves Like it's a federation of 60 people and a subset of those 60 people are running the functionaries which is the hardware that deals with the [00:26:00] block signing and manages the multisig wallet So to answer your question to attack Liquid you would have to uh if you want to attack it maliciously you'd have to breach 11 of the 15 simultaneously and Extract the keys from the HSMs and the functionary box So it's kind of like an Ocean's 11 type of thing but most people like it's not disclosed where the thing the hardware is and it's all around the world So it would be a pretty impressive feat to pull off if it could be pulled off

Knut: Yeah. You, would need to buy a lot of 5 wrenches or 15 wrenches or whatever the price is now.

Samson: You

would need Catherine Zeta Jones

Luke: So basically this is all going to be usable when this episode is out on JAN3. This is all going to be usable. Users can download it to get started, right? Anything else on the Aqua topic to, to mention here?

Samson: Yeah Fingers crossed it'll be [00:27:00] out the biggest barrier I think is uh Apple approval So we might end up well right now you might see it live on on Google play Uh it'll be out on FDroid too but uh Apple we might be in some extended beta period or something like that where you can just download it through test flight but we'll see fingers crossed that Apple will let it through the gates

Luke: Alright, you might have noticed that we've recently partnered with AmberApp. After our episode with Izzy, their CEO, and our close friend, we knew we would have to partner with them in some way, If you haven't seen our episode with Izzy, definitely go check it out, you'll see why it's such a great fit, and honestly, they're following the orange glowing light like Izzy always says, and that's exactly what we try to do here at the Freedom Footprint Show.

The big news about AmberApp is that they're going to be launching their version 2. I've seen some of the screenshots and it looks fantastic. They're going to be including a non custodial on chain wallet, an anonymous [00:28:00] lightning wallet, a fiat wallet, And finally, it's going to be an exchange, of course. it's going to be just this super app, They're also going to be launching globally.

Everyone's going to be able to use it. we're really excited about all that. Stay tuned with us and you'll hear all about it. And for now, check out their website, amber. app and the episode with Izzy to find out more.

Knut: yeah, what else about nation state adoption? Was there any place that stood out, like, this is, this is like, maybe you can't disclose that, but like, that stood out among the nation states as a good place to start a citadel movement, if you will?

Samson: I'm a fan of redacted What about you Filip

Filip: Yeah, redacted sounds good. Yeah, has really good opportunities there. Yeah. The right people, the right mindset, the right terrain, good mining, good energy, uh, mix. Yeah. Let's go. Let's go redacted.

Luke: What about [00:29:00] plans for the upcoming year or so? And I know probably specifics in terms of everything is going to be redacted, but is there anything big coming up in the JAN3 world, nation-state side, and other technical side?

Samson: Well I think it's follow through on a lot of the um projects that we have I think at the forefront is probably the the three big ones Columbia Suriname and Montenegro Uh we've sent out proposals to Suriname and Montenegro is coming right Philip

Filip: It is. Yep.

Samson: It is coming The proposal

is being

written right now Philip just stopped typing on his keyboard but it is almost done Columbia we haven't re engaged yet but there is a very specific project with Flare Gas that was identified and the president there said that he wanted to put together a working group but we've been really preoccupied [00:30:00] with Suriname still so and Montenegro so we'll get there but a lot of it's just follow through It's not going to happen as quickly as say El Salvador where you have a president that is already orange pilled and is already a bitcoiner We're starting from zero so our challenge is a lot Bigger than you know just talking to an orange pilled president already which is pretty cool if you can get that but in 2024 I think we have a lot of other things on our roadmap Um a lot of other countries we need to go to Uh Argentina is one of them with Milei So we've been in contact with some of his people and we're arranging something probably later in the year because he's pretty busy right now dealing with everything that's going on the protest uh renegotiations with the IMF et cetera So Argentina is definitely a major target It seems like a great opportunity for them if they can move quickly because they do have a staggering amount of debt which could be alleviated with a Bitcoin bond So But also we should [00:31:00] talk a bit about El Salvador I mean uh President Bukele has said they're going to do the Bitcoin bond now or next year

So

that should change things up too And I think drive a lot more countries to implement a Bitcoin strategy and potentially do a Bitcoin bond But in terms of Bitcoin bonds we've had discussions now with um Montenegro for a hydro bond Costa Rica for a hydro bond Ecuador for a hydro bond We probably will go to Ecuador and um Argentina definitely could use one too So there's a lot of things that need to be done and we just have to hunker down and keep pressing ahead

Argentina, Milei, and Bitcoin

Knut: Yeah, Argentina is very interesting, like we had a great talk with Ariel Aguilar, who's been trying to orange pill Milei since like 2014 or something, so he's definitely aware, I don't think, he's fully orange pill or anything like that. But Argentina is taking the more Misesian approach and not having legal tender at all.

It's basically saying you could use [00:32:00] whatever you want for trading with one another, which which is the preferable way, I guess. and Ariel said something about what was it, Luke, the minister of interior or something that was fully orange pilled?

Samson: Diana Mondino

Knut: Diana Mondino, that's the one, yeah. So, it's all very positive there. but what are you, what are your, what's your angle when going to Argentina? If they're not going to implement any legal tender laws or anything. Is it like the, geothermal and the, uh, uh, or geothermal, is it a bond thing?

Samson: Well let's see I think we can go to a Bitcoin bond structure if they're interested in eliminating debt faster So when Milei took office he said something like Argentinians should expect that uh fixing things is going to take 20 30 years but Bitcoin can accelerate that By issuing a number of Bitcoin bonds maybe 5 billion in Bitcoin bonds within [00:33:00] 2024 could potentially in 10 years just eliminate most of their debt So we'll see if that can happen but there's also um mining public-private partnerships where they they mine themselves as a country we met with uh Filip we met with their energy company YP

Filip: Uh, YPF, YPF. Yeah. They are sitting, they're sitting on a lot of energy, a lot of oil reserves as well that have not been used. So really energy potent, uh, mining potential in Argentina is massive. So really one way to eliminate that, that is. is there.

Samson: What else Just uh they could just buy Bitcoin too because they can just convert their reserves into Bitcoin or sell gold and buy Bitcoin There's a number of things they can do So we have to see what works for them I don't I think that Milei is going to become a Bukele and start talking about Bitcoin a lot but I have a feeling that he would adopt some pragmatic [00:34:00] strategies but he's not going to become a Saylor or Bukele and talk about Bitcoin on podcasts

Knut: No, but he's certainly flying the flag of libertarianism, let's just hope that he delivers on his promises.

Filip: What Milei has been saying, he's very entertaining as a politician. He's got a lot of charisma and his policies really are, excellent. So he's definitely ticking a lot of boxes. There's a lot of conspiracy theories there saying he's linked to this or linked to that, but forgetting that aside right now, he's so far kind of delivering a lot of his promises and, he's getting things moving.

So it's really exciting times to see a country like Argentina, who's had, who's had like a hundred years of fiat nightmares over and over again, of their currencies crashing over and over again. That someone like Milei someone, some Rothbardian, Ancap. uh, let's see. Uh, enigmatic, uh, [00:35:00] charismatic person like this who's coming through could spur other, movements around the world to, to, to, uh, to do what, they're doing.

But yeah, it's just exciting. I just, I'm, I'm a big, I'm a, I'm very entertained by him. You know?

Knut: Yeah, so am

I

Filip: But the, proof is in the pudding. We're yet to see, but I'm very entertained by what he has to say. I speak Spanish and I have to say the translations are all true. He's actually saying all those things.

Knut: That's fantastic. And he has the best haircut in politics ever,

uh

as well. So yeah, we're very hopeful, like, just let's just hope that he delivers on his promises and, and really manages to reduce the size of government. And the funny thing with his critics and the criticisms, uh, against him, it's like, uh, Rothbardian, as you say, and it's kind of hard to argue against Rothbardian logic.

Filip: Mm hmm. Made

Knut: the whole point of it. So, so it's, it's very entertaining to see. And I think like, if this can, you know, [00:36:00] spread like a virus to, to other countries, and we can actually get a, a movement for, You know, reducing the size of the state every, like, that would just be the perfect timeline to live in.

Samson: I think it's a Things are changing I mean there are a number of other elections in 2024 in LATAM and 2025 and onwards so we could see a wave of Bitcoin friendly presidents and prime ministers arrive There is one candidate in Mexico Eduardo Verastegui is a friend of Malay and they've been taking selfies together He also met with President Bukele but if he wins in Mexico that could be very interesting for Mexico So the tide seems to be turning We seem to be going back towards pragmatism reasoning and not money printing

Filip: Hard, hard, hard, hard times create hard men.

UBI in Canada

Luke: since we're talking about all the [00:37:00] pragmatism in Latin America, in the realm of non Latin America, Are we going to potentially see any positives in the next couple of years in America's hat, uh, Canada, my, my, uh, my country or Samson as well.

What's going on there? There's some big things, happening that, the Trudeau government seems to be, trying to do now, UBI specifically.

Samson: Yeah I don't know I don't know Canada is such a lost cause I mean I was hoping we would get an election in 2024 Maybe we might but it doesn't seem that likely anymore The next election is going to be 2025 And I really hope that we get rid of Trudeau at that point and Pierre Poilievre wins But if Pierre doesn't win Canada's absolutely screwed I mean you can look at what they're doing right now They're talking about UBI and giving every adult in Canada 2000 Canadian So that's like [00:38:00] 1600 US dollars but that's just not possible It's not even a failure of economics at this point It's a failure of Basic math Like you do the math there's 30 probably 32 million adults in Canada 39 population You give everyone a 2000 that's 60 billion some odd dollars and each year you're getting close to a trillion dollars Canadian And our GDP is like maybe 2 trillion US So The math just doesn't check out It's impossible

Luke: Because just to clarify, that's, that's per month, right? You're talking per month?

Samson: well it's 60 something billion per month I think and per year it's getting close to a trillion Canadian dollars So that's half of GDP a little bit less than half of GDP

So it's not a failure of economics It's not a failure of understanding of money It's a failure of simple math Like Grade 8 math Just do the math Multiply it out

Knut: well, it's a failure of economics too.

Samson: [00:39:00] it's a failure of everything but it's still like a fundamental failure of grade 8 math Even grade 7 grade 6 math if you do it you could probably get a grade 6 kid doing that But the realistic thing that we can do in Canada is not universal basic income but universal basic Tim Hortons Give everyone a 100 Timmy Ho card a month and that will cost us about 48 billion a year We could probably afford that

Knut: I'll have to remember to go to that Tim Hortons next time I fly, Luke. There's apparently one here at Alicante Airport that I could, so I could support Canada a bit.

Luke: Well, I think the chain is owned by Americans now, so you're not really getting so much support, and the quality of the donuts has gone down in the last five years or so, and the they changed recipes, yeah, yeah, Canada, it's the, yeah, it's the picture of Canada going downhill, basically.

Knut: the way I see it, universal basic income isn't universal, it's not basic, [00:40:00] and it's not fucking income, and the federal reserve bank isn't a bank, has no reserves, and isn't federal. So, so, all of this stuff is just so backwards, the craziest thing is that people really do seem to think that money grows on trees.

And that you can somehow conjure up new money and it's gonna be just as valuable as the other money that's floating around. But it's, it's so basic and yet people fall for it. It's, pretty scary.

Samson: And closer to home Infinity Day is not Infinity Day It shouldn't be on 8 21 it's 8 14

Knut: Okay, elaborate.

Samson: Because there's so many there's like 5 plus million lost coins

Knut: Oh yeah, yeah, this is another joke flying head, but no, no, the 21 is still there. we don't know it's ever gonna move or not. And, uh, you [00:41:00] can't really meme everything over 14 million. doesn't really work.

Samson: It's an inside joke just

Knut: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Luke: We're all in the, we're all in the business of number based memes, right? 821, Gen 3, is, we, we've all got to stick to our memes so that they propagate further and, and come into more and more, uh, power together, right?

Samson: Yes

Knut: yeah. Maybe we should have that day on Jan. 14th instead. Samson, what do you

think

Samson: Isn't there something like uh January 9th is uh the real Genesis block or something I remember there's something there

but

Knut: Oh, yeah,

Samson: recall

Filip: Took, well, it took it like a week to mine the first block or something, didn't it?

Knut: like two weeks. Right.

Filip: Two weeks.

Knut: I think Satoshi waited for quite a while for Hal to come online, I guess. Where

Samson: JAN3 is not JAN3 either all a lie

Luke:

But it is good marketing, so, I guess we'll stick with it, right? You guys will stick with it? Yeah.[00:42:00]

Monarchy

Knut: Filip, we saw a tweet of yours the other day about, uh, the, um, pros, uh, and almost no cons of, uh, going back to, um, monarchy structure, for, uh, the tweet was in Serbian or, uh, originally,

Filip: is, there is, no, no, I actually wrote it in English, but there is an English version below. So, um,

Knut: oh, yeah.

Filip: actually took down the original tweet because the translation was not good enough, so I retweeted it and with an English version below. But yes, this is in response to the election mess that we've had here in Serbia.

We've had snap elections that were called earlier this year. This was post the school shooting. I don't know if you guys heard about, but back in May 3rd this year, there was a school shooting where about eight kids were killed. Nine kids actually were killed in a predominant, quite an affluent school in downtown Belgrade.

Actually, the same school that my wife [00:43:00] went to when she was a kid. since then, there was, there's every weekend, every, every weekend there's been, there have been. protests, big organizations, massive amounts of people taking to the streets that were first saying, you know, anti violence protests, but those kind of then formed into anti government, anti state protests.

So the state decided, the, uh, the ruling party decided to do snap elections and they organized that for the 19th, 17th of December recently. And the elections happened. And there was a lot of, let's call it obvious. I don't want to get myself in trouble over here, but I said there was a lot of obvious, uh, inconsistencies with the way the results were tallied and how voting happened.

And there was a lot of, uh, incidents and, uh, and scandals here and there, and Belgrade was meant to be won by the opposition party, but it transpired that they didn't. The opposition, the sorry, the leading party went on air even before [00:44:00] the electoral commission was announced the result and claimed victory and claimed victory of Belgrade.

So this has pissed off a lot of people and a lot of people have taken to the streets ever since for now for two weeks, um, demanding that the elections are cancelled and rerun and done fairly maybe with some sort of I don't know, guidance or intermediary or something like that. And I've been getting a lot of pressure to comment on this.

And meanwhile, I wish everybody a happy Christmas. A happy Gregorian Christmas. That's the first Christmas we celebrate via the Julian calendar, the old school calendar. And I got a lot of, uh, a lot of, a lot of, uh, people saying, you know, why don't you care about us? Comment, comment, comment. So I was like, okay, I'm going to comment.

So I comment that I think it's time that, uh, I, I'm not going to be a critic, but I'm going to be, I'm going to show my support for the, uh, for the government's model that I truly supported and [00:45:00] that is monarchy. And then I listed all the, I voted by the way, and I said that the reason I voted was, was because I wanted people to, to exercise their, civil duties and to go out and vote.

But I said, you know, I voted, I'm not aligned to any political party. And I said, my, my ballot may have been empty or, you know, but doesn't matter. I, I was just getting people to, to, to, to, to vote. And I, and basically I gave out reasons about why monarchy, I guess, you know, most of those reasons are, I mean, they're, they're aligned with, Hans-Hermann Hoppe's democracy, the god that failed.

And I mean, I'll give you a few of them and it's basically that monarchs have much more long term planning. Monarchs have a strong sense of individual property rights. If citizens in their country's property rights are protected, are strongly protected, then you won't have any uprisings, any, any, [00:46:00] Disgruntled citizens that will try and overthrow the monarch because their properties are being taken away from them.

So that's, kind of obvious. monarchies are stable and they have continuity, you know, there's, uh, there, there's predictable succession and it's a stable form of governments, which kind of helps with. Economic and foreign policy planning In monarchies is a bit reduced, rent seeking, as opportunities as well, protection against Uh, majority tyranny, monarchies are less prone to the tyranny, tyranny of the majority as the monarchy's legitimate. The legitimacy isn't dependent on majority opinion. also. Monarchies are not subject to the election cycle driven short termism. I gave a few more po points, basically, saying, you know, the incentive for personal gains, the fo the short fo uh, four or five term cycles that democracy go through, meaning that, democratic leaders have an incentive to accumulate as much [00:47:00] wealth as they can during those small cycles.

And, there's also, yeah, basically absolute accountability in democracies. Leaders don't have absolute accountability. They can just be, they can just be sacked or fired or whatever, whereas monarch has. absolute accountability for all his actions, therefore will take sound, prudent decisions because otherwise his families and his generations to come will be affected by his stupid decisions.

What I was

Samson: for a purer monarchy Or uh

Filip: this is, this is the thing. I was, I was giving, I was giving examples and I was giving, um, points for, uh, pure monarchy, for absolute monarchy. I didn't say this. But that's what I was saying, because in order to, uh, to criticize the Republic, I had to give pure examples of absolute monarchy.

That would be ideal, but many people, many, uh, people around the world would see this as, uh, as just, uh, see monarchies as too much of a, uh, as, as, as a dictatorship. They associate monarchies with [00:48:00] dictatorships. There's a big difference, but we're not going to get into those differences. So, if really, realistically, if monarchy was going to return to Serbia, then I would be pushing for parliamentary or constitutional monarchy.

So, I, for example, would create a model similar to that of Lichtenstein and the democracy that we see in Switzerland. the reason why I chose Switzerland is 'cause of that these, their decentralized approach, according to their cantons, they have mu uh, uh, they have direct democracy. And this is something that most of the world doesn't really have.

It's just the ability to, um, I mean, in the Canton they have a high degree of autonomy. They, um, they have policies tailored to local needs, and they have the count on sort of competing with each other. Basically, it empowers citizens to have a say in the legislative process, uh, and it provides citizens with more participation and it gives citizens more, um, more individual autonomy [00:49:00] and self determination to be part of that process.

So it's, it's just much more beneficial. Plus the parliamentary component inspired by Lichtenstein's. What's known as the interest side. Landstag is the parliamentary aspect of it, where the monarch kind of elects the prime minister and the cabinet and it's right. He was recommended by the monarch the monarch's role is essentially just symbolic and focused on areas like foreign policy.

Whereas the cabinet and the, and the ministers will be, will be taking more role of the executive. But with all this, you'll have checks on the power on, on the, you'll have checks on the powers on the, sorry, the separation of powers across the legislative, executive and judicial branches. I mean, I'm trying to, I'm trying to form together this argument now.

My first tweet was there to just activate people, just to trigger people, which it did. But I'll be following [00:50:00] up with a, with a, with a more, let's say, um, with a, with more of a plan, a model of how I see monarchy can work in Serbia. And I'll give my model, which is the, which is that of, uh, the monarchy, the Parliamentary monarchy of Liechtenstein and the direct democracy of Switzerland.

And this is also based on Prince Hans Adam's view of the state in the third millennium, and to say that the state should act more as a service company, should act as a service company there to cater to its citizens and not the other way around. It should be, it should be there to attract citizens and not to push citizens out.

And this is something that we've been seeing all over democracies around the world is how, republics, democracies, all these places, they're not really doing their best to attract citizens and you're getting a lot of net, net migration, net, uh, migration happening out of, uh,

uh

Samson: specifically in Canada we have uh reverse immigration So

Filip: That's it. Reverse.

Samson: are leaving because they They [00:51:00] can't afford to live here anymore they can't make money anymore so they're just better off going home And I've read stories of people coming to Canada and leaving in debt because it's so bad here

Filip: I just want to say that in Serbia, Serbia, we've had, we have a serious issue of net out migration. Um, we've had a serious issue of, uh, brain drain for many, many years. And that was normal because, things in Serbia and the region are always being rather unstable and Serbians in general, they become, they're quite educated a lot.

They're technical, educated, uh, people, and then they end up getting better jobs and better lives outside of Serbia. in this, the system that I propose is, is one that will allow, will, will, will foster, industry and focus on the areas that Serbia can excel in, which is, will be technology, but also, uh, agricultural and other areas that Serbia does well in, get the state to be acting like a service company, and, Not trying to extract wealth for them, but actually giving them less tax, no [00:52:00] tax, and having them, giving the Serbs the, uh, the choice not to want to leave the country.

At the moment, Serbs really want to leave the country, and I don't see many Serbs coming back, although I have seen Serbs coming back from Canada.

Samson: you're welcome you're

Filip: Yeah,

Alternate Governance Models

Samson: But yeah I really like the I really like the Swiss model because um They're politicians they're people in Congress they're not full time politicians like in a lot of places like for example Canada They have a real job they might be a farmer or you know working an office job or something and Being a part of the government and participating in that is more of an addendum to their main identity So they don't lose grounding to reality They understand like they have to earn a living They understand things cost money Whereas when you have that segregation of the people making the rules and governing Between them their lives and reality then that's where you get things like [00:53:00] UBI that are so disconnected from what can be possible or what even should be talked about It's just like some ethereal idea out there that seems like it might work and it sounds good on paper to some people but it's impractical in all essence

Filip: Completely impractical. That's why I use, I use Canton Naga as an example, and I also use Dubai as an example of how you become competitive as a nation, as an area, as a jurisdiction. And those two places have in common as they are in. Seeing a lot of growth happening through tax advantage, locate, um, set up, and you're having a lot of businesses and people relocating to these areas.

And this can happen in any country. Countries should be competing, states, governments should be competing with each other to try and attract, sit there, to retain citizens and attract other citizens. And this is not happening.

Knut: Dubai is an interesting case because the argument Western countries always make [00:54:00] is that freedom of speech is the most important thing, but the most important aspect of freedom of speech is freedom of speech. Monetary speech, because as Bitcoin has clearly pointed out to us, uh, money is nothing but information.

It doesn't have to be anything more than just information. And as long as you, uh, as you restrict that, you don't have any freedom of speech. Uh, so property rights are way more important than freedom of speech, and this is why people go from Europe to Dubai, which, uh, You know, from a western democracy perspective, Dubai sort of restricts freedom of speech, but from a monetary perspective, the European countries restrict speech even more, because money is the most important form of speech there is.

So I think that this notion of freedom of speech is wrong, because it, uh, Discludes [00:55:00] money as speech. it's just not there. That narrative is just not there. And, um, yeah, that's the most important aspect.

Samson: Europe is the best example of dissociation from reality and people governing I mean you have Spain now shutting down nuclear plants joining Germany in a race to the dark ages So it's just like uh the best example of what not to do I

Knut: I'll have to get a diesel generator, Luke, like, to continue to do the pod from here, uh, if they shut down the reactor.

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Preventing Abuse of Monarchy

Knut: well, so, uh, Filip, I think the, uh, the question that everybody, like the most, the most common objection to a monarchy in general is like, how do you prevent Joffrey Baratheon

Samson: when when when Filip was going [00:57:00] on and on about uh Absolute Monarchy I was gonna say have you watched Game of Thrones

Knut: yeah, exactly.

Samson: What's the guarantee that Filip doesn't go mad

Filip: here's the thing. I think the fact that monarchy has never been tried under a proper hard money standard. Yes, it's been tried on the gold standard, but it hasn't been tried under a Bitcoin standard. The gold standard was always going to lead to more fiat. I think under under Bitcoin standard, you can't It's a system that can't be gamed.

So you have, you have a Jeff, a Jeff, what's, Joffrey, who is it, the character that

Knut: Joffrey Baratheon,

Samson: there's a history of Mad Kings Like there's several in the it's all the whole story is about Mad Kings

Knut: Yeah, the Game of Thrones is based on the War of the, the, the, the Roses, like, or, which was a horrible episode of, uh, UK history.

Filip: But then we're just talking about, uh, drama on TV, and that, that

Knut: but we're not, we're talking about an actual historical event. Uh, the, the, the events it's based on, like, at

Samson: [00:58:00] Four of the Roses

Knut: War of the Roses, yeah.

Filip: Well, my argument against that would be, well, against having a bad egg come and try and destroy everything, is that within the structure, that's why something like Lichtenstein's Landstag, um, setup is, is ideal, is because you will have checks within that Royal Family. You'll have balances to make sure that if you do get a bad egg, like a Joffrey, then he, his actions will, uh, will be, will be scrutinized and he can easily be taken out or put to the side and someone else replaced before he does anything stupid.

I mean, these are the things that would happen in a pure absolute monarchy. Yes, we have, we have problems with that, but in a, in a more, in a state, in a more, let's say, decentralized constitutional parliamentary monarchy with checks, with checks and balances within the family with, you'll have advisory bodies, you'll have like a, uh, a Privy Council, you have a Crown Council and you will have, the executive board, which is like the cabinet [00:59:00] ministers, like of that form part of the government.

If the king starts wanting to do crazy things like print loads of money, which a won't ever happen under a Bitcoin standard, but he will then, okay, okay, I can't that, that, that crazy king will say, okay, I wanna do something else. I wanna impose X, y, and Z laws that will favor me, that will favor me and my family better.

But then you'll have advisory bodies going, uh, pushing against that, and I guess you'll have a lot of checks and balances in that. organization to stop him from doing that. and you will have, you will, and he will be easily replaced.

Samson: Didn't we talk about governance structures when I was in Prague I think we did in our Freedom Footprint show back then

Knut: Oh yeah. Yeah. We, I, I think we did And, and we talked about your strategy game as well. I think it to that.

Samson: Infinite fleet. But anyways, I don't think the answer is democracy or constitutional monarchy or anything like that. I think ultimately we have to evolve to a system of governance that's based on consensus, [01:00:00] whereby you have foundational rules and you don't keep making rules. If you, if you give a guy a hammer and you say your job is to nail nails into walls, he'll cover your entire house with nails.

And that's really what lawmakers are doing. Like, your job is lawmaker. They'll make tons of laws. Most of the lawmakers these days don't even read the laws. And there's no way that the laws are working in a holistic, unified, harmonious system. There are, there are probably loopholes and, Contradictions and everything like that, and what that does is it allows the law to be weaponized to be used against normal people, because if they have the will, they'll find some justification that you broke some obscure law somehow and throw you in the gulag.

So there's a risk to that, I think. Ultimately, the final evolution of human governance is you have something close to like the Ten Commandments in Infinite Fleet, we call it foundational law, and then you might have some bylaws on top of that. But the whole [01:01:00] body has to be very minimalistic because just like with money, you don't want to be having to spend all your time investing your money to protect your savings.

You shouldn't have to worry about All these new laws coming out all the time and like in Canada, I think we have to have tampons in men's bathrooms now and things like that. Like, you should be able to just live your life, you know, have your family, enjoy time with your family and not have to worry about having to invest your money and having to follow what trends the government is pushing this, this week.

Knut: Yeah. The, this back, back to hop and, and, uh, Roth Barian thoughts here. like the, the, the another counter argument to the Joffrey Brean situation is that that can happen in a democracy too, like Hitler, Mussolini, or Macron or Trudeau. But they all got elected in, in, um,

Filip: It happens all the time.

Knut: It happens all the time.

Filip: Every single time.

Knut: yeah, so, so the Rothbardian argument is that if you're thinking about human rights, and you, you have [01:02:00] to take into account that a human right cannot impose, cannot violate another human being's right. If, if you, if you have that as your basic framework for human rights, so like, uh, you can't really say that housing is a human right because someone needs to build the house.

And if that is done by force, it's not really a right. One person's right becomes another person's obligation, right? And you have to enforce that. So the conclusion they draw is that the only universal human right that can be true for all times and all people is the right to be left alone. So that's what your society is.

You don't really need Ten commandments. You only need the right to be left alone. That's the only, like, that's the ultimate ethical beacon to strive for, I guess.

Samson: I don't think we'll ever get to be left alone, but I think there will be some simpler code that can be implemented and [01:03:00] work at scale.

Knut: Yeah, but by not being, by being left alone, I mean, like, uh, not being violated against. No force

is

Samson: I think maybe it's not necessarily left alone, but I think there was a saying that the government should not have any powers that a normal person does not have. And I think that is a good baseline to go by. Like the government can't draft you to send you to war because I can't say that you're going to go to war, right?

Knut: you can pay me though,

and

if you pay me enough, I'll even go to Canada.

Samson: Are you sure? Think, think about for a minute. Think about that. Think

about

Knut: Yeah, maybe not Canada, that's uh, like, the two places I won't go to, there's Canada and Mordor, like, I refuse to go there.

Samson: But we'll, we'll, we'll use the right pronoun for you.

Filip: We have to use the right pronoun for me. That's his royal highness.

Knut: my pronoun too, [01:04:00] as a

Filip: Oh, yeah, exactly.

Knut: like, since I can choose it myself, I'm also his royal highness now.

Filip: Um, no, but with Bitcoin and under a Bitcoin standard, if they say more countries, more places started adopting Bitcoin standard with intergenerational wealth, you will start to get families. You will start to get sort of, I guess, modern dynasties being born in that respect. And I think you will get.

Maybe you will have some monarchies returning or something, something along those lines. I think that, um, people like to look up, people do like to look up to, to, uh, to certain families, uh, to certain traditions and customs and they look up to families for, um, I guess it's for, uh, it's not, they like to be led, I guess, or maybe they do like to be led, I'm not too sure, but.

There, I think if we were just living in a pure volunteerism, you know, just, uh, being left alone, uh, pure ANCAP society, which is, which is fantastic. I think people would lose their, their identity. I think I [01:05:00] mentioned this in my last, in the last show with you.

Knut: Yeah, but are they mutually exclusive? Can't you have, like, a royal family? I see no problems with having a royal family in an uncapped society.

Filip: Yes, that's it. That's what I would say. I think a Royal Family and ANCAP society would only work if you were under Bitcoin standard and, and, and the Royal Family has no absolute, no way of controlling the money supply. and I think that the role family will be treated, will be, will act a little bit like how religious, religion act.

It's just a way of, of, of keeping the faith, keeping traditions, keeping customs. And, and, and most important thing is family values. For, for, it's, I don't know, to me, it's an argument that I'm trying to work on it's a lot better than what I'm seeing these days with all these republics blowing up left, right, and center.

And I think if we return to, if we return to some more monarchical, uh, at least have some, another check on balance of check, check, a check of power [01:06:00] on these. Countries out there on these, uh, these democratic processes, then that would do, that would go a little bit in helping, helping create some stability out there.

Samson: Well, sound money is sort of like a check on power, right? Money is power. A lot of the governments create power by printing money, right? They can, they can, they can use the money they print to do a lot of different things like wage war and finance war. But under a sound money standard, you can't really do that.

So it's a check and balance of it in and of itself. But I think more importantly, if you're talking about dynastic continuance, Bitcoin and sound money rewards prudence Doing things in a smart way, whereas the fiat system rewards stupidity. You could be the worst ruler ever and print money and you'd still look like you're successful.

And that's really what a lot of the governments these days are doing. Like Canada, case in point. They look successful, but that's because you're just looting the country and [01:07:00] the

Filip: Yeah, they're just temporary caretakers instead of owners. And then they're incentivized to maximize short term gains and at the expense of long term capital values. which ultimately leads to like higher taxes, more regulations, and less respect for property rights.

And basically democratic rulers have less personal stake in the long term health and wealth of a country, whereas monarchs are absolutely opposite that. They are incentivized for the long term generational wealth of their country because they want their offspring to do well in hundreds and thousands of years to come.

Knut: Yeah, we had a great conversation with Aleks Svetski about this general wealth, generational wealth stuff, a couple of weeks back. And, like, he points out this, that the new aristocracy, or the new feudal class, or whatever, will all have They're in that position. If, if three generations from now, you you've inherited a lot of Bitcoins, you're in that [01:08:00] position because of the risk.

Responsible behavior of your parents and grandparents. There's no other way to get there. You can't get there violently, which you could in the past. Like the old, uh, like, to get into, uh, an elite class today is a, is a very different process. Like, of course you can, you can get there by Somewhat responsible means, but you can also get there by, by manipulation and theft and bad behavior.

So, so there's a mix and historically that's always been true. I mean, uh, you could become a King by, by killing everyone else. Like there's a new paradigm coming where a very much less violent way, is more profitable, uh, for generations. And I, I think that's a very more powerful than people think.

That aspect of it.

The Importance of Cultural Stability

Luke: And can I, can I add something here as well? Uh, just another point on your, your topic about Sort of being the custodian of the, the values and even just the stability in, in the culture. I, [01:09:00] I'm doing a series right now, uh, with Rob Breedlove on the What Is Money Show about Jordan Peterson's Maps of Meaning exploring the psychological significance basically of, of how narrative and, and myth is a way of transmitting cultural ideas and the, uh, the, the way the world.

Actually is as opposed to the, uh, the way people act like the world is as opposed to the scientific definition of the way it is, basically, but the, the, the point that we were just covering, I don't think the episode is out yet, but it might be by Gen 3, the, the, we were covering that there is a need for cultural stability or else you get absolute chaos and the terminology used there is, is something like But Peterson is something like state, which might be sort of used wrong because he's not talking about that in the nation state sense, but, uh, state culture is [01:10:00] the realm of order and is the realm of literally the patriarchy, but not in a bad way.

We've been doing patriarchy in only the bad way, basically, in modern discourse, but all of the positives of that is the continuity of order, the stability of the culture. And I'm seeing this parallel. Exactly, Filip, with, with what you are saying as far as there, there being an, an actual, not, not even, it is not even a symbol.

It's, it's, uh, for a group of people, royal family being a group of people by definition, that that is able to carry the cultural, uh, uh, the spirit of the culture so that there is that stability. Going too far in any one direction, you go too far into a tyranny, and that's, that's a bad thing as well, and we've already covered the negatives of that, but straying too far away from there being any form of culture is also a negative, and I, I would absolutely say that we're, we're in, in that stage in many parts of [01:11:00] the world.

I don't know what, what, what do you think about that? That was, that was my contribution there.

Filip: it. I read a really interesting essay by Hans Hermann Hoppe, actually. I forgot the title of it, but it's about natural elite and how the state that we live in today, how democracy was actually one of the reasons it came to power. It came to be the governments, the so called governments, the predominant governance model of our times.

Because in time, over history, monarchies have been the predominant governance model, but now in our In the last century, it's been democracies, and how they got, how we got to democracies is because the intellectuals that were advising kings and queens back in the days, they weren't, expensed enough.

They were, they were, uh, they were the ones who were, who, who, who, who were advising the kings and queens and they weren't paid enough. And so they decided [01:12:00] with time that They would influence the king's and the monarch's decision to, to push more towards a democratic model that they would do better in.

I'm trying to, I just read this essay once. I'm just trying to say that, um, how I'm trying to form this is that they, these intellectuals are the ones who ended up pushing for democracies that benefit them. And then you'll see these intellectual classes are the ones who run, uh, these democracies. And that's the ones who pushed out.

Uh, monarchies over time as,

Samson: see, democracies can work, but not at scale. Like the origin of democracies is very much like You're governing a city almost, and you kind of know the problems in the city, and you live there, and you have skin in the game, but when it scales out, like, let's take Canada as an example, because we've been taking it for so long, you have the politicians with some representation in the regions, not really, [01:13:00] power is centralized in Ottawa, which is in the middle of nowhere, and they're so far removed from everything else, and then they're again removed, like we've been discussing, because they don't have real jobs, they're just in Career politicians, right?

So that the hollows out the entire system. And on top of that, you have a, a gut or a, a gutting gutting of culture where there is no cultural fabric uniting anything. There's lack of cultural identity and morals, and that just makes the whole system become dysfunctional. It doesn't work at scale,

Knut: Hoppe points this out, that this is how monarchies became worse over time as well, like the scaling is the problem. So Hoppe points out in Democracy That Could Have Failed that he doesn't really promote monarchy as an alternative, it just says that it's better than this thing. it's The lesser of two evils, basically according to Hopper.

[01:14:00] Uh, and, uh, uh, uh, consensual, society would be preferable. And he points out that, uh, before monarchies there were these, uh, feudal lords every here and there, right? And cantons and smaller city states and so on. And you had a, a house this and how's that defending their own, uh, Canton. And, and they were sort of equal, uh, uh, to the law and.

The, the problems start when a, a, they sort of internally elect one, one of them to be the ruler of the, the larger nation state. And then he gets exemptions from, from the law. So they can't really get to him. And then he can start, uh, implementing all sorts of tax policies and whatnot that other people can't.

So, so you have the same problem with what you said, Samson, about, um, The state having powers that the people don't [01:15:00] have, so, and that's a problem that arises whenever you scale above the, it seems like whenever you scale over Dunbar's number really, but when you scale over, above, like, city level

Filip: that's a good point, uh, Jean Jacques Rousseau, one of the early advocates of democracy said that it wasn't really, well, his, he advocated for democracy, but a much smaller scale. If he saw the, the scale that happens today, he would be horrified. As you said, it would be city

Knut: Rousso would be

horrified

Filip: horrified.

Not, not in the, in the multi million populist level, maybe at a, in a million or two level is where it,

Knut: no. But, uh, Rousso has been completely hijacked by the, by the left, right?

Filip: yeah, of course. But the fact, even, yeah, but even the founding fathers didn't, didn't, the United States founding fathers didn't really envisage a democracy as well.

Knut: no. It's nowhere in the Constitution. The word just isn't there. This is all about property rights.

Filip: Correct.[01:16:00]

Samson: The problem with the constitution is it can be interpreted in different ways by different people. So as you have that hollowing out of society and a cultural debt, it just becomes less meaningful. You have to write the constitution in terms of super simple things. Like, here's the thing, and this is what we mean by it specifically.

Because people can interpret it in different ways. Just like you're saying the left has misappropriated something else. It's the same concept. As society crumbles, the things that we wrote in the past have less meaning because they can't interpret it correctly anymore.

Knut: Now, the, the Roth party view of the Constitution is that it's, it's simply an invalid contract because all the people who wrote it are dead so , so it's just not, uh, and it doesn't have any. Like, the constitutional rights are violated by the American government all the time. And their co [01:17:00] opted juridical system.

It's a farce at this point, right? When judges can own prisons and stuff. Like, it's really vulgar. The Magna Carta is another interesting document when it comes to constitutions, I think that if we're going back and trying to find a document that had a great impact on, you know, societal progress, I think that's, that's the, that's the real one, but I don't really know where I'm going with that, so it was

Optimism for 2024

Luke: Well, and I, I think, I think we've had an interesting discussion about these things. Governance types. It's always fascinating to dig into it and I hope we can continue and that, uh, JAN3 with your unique perspectives and access to all of the, uh, interesting forms of government going on. Right now, in the advocacy for Bitcoin, that we start to see some movements in the future towards more [01:18:00] Bitcoin centric governance.

I think that would be fantastic. But I think we have to wrap the discussion up here. We're near our time limits now. Just to leave this one, uh, what are you most optimistic about in the coming time here?

Filip: I'm very optimistic about the price of Bitcoin. I think most of us here are. This is with or without this ETF mania, but I think, yeah, I think adoption is going to be, it's going to be a big topic next year. I think thanks to the bull run. Regardless of the ETF approval or not, I think we're going to see a lot more people onboarding, a lot more people understanding money, a lot more people, uh, being orange pill, a lot more people opening their eyes to how this world actually works.

And then that makes our job even more exciting, even more, uh, I say not easier, but, uh, it opens up more doors and more opportunities for us to speak to more nations, more, uh, more individuals around the world and spread [01:19:00] the, the, the ultimate government's model that is, uh, that is Bitcoin.

Samson: I'm optimistic about our mission to orange pill countries and to work with governments and politicians. It seems counterintuitive based on maybe what we've been discussing and our views on governance, but I think Bitcoin is the best way to fix it. The problem is Governments are like a machine, and these machines are hungry for capital, and all they know is that they need it.

For how to feed themselves is to tax more and do things like UBI. But with Bitcoin, we can present them. It's like a Trojan horse. We can present them with something that is better. And this thing that we're giving to them has the properties of fixing them. It changes you when you get into sound money and you have sound money.

And when you have So, vehicles or avenues to generate revenue. Because when the state has no way to generate revenue, then you're the revenue. But if a country is tapping into its natural resources and mining [01:20:00] bitcoin and using the energy it has, like for example, Canada has There's so much energy potential.

We could fit three entire Bitcoin networks into Canada's energy grid easily, but that's just an example. Like there's many countries around the world that could tap into their energy to mine Bitcoin and finance everything they need to do. combine that with downsizing government and you end up with a far better future I believe than what we have going right now.

Filip: Here, here.

Wrapping Up

Knut: Fantastic. Uh, yeah, I share your views completely in these matters. And, uh, I think we both do. And, uh, looking forward so much to seeing you both on Madeira. And until then, Happy New Year and, um, good luck with the launch of the Aqua Wallet.

Samson: Hey guys,

Filip: well, it's launching today, isn't it?

Samson: Yeah

Knut: is today. Tomorrow. today. Yeah, yeah. Quote unquote today.

Luke: This been the Freedom Footprint Show. Thank you both so much for joining us [01:21:00] and thank you for listening.

Knut: Bye bye.

Filip: All right,

Samson: bye.