we moved to Serbia and that's when I started to study more about Bitcoin and realizing well,
this is actually amazing. Bitcoin is, it's the thing I've been looking for. It's that thing that
that that that truth that I've been looking for. It's, it's, I've always had an innate feeling and
then since I was young that things were not right in this world and I couldn't quite put my finger
on it. We've always led different down different excuses and explanations but never to to the
source of it. Thankfully, thanks to the lens that Bitcoin has given me to understanding what Bitcoin
is and then learning about monetary history about what money is, that provided me the lens to understand
a lot about what's going on in this world. I couldn't look back. You know, once you see it,
you can't unsee it. And I'm here I am today. We are attempting to speed up hyperbic criminalization.
That's it in a nutshell. Hyperbic criminalization is happening whether you like it or not. All money
will tend to one but we are just trying to make it facilitate it and make the experience make it
as smooth and as quick as experience as possible. That's our mission.
Greetings and salutations, my fellow pubs. My name is Walker and this is the Bitcoin podcast.
The Bitcoin time chain is 875-026 and the value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin.
Today's episode is Bitcoin talk where I talk with my guest about Bitcoin and whatever else comes up.
And today that guest is Prince Philip, the hereditary prince of Serbia and Yugoslavia
and the chief strategy officer of Jan 3. Philip is a fascinating and fantastic guy who I've had
the pleasure of meeting in person several times and it was great to get him on the show and pick
his brain today. Our conversation ranged across quite a lot of topics from nation state Bitcoin
adoption to monarchy versus democracy top down versus bottom up Bitcoin adoption, Bitcoin strategic
reserve game theory, Bitcoin or world leaders big things coming in 2025 and a whole lot more.
Before we dive in, do me a favor and subscribe to the Bitcoin podcast wherever you are watching or
listening. But I personally recommend you listen on fountain.fm because not only can you send Bitcoin
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if you have feedback or if you're interested in sponsoring the Bitcoin podcast. And if you
find the show valuable, consider giving value back by giving it a zap on noster or a boost on
fountain. I truly appreciate it. Without further ado, let's get into this Bitcoin talk with Prince
Phillip. I'm not a live streaming pro like let's say BTC sessions or or Nico and some of those guys.
So I do it. I can. I also I need to get a like a Jamie like Joe Rogan has, you know,
that's when you know you've made it as a podcasters when you can be like, hey,
Jamie, can you set that up for me? Exactly. And I mean, listen to Peter McCormack,
what's his guy called? He's going like, oh, yeah, can you do it? The thing is,
just get some to use chat GPT is like, I love it. No, Danny, Danny, that's it. Danny, Danny. Yeah.
He's a he's an awesome dude. And I was super happy to see that he's re invigorating the what
Bitcoin did brand just because like that. I mean, that show was the one that I still to this day
I listened to the most in terms of Bitcoin podcasts. And, you know, I think everyone was
a little bit bummed that it was kind of like, oh, it's going away. I get, you know, Peter's
whole rationale for doing it happy that he's, you know, crushing with Mr. Obnoxious. But when I saw
Danny was coming back out with what Bitcoin did, I was like, oh, this is this is good. The world
needs more. Yeah, I haven't listened to first episode. That was with Jeff Booth. I believe I
just saw that recent. I think he had he had Jeff Booth. He had Checkmate. He had Rob Hamilton,
maybe as well. Nice. So he's, you know, he's he's crushing it. I firmly believe, you know,
there's always like the meme like, oh, there's too many Bitcoin podcasts. I firmly believe we
do not have enough Bitcoin podcasts until there are more Bitcoin podcasts than traditional finance
podcasts. And there are a lot of those. So we've got a long way to go, in my opinion.
What's the ratio?
I have to check that one out. We can use chat. Where's your.
Donnie. Yeah, yeah. Let's see how many, how many finance podcasts are there? Let's see.
I'm my own Danny. I'm my own Danny. Let's see what chat.
GPT says on this. I'm actually kind of curious. All right.
Right. Searching the web. It's challenging. Okay. Chat GPT is not even giving me a straight
answer. You know what? Chat GPT, you're you're done. But you know, there's at least lists of top 100
finance only podcasts. And I mean, I have to imagine the number of total number of Bitcoin
podcasts is maybe a couple hundred. Right. Across different languages and everything, sure. But
we've we've got a long way to go. With hard money podcasts, Bitcoin
podcasts, Bitcoin only. Exactly. Exactly. Oh man, Philip, it is good to see you.
I'm last. I'm trying to think last time we saw each other. It's been it. It's been a while now.
It's last time we saw each other was El Salvador, maybe? No, no, no. We saw each other since then.
I think it was El Salvador, probably. Yeah.
Yeah. Man, time flies. That's that's wild. Are you are you going to El Salvador for the
sadly not I've been invited and it's a shame. Well, I've been invited to another event, not
Bitcoin. It's a Serbian event in Vienna for the Svetosavskij ball. That's like the
Saint-Sava ball in Vienna, which is like a massive ball of Serbian organized ball that's
been happening for four, four, four. I don't know how many decades now, but it's one of the
guests on the onus there. And it's right over the same place as El Salvador, sadly.
That's it's one where you're kind of, let's say, you need to attend.
I have to attend, especially if you've been invited to it, then yeah. There will be more El Salvador.
I mean, there's adopting next year and that will be, you know, I mean, and this year in El Salvador
in January, it will be what's going to be around the 30th of January, whatever it is,
who knows what the price of Bitcoin will be. But then adopting next year in November,
who knows what the price of Bitcoin will be there. But it's a, well, it might have crashed,
might have crashed, so we might be picking up some cheap sats again, which I'm always hopeful of.
It's ripping today. It's funny you reached that point and, you know, I haven't been in Bitcoin
for that long. It's been since, you know, 2020, when I finally stopped ignoring Bitcoin and went
down the rabbit hole and decided to, you know, become humble and realize that I didn't know
really anything about money. And even just since then, it's like the longer you get into it,
first you're like, I love seeing the price go up. Then a little bit later, you're like,
I love seeing the price go down. Like I want my dollars to buy me more sats. Like I don't want
these sats to be so expensive. But Bitcoin doesn't care. It just keeps on chugging.
Exactly.
Man, well, you know, I was really, I'm glad we got the chance to do this today. I was just in your,
I think I mentioned this to you. I was just in Serbia actually as part of a larger business
trip in Europe. So that was my first time in Serbia. I was back and forth between Belgrade
and Novosad. I wish I would have gotten a chance to do more sightseeing, but it was pretty much
all business, unfortunately. So I'll have to make it back for a more relaxed trip in the future,
bring the family.
Well, you've got to learn Apollo. Definitely welcome here. It's a big country. There's
a lot to visit here and come visit the palace. We just moved in a few months ago, and it's good.
It's great out here. Obviously, we have some issues going on with politically out here,
but we're not going to go into that. We'll talk about Bitcoin stuff.
Yeah. Yeah. That works. I mean, yeah, political issues are, that's the one thing that I think
every country in the world has in common, or citizens of every country.
Because political issues really are derivatives of financial money issues.
And that's kind of a perfect lead-in to talking about the name of this show,
the Bitcoin podcast, talking about Bitcoin as money. I think the first time I saw a clip of you,
before we had met in person, was you were on a Serbian talk show, I believe.
Right. The clip went pretty viral. I remember one of the parts that was funniest to me was that
the host was basically, you were just going through this incredibly succinct summary of
Bitcoin money, everything. And the host is shocked that you're giving this advice away for free.
You're just telling people this, and you're like, yeah, they need to know.
Was that the first time you had mentioned Bitcoin in any sort of public setting?
It was. It wasn't the first time I came out as a Bitcoiner. Now, I've talked about this before.
And it's the first time I came out publicly. Like you, I became a maximumist around 2020,
but I first bought Bitcoin 2017, but at the same time was distracted by other stuff out there,
as a lot of people experience the same thing. And then 2020, when the whole COVID mania happened,
I thought I knew how the... I mean, I've said this to Spiel many times before, but I'll say it again.
I mean, I was working in traditional finance, TradFi, as it's known in the Bitcoin world,
for over a decade. Well, actually close to 15 years at that point. And you know,
that kind of thing, you know how it all works. But there's one thing a lot of people in TradFi
don't really know is what is money. And that's one thing I would start to question in about 2020,
when... I just didn't question it for 2008. I just thought corruption. I thought systemic
corruption. I thought, yeah, this is just big cyclical bullshit and stuff. And then all this QE
came about, couldn't quite wrap my head around that. That was around 2008, 2009, 10. The Eurodebt
crisis still was not really thinking about what is all this, you know, I'm just thinking, yeah,
this is part of the way that we fix stuff, interventionism, interventionism is okay. I was
still a bit into the whole Kenzian world and things like that. And then 2020, that's 2017,
got introduced to Bitcoin bought. Realized that's okay. There's a supply cap of 21 million,
that scarcity, that's an inflation hedge. That's wonderful. That's great. So what does that actually
mean? But then really dig into it until 2020, when the whole stimulus BS happened, it started
happening again to a next level, where they were actually giving people checks and countries where
normally they wouldn't really be giving people checks for very questionable circumstances.
And I was thinking, where is all this money going to lead? And yeah, so let's see what's
happening today. So I started questioning Bitcoin then and then I started... the old saying, as I
always say, I started reading things like Bitcoin Standard, Top 21 Lessons by Gigi, reading his
hits incredible Twitter threads as well, going on to Bitcoin Twitter, meeting the... getting
acquainted with the Maxis on Twitter and seeing them do their thing. Love and toxicity as well.
It's great. It was hilarious. And I started to get it bit by bit. And things made more sense. I think
one of the things that really started me was a proper clicking moment was understanding
low time preference and understanding the difficulty adjustment. I don't know why those two
things, but just were really beautiful. The low time preference thing was just basically to do with
because it links in nicely with monarchy. And it links in nicely with just the world that we know,
the instant gratification world that we live in. And the cure to that is something that is
obviously of delayed gratification. And the difficulty adjustment, just the way that that
worked out beautifully, when it was proven how beautiful it worked out, how beautifully it
works in 2021 when China banned mining. And you just saw the biggest down with adjustment ever.
And it just becoming more decentralized. Just thought that was just so cool. Anti-fragile
out is finest. Those two things for me, I think were also, it was reading the Bitcoin standard
and seeing how safe explained low time preference was really like something shifted. It's the same
thing when I read The Price of Tomorrow by Jeff Booth. And he said, those simple words, technology
is deflationary. And something clicks. And once it clicks, it's like, nope, you can't forget that
you learned that. You are changed now for the better, I think. Everything makes so much more sense.
But you then you also realize like, oh, wow, you start to realize, like with the technology
being deflationary, you start to realize the true extent of the theft that this fiat system
enacts on people. Because if you think, you know, just okay, if you just look at CPI inflation in
the US, you think, oh, a couple percent a year, even during the worst part of COVID, yeah, it got a
little bad for a second. But now, you know, it's come back down, right? And then you realize that,
no, it never comes back down. It compounds. And they're not just stealing from zero. They're
stealing from a negative baseline. Everything should be getting cheaper. And it's not, why is that?
And that for me was just like, whoa, like, I'm changed. You look at the compound, you look at
the graph, you look at the just getting bigger and bigger. And then that's, and then you realize
that's actually not a very good measure of CPI. CPI is not a good measure of inflation. Then you
started going down what Michael Saylor has to say. I know, I mean, some on most of most
Bitcoin is out there have to say that I realized that actually the numbers behind inflation are
not accurate. How do they calculate those baskets? You know, what, what's, how do they replace goods
with new goods that have less inflation? You realize that it's all one big game. And we're all being
had. It's, it's as George Carlin said, you know, it's a big club and you ain't in it. And it's,
yeah, well, as a role, as a role, I thought I would have been in it, but things happen.
Things happen around the second round, the second world war, probably leading up to the
second world war, actually, when my great grandfather was assassinated, I think, I think
some people maybe didn't want us to be part of the part of the club anymore. We were,
yeah, we were representing something that was a bit greater than, than what was planned for
post-second world war. But I don't want to, I don't want to speculate. I don't want to go
into conspiracy theories over here, but there's, you know, why are we monikies taken out? Why
all of a sudden were good book to read on this, actually, that will touch on this is
book that safety introduced to me. You know about it very well. It's the democracy that
God that failed. And I know I've, I've, I brought this up in, in Nostra the other day, because I
joined Nostra recently. I actually got my key in the beginning of 2023. It's not like Twitter,
where it shows you how OG you are, but get asked Milan from, from primal to see if he can get those
keys up. But I didn't actually get involved, start posting until, until like, what about two months
ago? But I saw this one post that Jack, former Twitter Jack, Jack Dorsey, Dorsey, yeah, he posted
something like, he says, yeah, freedoms, not kingdoms. And I know he was probably referring to
freedoms in terms of Nostra and not kingdoms like Twitter. And, but I just went in there and said,
oh yeah, you know, I said something about to actually, actually, oh yeah, he's still in the democracy phase. Wait till you get to the
monarchy phase. And I just wanted to get discussion happening. And where was I coming from this was
that book, the democracy that God that failed, the first chapter is fantastic and explaining what
low time preferences. And that led me to understand that why the monarchy's were taken down. I mean,
taken down what was what happened post the creation of the Federal Reserve after the
decision was made in on Jackall Island, then in 1913, creation of the Federal Reserve,
then you had this full blown out war, which, which, which involved
most European countries in very complex situations and relations.
To then post second First World War, you had some of these monarchy's being slowly wiped out to the
point where the Second World War, then a lot of these monarchy's became neutered. I say neutered,
they were they turned from away from being absolute monarchy's to to being constitutional
parliamentary monarchy's and they were just rep, the monarch part of the government system was just a
representation. They had some powers to annex to go to a check on on on on the executive on on the
that was in case something horrible goes on, but no one ever exercised that.
All these this governance model was taken out completely and replaced with
Democrats to summon up as Hoppe says it is democratic republicism. And you just have to look at what
and we're not why you just have to look at the facts pre First World War, it's post First World War
and understand that under monarchy's there was a lot less taxation and under republics under
democracies a lot more taxation. Why is that? But that's the low time preference aspect kicking
into into into the governance model of democracy of monarchy's I should say. Monarchy's are all about
taking as little as possible today to leave as much as possible for your sons and your your
generations to come. You want to be that family wants to hold that position for as long as possible
so their incentive is tied to the stability of the country. So you will want to tax your citizens,
have very strong private property rights so there's no revolt, there's no revolutions,
there's no uprising. And if you can keep your citizens cool and free and responsible,
then you've got a little great thing going on. And on top of that, when that also was one of the
reasons why it was probably messed with by all tier outside forces is a monarchy's hard to control.
Because a monarchy's cares about its citizens and citizens only yes it will have good foreign
relations that's what a market does it has good foreign relations wants to limit amount of war,
war, confrontation and so forth because those are costly especially under a hard money standard,
but then come in a loose money standard and with a and then come in democracy and then all of a
sudden incentives get reversed and outside influences are it's easier to be influenced by
the outside. And I guess look what we have today. I mean just get something up, go into deeper but
no I mean I think this is something I've talked with safe about too when he came on because I
think it's really fascinating. I think in the US especially and this is just speaking from like
personal experience we have a bit of a knee jerk reaction to the idea of monarchy because you know
this is the United States of America we you know we kicked the British crown out you know you know
no we don't want any kings over here etc etc and it's very easy to have that knee jerk reaction
without thinking too much more deeply into it. But then as you said that the more I've started
going down the you know the bitcoin rabbit hole it leads you into these other rabbit holes of
realizing that okay first of all no system is perfect we know that democracy certainly isn't
because it tends to descend into mob rule eventually on a longer time scale right like this is
are you familiar with uh uh Polybius that he's the Greek philosopher he came up with the idea of
Anacyclosis. Anacyclosis yes. Yep yep so for anyone that's that's not familiar it's basically these
these six stages that governments always go through it's you know monarchy starts out with you
know like a monarchy rule by one they're typically benevolent and then a kingship turned into kind
of a tyranny where there's some corruption of the monarchy that happens then we move to aristocracy
which is kind of a good thing at first rule by the best or a select few but that descends into
oligarchy and you know their aristocracy is corrupted by a few you know people and then
that moves into again democracy but then that often descends right back into mob rule after
democracy is corrupted and so and then you know and I guess he's yet repeat the intent to fall
down with autocracy autocracy is it at the end I think yeah but I remember someone posted that
posted that in uh in the replies to my quote re-suite against uh Jack Dorsey and I said
Bitcoin fixes that well they didn't have Bitcoin that's the interesting thing that's
interesting thing interesting thing is that they didn't have well even on the gold standard
gold standard led to fiat so enough fiat led to Bitcoin because we had to fix it fix something
we have to fix it and so I believe that's now given that the Bitcoin is it's because of its
immutability and it's it's hard to control it it will it will lead to less opportunity for that to be
continuing to continue to start driven inequalities and therefore
um um influence uh monetary influence by the top over the uh over the the other people who are
I'm kind of get my words out here nicely but by those who are who who are who are who are at
the bottom end of the of the of the of the monetary of the monetary pecking order and I guess that's
that's kind of how these systems that you're talking about uh one one leads to the other
basically because really there's a breakdown there's a breakdown in in in financial incentives not
incentives but financial the lip freedoms and then that leads just to the next stage was if you
had Bitcoin from the start I think you won't have such strong you wouldn't have probably even have
you will probably stay at the monarchy and aristocrats doccas stage of of the uh that's the
interesting thing because it's it's all about incentives right and if uh we know that there
has never been a form of money that has not uh over a long enough time horizon basically been
corrupted as you said even the gold standard great sounds good but that is what led to this fiat
aberration um every fiat currency eventually fails I I'm of the opinion that just about every
revolution is ultimately a monetary revolution under under the surface like you look at I mean
if you want to look at or the fall of an empire is also the fall of a money if you look at Rome
the revolution the sense of like look at something like the french revolution and the
the fiat inflation of the asinia this it's not like there's something to take the french
revolution example it's not like it just happened out of a vacuum and all of a sudden people said
you know ah we don't have food and look at these fat cats they have food and they're you know
breaking our backs and let's chop all their heads off it's like no why did that happen why didn't
they have food well it's because they started inflating their currency and then they started
imposing price controls and they started doing all the things that lead in only one direction
and that's to an eventual collapse of the money right when the money collapses and people can't
buy food they tend to not take that very well and they tend to ride in the streets and maybe
you know sharpen their guillotines well and so I'm going to say something against the
french revolution because that's when we had the first instances of communism coming into this
into us being introduced and I think that Louis 16 and my internet are getting a lot of bad rep
bitcoin doesn't care if you're an individual a corporation or a nation state we all get the
same rules and that means you an individual can be sovereign when you hold your own keys and the
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the promo code walker not only do you get five percent off a great piece of open source bitcoin
only hardware but you also help support this podcast so thank you because that people claim I
mean the historians today let's call it the unread the own research historians actually
don't realize actually they're not the what they weren't actually that that bad actually they
Louis XVI in the first half of his reign was his first half of the reign was marked by attempts to
reform the French government like abolishing serfdom and reducing incidences of the death
penalty and like increasing tolerances of phenomenon Catholics and he tried to even end the state
monopoly on on on on on grains to make bread cheaper but this had its this resulted in the bread
in the in the elite having problems with him and what happened was that there was a
subsequent years there was a bad harvest which obviously drove at the price of grain up and
which led to the price of bread prices went up there was food scarcity and that kind of just
more in contributing more to the unpopularity of the monarchy which is driven by propaganda
by an outside by outside forces wanting to take down the monarchy and replace it was something you
know communism work by by a group of people the jack the jackalbins who were basically the the far
the far left group who led base who were the basing ones who I'm not sure who's uh you know
people think that the one under the individual the person who's who's who's thank who should be
thankful communism is uh marks angles but I think there's other people behind that but I'm not going
to go into that uh so so yeah even even that whole the whole the whole phrase that my internal
my anti-noir supposedly uttered when she said her people are suffering you know let them eat cake
that was never actually uttered by her at all if you do your research that was never uttered by her um
yeah it's it's kind of that they they met a very horrible end because there was as you said it was
driven by an elite group of individuals wanting to take over take down the monarchy so they could
be in control and they use the uneducated masses the the the mob to to do their biddings for them
and this has happened but and in return they promised the mob the the people um the uneducated
the uneducated uninformed let's say uneducated the uninformed public uh better conditions um
this was this has been repeated many times in history uh it also happened with the
russian revolution and the take down of the of the of of of sar nikolay the second the romanovs
by the bolsheviks um yeah so again driven by a change in in monetary incentives and a change
in system which is communism and the reason I'm mentioning this is because this is also close
to my heart because kind of we also experienced luckily we didn't experience such a uh a brutal
end the caro georgievich is still alive now maybe not as many as we were in the past but we're
still alive and um we're we're here and some of us uh one of us is a bitcoiner
philip can you can you actually talk a little bit for maybe for folks who are not familiar with you
who are not uh students of history or maybe have been uh I don't know I think you've been you've
been making the rounds pretty well so I would imagine people would have to be a little bit
living under a rock to not at least know of you at this point I was living under rock until a couple
of years ago as well so and also for the record I'm not I'm not a historian this is all stuff that
I'm reading I'm starting to be pointed in the right direction hopefully be pointed in the right
direction what bitcoin does as we talked about before it's bitcoin I mentioned this now at bitcoin
me and at the conference that it just came out of me and I think I've probably heard it a lot of
bitcoiners hear stuff there and they just repeat it but it's down to really cool because it's true
bitcoin is 16 years almost 16 years of unadulterated truth that no one has ever been able to manipulate
change um it's immutable it's completely it's it's a string of truth that's growing and growing
and the more it grows the more it exposes the system the more it who was it that was talking
about this a few couple years ago when I was getting orange pill they're talking about how bitcoin
ostracizes people so people come into bitcoin wanting to change bitcoin but it ends up changing
them and those with the egos who think they can hand change it maybe with a bit of money or so for
that f that fiat mindset realize that they can't so they end up getting ostracized so it kind of
exposes people it acts like a truth serum bitcoin is like a truth serum and it just exposes the your
not your weaknesses it exposes bad it exposes uh intentional bad um moral behaviors that are typical
that typically rewarded by the fiat system anyway so going back going back to I am not a historian
and my background is that I am um I guess yeah I'm a prince but I'm from a non-functioning monarchy
because our monarchy was abolished in the 1940s at the end of the second world war
and it was replaced with communism um my father if there was a monarchy right now my father would
be king his father so my grandfather was king peter the second the last king of Yugoslavia at the
time that's why maybe in my twitter it says prince philip heredity prince philip of Serbia and Yugoslavia
because technically our last title was Yugoslavia but if uh the monarchy was to be reinstated like
there would be no there's no such thing as Yugoslavia and it would be replaced it would be
prince philip or be prince philip of Serbia officially um the history of my of my family
goes back to the Karadjordjevic dynasty goes back to 1804 and that was the first Serbian uprising
against the Ottoman Empire Serbia like many other bolting countries including countries like Romania
where Carlos formed places like that Bulgaria Greece all these countries in in the area were
under Ottoman oppression for centuries um the Ottoman Empire was a huge empire that even lasted
up until the 1920s I believe that was it's a last record I think anyway again not the historian
but in 1804 um there was a gathering that happened near about not too far away from Belgrade
there was a gathering of individuals of Serbian
of officers and generals of the of the of the of the secret army that decided that enough was enough
and they wanted to they wanted to lead an they wanted to move for an for an uprising a strategic
uprising against the Ottomans and there was a democratic vote between these these individuals
that met in this is in the heart of Shumadia this is in near this is about yeah an hour and a half
away from Belgrade they met and there was two there was three rounds of voting and on the third
round the first the first person that was elected thought that maybe he was too uh he was too diplomatic
the second person was maybe he was too uh connected to that to the to the to the to the Ottoman so
wouldn't mean a good move and the third person was Kara Georgia and they were like okay great he's
great because he's ruthless and he's he's very strategic and he doesn't take any prisoners okay
let's go with Kara Georgia Kara Georgia was like I don't know why I don't I don't get his uh his
features but he was like six foot over two meter like two meters tall dark hair big brave character
and he led the the first the first uprising I should I should say against the Ottomans and he
plowed through the Ottomans and liberated Serbia from Ottoman rule so if you look at a map around
1804 one of these progression maps you'll see that around 1804 then Serbia just pops into existence
and this in the sea of Ottoman Empire you just see Serbia like right in the middle like a little
island in the middle he was then assassinated after six or seven attempts he was finally taken down
by an axe a few several times and there was a subsequent second uprising in because obviously
the Turks fought back the Turks the Ottomans fought back and then that was that was led by the
Obranovich family the Miloš Obranovich who then they then set up those two recent dynasties of
Serbia of Serbia then the Obranovich ruled for a certain period time the Karadrozovic ruled
for a certain period time then the Obranovich and then the Obranovich were taken out basically I won't
not going to go into too much detail but the story goes that they weren't taken they weren't
taking care of their soldiers very well so there was some inside uprising happening there so they
were assassinated and then King Peter the first of King Peter the first Karadrozovic so my great
great grandfather was coronated and became king 1902 I believe and he was tasked with the mission
to try and take Serbia's influence Austro-Hungary had a lot of influence over Serbia to try and get
that influence away from that influence and do more trade with the east and the west with Russia
and with the French and the Brits to try and become a little bit more independent and he did that
and he was very successful he spent most of his life in exile or in exile running around with a
secret name he was known as Peter Murkonic and he spoke he spoke Serbian with a French accent
because he was brought up in France as well he was an incredible figure he then led after he was king
he helps Serbia become more independent more trade gain more wealth and he was actually quite a
pioneer to say he was actually quite a progressive at the time he was a classical liberal he actually
had the idea of reforming the monarchy a little bit so there is a little bit more I want to say
a little bit more state but he understood that there's a need for some for a reduced state but
obviously that state needed but it was still like an absolute monarchy in a sense but with
he had that book or essay on liberty by John Stuart Mills translated that was his vision he had
that translated from English into Serbian you don't have the eloquence to talk about what
his vision was exactly but he was very much about the individual he was very much about this sovereign
individual like from a very from a very from from quite a early start but realized that you need
to sort of progress a little bit with with the governance model and with with a monarchical
governance model and so move away from absolute monarchy to have something more in as more of
the classical liberals idea that state should be there but as a service provider to its people kind
of what's been turned out in the second rote in the state of this in the third millennium
obviously that's a bit more advanced but that's that was his idea pink Peter the first was a
very heroic character he led Serbia to reliberate Kosovo in the Balkan wars in the 1908 1910 1912
and then again he went to the front lines of the first world war by that point he was in the 70s
and he was very tired and he basically just said okay I've had enough he beat he beat the
austrian higuerans in the first world war he he did a lot and he then handed over administration
duties to his son king alexandre uh crown prince alexander who was my great-grandfather and then
pink Peter the second the first died nine 2021 I mean sorry 1921 and then king alexander came to
power he then took things to the next level and formed Yugoslavia first it was he formed the kingdom
of slovenes of serbs are Croatian slovenes and Slovenia and then then it included Bosnia
Montenegro and Macedonia and this was as a way to to to unify the Balkan countries as an act of
strength to strengthen them against austrian-hungarian and other influences and it was very popular
although there was some infighting and stuff he kept it together as a unified as a monarch does
very very as a unifying force people it was very prosperous we were living under a gold standard
people were making wealth people were private property rights were very much respected asset
people were creating a lot of assets it was actually a beacon of of of ideological hope to the rest
of the world I look at Yugoslavia they've got they've got six nations and three or four religions all
living very peacefully under under under one crown and he was then had he had to be taken out in 1934
he was taken out uh the first assassination ever caught on camera and his cousin became the recent
king my grandfather was too young at the time then my grandfather was became of age in the late 30s
it was for a second world war and that mess and then my father was born in exile 1945 and you know
in London and then he married my mother who is a brazilian princess another story and
and then that led to me yeah to to my older brother being born in 1980 in Chicago then my twin
brother died in 1982 in in Washington and then that led okay so then that led to 2002 after I became
public about bitcoin and then my older brother in April 2020 in 2022 he abdicated in my favor so
I'm now the next line after my father well first of all it's just a it's just an incredible story
to have that much family history that you can look back on and not just uh you know not just any
family either one that is quite uh centrally positioned to a lot of massive historical shifts
right I mean to to think that what always uh what I found just so amazing after meeting you and
getting to chat with you and share some share some beers with you looking forward to the next
time we can do that by the way but me too the fact that you know you have this you are uh you are a
prince you come from literally this incredible legacy this incredible history and at this moment
in time at this moment in history you have decided that bitcoin is the thing that you want to focus
on the thing that you can of because you could be doing any any number of things you know and
you decided that bitcoin is the thing that that matters to you you're now operating as chief
strategy officer of jen three you jen three has a it's it's name day coming up fairly soon here
uh but I mean what was I guess maybe the question is why bitcoin of all the things that you could
that you could focus on of all the things that could you know demand your attention and your time
why bitcoin per question truth I was um
um when how to formulate this bought being born in ex in exile and
never actually thinking there'll be a hope that we would return back to Yugoslavia when I was young
that was still Yugoslavia seeing that because I was born after Tito died he died in 1980 and
in the 80s and 90s you saw the subsequent destruction and disintegration of Yugoslavia
these horrible battles that happened that were um only stoked by the west I would say um
sorry my phone's running out of battery sorry that that was the the ninth thing that you saw
all horrible horrible wars and you see on the news you see all this destruction death and I wasn't
very um I wasn't very it wasn't I wasn't proud to be a Serb I or Yugoslav at the time it was just
that you was it was there was no hope you thought there was gonna be no hope this country is
complete it's completely disintegrates it's it's it's I just didn't think I'll ever move back
there so I started building my as a from a young age my focus was just building my life in the
united kingdom um living in London and but then one thing led to another I was working in finance
I traveled the world uh then when I met my wife 2017 okay so 2021 I should now 2001 I should say
that there was 2000 October 2000 is when Milosevic got ousted and he
that allowed then an opportunity for my father and stepmother to move back to Belgrade and move
into the palace I I then moved back with them I stayed I stayed in London because at that at
that point I was like 19 20 years old I was going to university in London I wanted my life outside
of Serbia I still want to visit Serbia at that point I still want to go on holidays I want to
see my father to spend time with him here and there but I was more mainly focused on and being
outside of Serbia I just wasn't I didn't have that feeling of being a Serb yet then as I got
more experience that as I went through my education became more uh uh as I became older I guess
not older was the word as I became no just as I grew up I started to think about Serbia more
and more and I started to think about my roots more and more but it wasn't until I met my wife
in 2006 wife to be 2016 and we married 2017 and had our son 2008 where something really woke up
inside me and that also tied around the time when I discovered bitcoin in 2017 bought bitcoin
2017 I knew about it before but didn't actually push by in 2017 and when I married my wife and had
our son there was a few things that it was happening were around with my family since I was a kid
that I wasn't very um let's say there was a few things I needed to find out some truth finding
fact finding missions and I got to work I was like okay I want to be back in Serbia at some point
but I'm still working in London I still have my finance job in London it's paying me well it's
paying me for my life to bring up my my my my child and it pays for my wife to do that you know so
and I have and things are okay here in London um but I at some point I've got to move back you know
speaking to my wife about this then as I'm finding out stuff as I'm trying to figure out what we're
going to do then the whole COVID um pandemic hit and that presented itself an opportunity
that meant that we were all sent to go be work to work from home we'll we were all working online
and I was sitting on my desk next to my bed I remember that and then I was thinking like
after a week or two of doing this I was like hey I could be doing this anywhere in the world
that was around April March April 2020 that I go over into the bedroom I speak to I my wife is
playing with our son who's about just turned two at the time I was like hey we're moving to Serbia
when I mean as soon as possible okay so that's about the time when I started questioning the
uh what was going on finance in the world with the finance what we talked about earlier on about
about the whole stimulus about QE about the the the COVID shenanigans and all that
and that was like okay I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do this I'm gonna be doing what I'm doing now
but in Serbia let's move to Serbia so we move to Serbia and that's when I started to study more
about Bitcoin and realizing well this is actually amazing Bitcoin is it's the thing I've been looking
for it's that thing that that that that truth that I've been looking for it's it's I've always had an
innate feeling and then but in since I was young that things were not right in this world and I
couldn't quite put my finger on it um we always led different down different excuses and and explanations
but never to to the source of it and thankfully thanks to the lens that Bitcoin has given me
to understanding what Bitcoin is and then and learning of the uh learning about monetary
history about what money is that provided me the lens to understand a lot about what's going on in
this world and I couldn't look back you know once you see it you can't unsee it and and I here I am
today I love it and you know I'd love to talk a little bit too about uh what you're doing with
Jan 3 because I think that that's uh first of all it's it's fascinating because the great thing about
Bitcoin is that uh because this is an opt-in network because there's no CEO there's no marketing
team there's no nothing there's there's developers and there's users and there's all different levels
of users from the individual to the corporation to the nation state right but Bitcoin doesn't care it
it treats everyone the same and what you guys are doing with Jan 3 is I think really fascinating
because it's you know uh while many approach Bitcoin adoption from a let's say a bottom up uh standpoint
there's this Jan 3 approach which is a little bit more of top down but I think with many of the same
ideals in mind and that's kind of the beautiful thing can can you talk a little bit about the kind
of like what is what is the mission of Jan 3 what is the goal of this organization what are you
what do you guys hope to achieve we are attempting to speed up hyperbic criminalization that's it in
a nutshell hyperbic criminalization is happening whether you like it or not all money will tend to
one but we are just trying to make it facilitate it and make the experience um make it as smooth
and as quick as experience as possible that's our mission as you said Bitcoin is a bottom up
strategy it's a grassroots strategy it is there's there's never been such a decentralized
grassroots bottom up strategy like this that's ever been there's ever been um discovered and
it's beautiful but as you also correctly said we are looking at some top-downs um strategies as well
and that is the niche that we found what Samson found when he was presenting um the Bitcoin bonds
in El Salvador the volcano bonds and realized there's a niche here uh this is an opportunity to
that we uh that we can able to whether we should be able to speak into nation states around the world
and get them to understand what Bitcoin is as you said rightfully as well Bitcoin doesn't care about
politicians Bitcoin doesn't care about anyone just Bitcoin just does Bitcoin but we have to teach
people that Bitcoin can really help help you it's Bitcoin is there to to to to to to make you financially
sovereign to make you financially free um the more you understand that and the more the more you uh
you look into it the more you study it the the clearer it becomes so we are objective at Jam
3 is to educate nation states so politicians be it from presidents prime ministers ministers to
members of parliament about how Bitcoin can help them and their people and we try to figure out ways
plans of how what sort of adoption they can they can come to uh to agreement with and as you know
Bitcoin has many forms of adoption from just mining it then to what's the big buzzword these days is
is the strategic asset reserves so as a store of value to what El Salvador did three years ago
which is a MOE medium of exchange obviously we want all three to happen but at the same time
Bitcoin doesn't really care if any of those happens it's just going to happen but we're trying to
teach politicians that Bitcoin can be super useful and can help them achieve the goals that they want
with their people um and this is also the thing that he's saying that Bitcoin doesn't have a marketing
team uh well we are the marketing team not saying we jam three I'm saying all of us here all the all
of us maxis whether whether we irritate people or not we are driving the message of what Bitcoin is
and that's the beautiful thing about Bitcoin it doesn't have money to pay marketing team you have to
it's that's the beautiful incentive one of the incentives of Bitcoin is it
quite often you know new um people who first get into Bitcoin they they they then they they first
understand that they don't want they don't want to do anything else apart from shout about it
and then you get to the point where like actually you know I can't I can't be both let them figure it
out um which is kind of the the the case for for for for a lot of us but we are passionate about
Bitcoin and we're going to keep on talking about Bitcoin and we've just figured out ways to monetize
that or incentivize that that drive to for people to understand Bitcoin and that's where
Bitcoin has become very uh entrepreneurial and and and creative when it comes to uh how to how to
how to bring Bitcoin to the next level so jam three um uses this opportunity to meet with
nation states as a way to market Bitcoin as a way to give it credibility because we live in a world
where people are very trustworthy towards the state so if they see a president or prime minister
or someone in in charge talking or being photographed or or or mentioning Bitcoin that's gonna that's
gonna help with adoption that's gonna help with uh with this credibility and it's always even if we
just get a picture with the president you're gonna get other people around maybe another president
in the country next door saying hey what are they doing what are they talking about so you're gonna
get that game theory thing happening as well so it's just another way of marketing Bitcoin um to
to get these these conversations happening but you know that's our top-down approach is just to
get conversations happening education understanding how Bitcoin can bring wealth to your country by
mining it because energy is money money is energy and how you can do that you can create these
finance these incredible uh financial um Bitcoin back financial products like uh Bitcoin bonds to
to fund infrastructure projects just by extract just by using these surplus or wasted energy or
renewable new new renewable energy sources from your country so you end up taxing your citizens less
and further further developing your infrastructure it's beautiful right that's the things that we're
trying to promote with jam three but there's also the other thing is that we also have our bottom
up tool as well and that is aqua aqua is aqua wallet is what's going to help drive the adoption for
the next billion people because what we're talking about before is the top down now we're talking about
bottom up aqua is trying we're trying to make it the user interface the user experience as easy as
possible aqua came out jan three this year and it's organically grown grown to about 50k or maybe
even closer 60k downloads without any marketing at all spent on it the only marketing we've done is on
twitter and other other social media platforms um we will soon have a budget for for for some
other marketing but we will do on the ground gorilla style marketing we're gonna we're not
sorry we're not going to sponsor podcasts that's all right i won't hold it against you thanks we're
gonna get we're gonna get it we're gonna shove it in the hands of people and get their hands dirty
and and transfer some sats from one person to another and get them to understand bitcoin by
by by seeing uh work in in the flesh um so i don't know if people are aware of aqua aqua uses uh
aqua the in the the the face of aqua is like it splits bitcoin into two sections into the savings
account which is bitcoin on the main chain and then your spending account which is then bitcoin on
liquid which is also used for lightning transactions but there's another thing and this might upset a
lot of the maximums with us but there's usd there's another spending account section there which is
usd t but that is also all held on on bitcoin liquid uh sidechain um reason why we use we are
using usd t on the wallet is because usd t whether you like it or not is used more for transactionally
in latin america than bitcoin is so a lot of people use usd t and don't really care about bitcoin
so we're trying to make that experience for the usd t user easy but also have bitcoin on the same
only bitcoin on the same uh face so they see there the opportunities and transfer over onto bitcoin
as a savings account so we have going from the top to the bottom savings account bitcoin main
chain spending account bitcoin on liquid for lightning transactions as well and then usd
spending's account and then we have great technology that will do the swaps from one to another using
bolts and atomic swaps that will you able to then move from one to the other seamlessly
and that's just to start we'll also we'll also or have the optionality to buy bitcoin on it
um and also sooner or later next year at some point to get debit cards bitcoin debit cards
and have the whole marketplace for bitcoin and make it as easy as possible and that's where we
get the fees from is from the swaps and also from other marketplace activities that will do um it's
and we're trying to make it as easy as possible for the for the for the user to um uh to use as
our marketing sets on the when you open the bitcoin the aqua wallet sometimes it says uh
a wallet your grandmother can use and of course okay when uh and it's because self custodial so
it's your keys your coins and it's open source as well and for anyone who has not tried aqua i would
really highly recommend it uh i have been using it uh since it was released and very much enjoy it
it's a smooth smooth wallet experience it is and also as far as the usdt part goes i want to point
out that it's very important that you guys are doing usdt on liquid on so yeah not on tron not
on ethereum you're doing it on liquid here's the brilliant thing like because um as you know usdt
is works it has much bigger has a much bigger network and it was and it's functioning on on on
shitcoin rails like erc20 and um and tron and things like that so you can actually from those
shitcoin rails transfer to your aqua wallet but it's going to appear as bitcoin liquid so we're
siphoning away from the shitcoin trains and when it's on our chain it's when it's on your in our
wallet in your wallet in in aqua wallet it comes out as bitcoin liquid and we're making that experience
it's super easy you know you uh we're up right now it's open to tron on the rc20 but soon it's
going to be open to the other the other usdt shitcoin rails like i think finance and salana
polygon and yeah things things words i don't like to say but it's true um but the great thing is is
that bitcoin on i mean bitcoin usdt on bitcoin sidechain is the most efficient the cheapest and
the best and on the other shitcoin rails they are now starting to have issues i'm not technical
enough to discuss it but you can see that they're having fee issues um and operability issues i i
will defer to someone else more technical to talk about that but we we are no we are seeing we're
seeing we're seeing the opportunity now that that's uh i mean you've you've seen the you've seen
what's happening now that you've seen a lot of the shitcoin is now jumping onto bitcoin
now they're going on to layer two as the new thing let's we're building on bitcoin you know
i i've seen accounts out there like uh shitcoin accounts like from two three years ago like they
would say yeah they're all about ethereum this and salana that and all this and that and then
they realized that their their price shitcoin is is not really the uh the thing that was that was
holed up that was meant to be and then all of a sudden they have uh oh yeah we're building on bitcoin
now yeah yeah but well it turns out we i'll go ahead no i'm just saying it doesn't change anything
it doesn't change anything for us it just shows that you know that uh that it's all gonna go to one
and so it's eventually you know we're just gonna make it easier that's the whole idea is that that
why we have this this this product is we're gonna make it easier for people to
cite to to to transfer from whatever um uh usdt shitcoin rail onto usdt bitcoin and it's going
to be protected by the the liquid federation which um because it was another great thing that's
had with another great layer one of the only two or three layer two is actually work and and for those
who have not tried uh liquid uh either uh usdt on liquid or or bitcoin on liquid i i would really
recommend you check it out uh the liquid network has been operating as a federation for a number of
years very successfully and i know that there's often a knee jerk reaction uh with some of the
stuff to say oh well that's you know uh usdt who needs it just use bitcoin and the reality is that
a lot of people in the world not uh still wants that right and so why not give them which aqua
does an opportunity to use usdt on the liquid network on a bitcoin sidechain versus i think most
of liquid or excuse me most of usdt's volume is on a lot of it's on tron right like on the majority
of rsc 20 so yeah i i'd love it siphon that off pull it off bring the monetary energy over to bitcoin
and give them a great user experience and again i would i would highly recommend yeah and if you
if you want to pay in those other um chicory sidechains then it will it will easily do that for
you but while you're holding it in the wallet everything is nice and clean bitcoin yeah and
going on to liquid i'm not technical enough to to talk about this but liquid is also a great tool for
um for easing the transition from trad fly to bitcoin because you can do so many things on liquid
that you that you can do in trad fly that you can't do anything anywhere else and that's going to help
drive adoption and do it in a very in a in a very um undisruptive seamless hopefully
undisruptive way the idea is not to have an abrupt like okay we have trad fly one day and then we
have bitcoin the next day no no it's never going to be like that it's going to adoption happens in
peaks and troughs and and and and winds and losers here and there where we have
layer two solutions like liquid that will help that transition in a smoother way where you can
build those products that you can get on trad on trad fly but actually back it by bitcoin
and you can do your bitcoin bonds on on on bitcoin liquid as well it's it's it's a great it's i mean
it's a great layer two solution it just gives me so much hope having that liquid and lightning as
as a solutions to uh to not solutions as yeah that's solution sorry to how we how we how we how we
how we grow for for for adoption purposes well it's it's super interesting looking at the nation
state landscape right now and i think it's great that you guys you you just as gen three you have
this kind of multi multi pronged approach of yes top down talking to the decision makers
politicians leaders but also hey we're giving a bottom up solution aqua at the same time and then
with the kind of integration of the liquid network as well this is something i talked with
serename presidential candidate maya parbu about you know she's looking at she's right yeah she's
fantastic and i i truly hope that she is that she wins the election i have a lot of faith in her
she's but this is what she wants to do right she wants to try and truly have the the separation
of money in state but also to use these tools that we have available on bitcoin on liquid as well
to be able to provide just a better let's say a better user experience as a citizen for people
which is an amazing thing and i'm i'm curious as you're looking at the the nation state landscape
i guess what is the what is the state of nation state adoption right now how are you guys looking
at it are are the conversations you're having taking a different tone now that bitcoin is
really you know we're at over a hundred k point one million uh you know let's say that's 2024
started off with a bang with etfs being approved yeah and uh just for the record i'm not for etfs
because that's not getting to bitcoin directly and etfs is it's it's highly um what's the word i'm
looking for it's very much still tied to the to the traditional financial system but it's great
for adoption and it's great for number go up and number go up is what that ultimately does drive
adoption and people getting into bitcoin it caught me into bitcoin in the first place and i'm sure
many other people so you know people want to increase their their wealth and when you see numbers go
up it's always a good thing and then we stick around for the monetary uh renaissance um so so the etfs
did create a lot more conversations then which was i think was fantastic was when trump did a 180
on bitcoin at the beginning of summer and he at the at i don't know whether it was at the bitcoin
conference or was it somewhere else but when he's uttered those words you know your right to self
custody that was huge uh a former president now president like saying that that is huge obviously
that i mean i don't know whether he fully understands bitcoin or not but i'm presuming that his children
baron eric i met eric the other day actually briefly nice guy get bitcoin i actually
believe that they actually truly get bitcoins whether they're 100 max or not i'm not not too
sure but they get bitcoin maybe that they're they're at the investor stage um i don't want i don't
want to expect for you or anything but yeah they get bitcoin they understand the importance but also
if you tie it back to what it means for that for uh for for america and for elections is that it's a
huge voter base now if you have about i think in america you know better you're you're you're in america
right now there's about 18 million people who own bitcoin or some other shitcoin um i know of those
18 million people who own um bitcoin or some other shitcoin some of them probably have a lot of their
wealth tied to it so they will vote with their with their wealth so it's a huge voter base and it's
also a hard voter base to quantify because yeah mainly young people millenn millennials and generation
acts or whatever they call them and the the little ones but uh they uh they are they will only want
people to they will only want candidates that are positive towards crypto and general shitcoins and
and will mainly bitcoin will hopefully it will obviously hopefully they'll get to the point of
actually which actually you know i can't take away too much from the horrible administration that was
the biden administration um they did recognize bitcoin as a commodity and they did separate it
from the rest which is great at one point so i give them some some some some some credence to that
but then they will suddenly Ethereum managed to get into that category but so then you realize
yeah that's that's that's shady but okay it's it's it's just it's something that the fact that they
they recognize bitcoin as a commodity and it's set a precedent for the rest of the world because
whatever the SEC does many of the other financial regulators around the world will hopefully
copy um just don't copy the ethereum part
uh um yeah so the conversations after that after trump started to talk talking about it and then
soon as trump was elected we've had a lot more conversation a lot more interest
we've already since that since then had a lot of conversations around the world many smaller
countries and some maybe larger countries and i'm not going to do to any any announcements
on that but maybe 2025 we could have some some some uh some good news may i without uh without
you obviously disclosing any specifics because i don't want to put you on the spot for that
can you say in terms of uh i guess in terms of good news more broadly what does that look like
for you guys does that look like uh strategic bitcoin reserves for certain countries does that
look like mining operations you'll see you'll see you'll see an ever increase in mining operations
and you'll see and you will definitely see strategic strategic um bitcoin reserves yeah
i think now there's a race happening right now as as we speak i mean it's and but when when it
comes to medium of exchange that is that's a that's a tough one yeah but given given it's bitcoin is
is is acting nowadays when people it sells better as as a as a as a store of value right now than it
does as medium exchange even though bitcoin is whole thesis is peer-to-peer electronic cash system
it seems that the store of value parts of it because of its scarcity is what it's bringing
a lot of people because that's where the number go up um that's where the numbers numbers go up um
um is is driving adoption well i think too the the the scarcity i mean and not just scarcity
it is absolute absolutely finite right there we don't there's nothing else
like that i mean you could even say gold okay you know gold is gold is scarce there's a finite
amount on earth but okay but then how far out do we go do we go to the nearest asteroid that is
chocked full of enough gold to make everyone a billionaire you know there's there's different
levels to that scarcity of gold you know do we start extracting gold from the salt water in the ocean
where it's present and is just requiring enough energy to be able to extract it okay so how's
yeah it's it's scarce but not in the absolute way that bitcoin is and i think that this is where
you see the game theory of right uh both individual but then you know for the purpose of this
conversation nation state adoption start to play out as you said there is a race i think that everyone
has been very much put on notice right now i think also from a corporate perspective michael
sailor has put everyone on notice for some years now he hasn't been hiding this this has been very
public he's been saying this is what i'm doing this is how i'm doing it you should do it too
and you see some other you know corporations picking up that mental some similar scientific mara
riot now a few others but at the nation state level i think there's at least from my perspective
there seems to be a growing acknowledgement even hearing the way that somebody like putin is now
talking about bitcoin saying who can stop bitcoin nobody there's an acknowledgement that this thing
is here to stay and that this is a race right that this is there's some urgency here because the
first mover el salvador you could argue was the the absolute first mover okay kingdom of butan as
well is you know mined a ton of bitcoin with excess hydropower but in terms of let's say g7 players
the first mover will have a massive advantage correct is that what you're seeing too well
that's what we what we'll see it's as we said bitcoin doesn't really care but in terms of driving
if one of the g7 adopts it as a strategic asset reserve or as a medium of exchange properly
then you will see others and or you will see price go up then you'll get samson's uh i'll make a candle
mega candle in action yeah he's he's he's waiting for it he's waiting for yeah now it's yeah yeah sorry
um it's it's it's it's it's just it's just fascinating to see how quickly it's it's moving now with
uh with this uh it with this cycle that when i first got into a properly last cycle i mean i first
got into two cycles ago but when i first understanding what bitcoin was nest when nest went off shortly
after when you saw the likes of el salvador adopting it and and michael sailor doing his uh
his his corporate adoption of bitcoin but then you're now that you have to wait now those two
country a country and corporate and and and come sorry el salvador and and and micro strategy where
i guess with the kidney pigs now we're now in the in the second cycle i think people probably
waited to see how that would plan out and it's obviously working very well for those two countries
i mean countries uh for that country and that uh that company so i think now you'll see you'll see
the next round of adoptions but having said that you're still going to get a lot of people that
are going to be driving away from it and a lot of people still have bitcoin derangement syndrome
and will always have it i think there's a very good article by jesse cro had he's been on sell
his name his name croce oh croce croce yes jesse croce jesse or jesse mires uh his uh his pseudonym
is croce croce that's it um never met the guy but great fan of what he's written and there's one
article i have to get the name but it's about why yuppies don't like bitcoin uh why the yuppie
elite dismiss bitcoin you know yeah that's the one it's a great article i think it's one of the one
of the best articles out there really i think it's definitely on on on a on a re to to to read list
for many people getting into bitcoin because it really gives you understanding of why there's this
managerial class out there that it drives them crazy and that's the issue that we have also when
now when we're doing big when we're trying to reach out to nation states we don't really we can't
even i have as a member of royal family i have i have certain ability to open doors
and that's great but even that you go reach out to someone and create a diplomatic channel
with the country and say well you want to talk about bitcoin it's not going to get anywhere
so even that those top-down conversations actually happen from bottom-up efforts they
usually happen from people on the ground bitcoin is on the ground who've identified a politician
a leader or someone who might be interested in bitcoin and so they need help so they come to us
and then we create a telegram group and that telegram group we have some conversations and
next thing what happens is uh we end up maybe having a meeting with the president or the prime
minister or the or whatever a government official or or individual and and that that also happened
from bitcoin is on the ground in that country that's what happened in the case with Maya
in Suriname that she get led us to the introduction to the government there i didn't go but uh
samson went and very interesting meetings that happened there and they were talking oh yeah maybe
we'll do strategic reserve of one percent of our treasuries in there and then i think Maya then saw
all this happening but the way the meetings were led and dealt with and says you know
i'm going to do this on my own this country is uh this country needs needs needs better leaders
and she's up for the job she understands what's needed she knows what's what the people um what
the people need and i don't think the people don't quite understand what they need yet but
we're gonna we're helping get the message across with her so if anyone out there just
helped to help Maya in her journey to try and educate the public and hopefully she might win a
position as a leader of a country so yeah i hope she does and you know that's that's the
the really cool thing now is that i think that there's a new generation of leaders
that are that are starting to to make themselves known Maya is one of them um and i mean book
alia was the one of the first exactly yeah and i think it's going to take a couple of so it's
going to as as it takes a couple of uh of bitcoin cycles it's going to take a couple of a couple of
our global election cycles and you know global elections happen every uh say democratic elections
happens usually four to five years on average um as they realize price goes up and new candidates
come in and they start to get educated and stuff and they realize that they need bitcoin on their
platforms then they'll so that will ultimately drive adoption and you will earn you will see
more candidates in the next five five to ten years you will see candidates putting bitcoin on
there on their platforms are some things that they're running for you'll get more mias hopefully
and you'll get um and you will get yeah you you will get you will get you will get some uh more
mias and hopefully you end up with more candidates out there what are your thoughts about Malay in
argentina um do you think that he's because he's obviously uh i mean he's a an an austrian economist
right he's a a libertarian he has spoken very favorably about bitcoin uh he's an intelligent guy
clearly do you think that argentina is going to be in a place to make any sort of moves from
a strategic level they've already made moves on mining as well so they're now just they're
actually with their national energy company um get the name of it we met with the the energy
company one of where we were in Buenos Aires two years two years ago and they're they have a division
that's mining bitcoin i think they've ramped up operations there which is which is encouraging
but then going back to milay milay yeah he is a Rothbardian um but he's a he's he's not quite focused
on bitcoin yet because in argentina things a little uh shit coinery is very predominant in
argentina and we saw this when we went there when i went there two years ago at la bitconf
in Buenos Aires that was a great moment there was a very good moment there um because la bitconf
even though the name suggests bitcoin was also about shitcoining as well and samson was invited
to speak there jimmy song was invited to speak there and vitalik was invited to speak there
and this happened just after the ftx crash so this was november 2022 so that the organizers of the
other conference decided to do a panel on the ftx crash and invited samson jimmy vitalik um the
organizer himself and one or two other guys one regulations guy and someone else and that panel
was the most entertaining panel i've ever i've ever i've ever witnessed um it turned into more of a
like bitcoin versus ethereum bitcoin v shitcoin session and i mean you can see the recording online
but anyway going back to uh going back to argentina i think milay's approach is very free it's
as a libertarian very free market let the market decide and stuff so i you know obviously he's not
cracking down on he's not going to crack down he's going to allow bitcoin to happen it's going to
allow but it's at the same time he's not going to i don't think he's there's any moves i see there
of him differentiating between bitcoin and the rest and we're trying to get meetings happening
there to try and um we have some leads and stuff but it's a tough one to crack argentina is a different
size it's a different it's it's a different it's an auto magnitude much bigger country than um
then el savidore and it's given its history of financial disasters and it's structured they
have a lot of shit to to sort out and that's why i think he's focusing mainly on
on government efficiency on doge on his on his on his uh department of government
you know as as musk and then thingy are going to be doing but yeah on on cleaning i'm cleaning up
and and loosening up uh the the size of the state apparatus there while he's doing that it's uh you
know he promised that he would take down the central bank but he just can't take down the
central bank like one day do you have a central bank next day you don't it doesn't work that way
um that's going to take time uh i think i've seen we've seen progress there we've seen inflation
numbers are actually being reduced a lot but you know i still i still think he's very much still in his
in his mission and we're still waiting to see what the results will have what we're going to be he's
got a huge huge task at hand still has but there are some promising promising uh data
start coming out of the country and hopefully he will do he will leave such a mark that he will
be reelected again and continue his good work yeah it's it's certainly that he has a a lot of irons
in the fire in terms of cleaning up right but the system was already yeah the system was so
rotten that people so many people site of what we're benefiting from the uh from from decades of
of interventionism of socialism and stuff it's not easy to clean that up overnight i think he's
the character to do it you know he's that fiery um crazy guy that has the ability just just to
make it happen to cut it and and to to to essentially to start cutting out those tumors
but at the same time they're not they're not all um benign tuners and some of them are quite malignant
and that takes time yeah i'm curious too you know we were talking about monarchy uh earlier democracy
the state generally you guys are obviously focused on nation state adoption on on multiple levels
but what do you think is the purpose of the state or maybe i should say what is the purpose of the
modern state what what is it actually supposed to do for the people that reside within its borders
it's meant to attract people it's meant to be a service company towards the people
a great book to read about this is the current head of the lichensstein royal family um his name is
prince hands adam the second in the early 2000s he wrote this book the state in the third millennium
and to sum it up it's basically the state should act as a service provider to this people attracting
people as opposed to repelling them and it's it's it's the vision that we will have so
i would say that it can be used his his uh his model is also the model of many libertarians
he's a libertarian he's an he's an Austrian i had the opportunity the the pleasure of meeting him
last year at an Austrian Austrian economics conference that they organize every year in
in in badus in lichensstein and he wasn't attending the conference but later we had drinks at the palace
and he was there because he's a bit he's a bit older he's in his late 70s but he's still like so
socialize great guy you know loves loves it loves a bit of attention and loves a good chat and stuff
and i also met with some of the other members of the royal family who organized that conference
the other one's prince michael one of his cousins and prince philip as well who's another cousin
and they they all they all own bitcoin i wouldn't say they're at the uh maxi stage they're at the
investment stage um investor stage i to say um but anyway going back to the government's model
i think lichensstein is a great example i know it's a small country it's only got 40 50 000 people
but they have a model that works because they're very wealthy as uh when you when you're looking
at these uh kensin metrics gdp and all that sort of stuff they don't really paint the full picture
but when you divide when you divide it um and look at it per capita you get a slightly better
picture and as a gdp per capita lichensstein is probably one of the wealthiest countries in the
world and when you go there it's it's it's it you see it you see it every there's a lot of nice cars
the place is absolutely spotless everything works and it's also a free country you can
actually smoke in the restaurants as well it's brilliant it's you go then you go a few minutes
down the road you're in uh you're in switzerland or or uh what's the other yeah i think switzerland
and the other i please my geography anyway i'm not gonna embarrass myself but then you'll say you
can't smoke in the restaurant yeah lichensstein gets it it's a good it's a good model but um
i would say that the other government's model that i like is uh in terms of democracy and i say
it's one of the most efficient the only i say efficient the only democracy that fully properly
works is that of switzerland um that is its decentralized canton system where uh each canton
has a local government and within the local government uh the the elected fish the elected
mps are not career politicians and they actually have jobs they actually go for sessions uh every
i don't know how many times a year and they're hardly paid for it but they're given a little
incentive for it and their democracy is is much more direct um it's it's it's it's it's it's a
it's a it's a model that's been doing been working for a few centuries and if you're looking at how
democracy is meant to work it works at that level at that scale when you're when you have less than
let's say a hundred or two hundred thousand people democracy i don't think really works beyond that
then you get to the point where you really have um huge possibility of having um
uninformed majorities with an informed minority controlling the system which is the case in
many republics and constitutional monarchies around the world um then switzerland has a federal
government and i'd say it's only downfall is that federal government has yearly elections i would say
what would be a great model would be to have switzerland's switzerland's canton system
with direct democracy but the federal level would be a monarchy so that's where you kind of get in
in lichtenstein but at a much greater level a much higher much bigger level and the monarchy
would be in charge of of foreign policy um defense and not just that but this has to only work under
a bitcoin standard and a proper hard money standard which is only bitcoin there's no other choice um
that's you that this is the next stage of the democracy i would see is that that particular model um
that the the monarch acts as the not just a placeholder but actually acts as the as the custodian
to traditions to to customs to um to family values and to continuity and also as the foreign as
someone who promotes foreign policy i mean foreign promotes who goes about foreign policy for for
his country and his incentives of his family being in place there for many to come is directly
incentivize in the in the well-being of the country so i i so i would say that you know i have
shot on democracy and i will continue to do that and i've got to be careful how i do i do this because
people will take that uh negatively because i'm a lot of people in this world see democracy as
freedom which is not the case um and i don't see what us going from democracies to absolute monarchy
i don't think that's ever going to work but if we're going to be realistic i think we can we can
see uh democracies move to constitutional monarchies and then constitutional monarchies move to something
with more direct democracies in place and then over time things become a bit more decentralized
as the money becomes decentralized and then we'll move to uh something which i which i envisage
is uh is is is small is is like a switzerland cantons and but all glued together with uh
depending on the region some bigger some smaller with uh with a monarchy or some or some aristocracy
uh in charge you will maybe somewhere those have federal governments and you will have elections
as well but uh their their main purpose of existence is to promote neutrality and continuity
and stability over anything else really especially when the money is hard
it's it's a fascinating thing to think about and to see where we may go in the next few years because
i think that one thing at least uh most people should agree on probably a lot may not but
the state apparatus in democracies look at you know okay the united states is a is a constitutional
republic right uh but you know it's uh with it's a constitutional democracy
we our state apparatus has gotten so much bigger and bloated than our founding fathers
i mean they would be you know they're rolling in their graves they will be a whole massive
yes yeah it's it's disgusting and how much waste that creates because the state is not
in its modern sense in any way a productive institution it only exists based on theft and
that theft takes multiple forms it takes the direct form of taxation and then it takes the
indirect form of the silent tax of inflation perpetuated by the quote independent public
private central bank uh full of you know that's just a cartel of private banks known as the federal
reserve this this clearly you know if it were if it were not for technology driving down the
cost of everything i think the people would have ride it in the streets a long time ago but the fiat
system has bought itself some extra time i believe and this fiat mode of governance because technology
has basically hidden so much of that silent tax of inflation from the people but i think uh
you know can only kick the can down the road for so long technology is there to enslave us but also
to set us free yeah and that's the the the not i want to say the irony the paradox of it that's
it's take the the democratic republican model has allowed that plus money printer has allowed
these election cycles to promise people things over time and that's how these these people
remain in power and that incentive structure is what leads us to crazy clown world that we are today
um but the same time you know technology has progressed over time and there are great things
being built out there and the internet obviously did a lot of great things and but it's also a great
place for uh for the spread it's it's the information age but seems to be like uh the
that a lot of people not getting the right information and now we're now we're seeing
everything that we read and no i say we those who are starting to understand that uh that the media
pre-internet was was very much a state apparatus or if it was run privately it would have it would
have some sort of interest then along came the internet internet disrupted that but still continued
it and made it and then accelerated it and now we have things like Twitter who are freed but still
not 100% then we have things like Nostra but um but the problem with Nostra is it's still very much
in its infancy and there's still a bit of much of an echo chamber for uh for for Bitcoin maximums
but it's the start of something great and i think it's beautiful as somewhere i can actually talk
my mind um more so i still gotta be careful but like on Twitter if i treat anything about Bitcoin
you'll see a lot of angry people talk you know just polluting my uh my comments i don't turn my
comments off i'm i'm not i'm not i'm not into censorship yeah um but uh yeah i'm just so i'm
just it just where this ties back to is i think that's uh that's um that democracy is in uh that what
we were talking about before is how the republic democ- democratic republicism has led us to uh
led us to a point today where we have re- you know we have improved that technology to the point
where that technology can now be used against for or against us and now which some of us are
realizing that that thanks to the creations like like Bitcoin that we can actually use that technology
for great things and it's gonna change and it's changing us for for the better
amen and philip i want to be conscious of your time here i didn't even realize we've run nine
okay so one thing i wanted to really ask you is for you know i know that your pitch let's say to
to nation states is going to vary depending on what kind of country you're in are they you know are
they very energy rich for example do they have a lot of stranded energy do they have other issues
you know what level are you talking to that's going to change but i'm curious just more broadly
like if there's a if there is some sort of a decision maker or maybe somebody who is an
aspiring decision maker in a country who is listening to this who's still kind of on the fence
about bitcoin or doesn't necessarily see see the real value in this yet they're not deep down the
rabbit hole what's what do you what do you say to that person what do you say to encourage them to
say you know your your country needs this we all need this that's them that's the uh
that's the i would say the the million dollar question that's the omega can that's the omega
kind of question yeah it's just a tough one that it depends as you said it depends on the
individual really depends on the nation and the individual um i think that what helps
is that people understand those uh look the ones who understand bitcoin the quickest are the ones
who are who are suffering financially the most who have the most who have the worst capital controls
over them who are living in the most tyranny who have the the worst financial system we're living
in the worst financial system so you know places like Nigeria um Lebanon Venezuela Argentina to
some extent um those countries they get bitcoin much quicker some sadly they some of them go down
the path of of shit-coining and stuff but that's i mean that's the way it is but you know i always
refer back to articles that turn into book actually you know alex gladstein's uh check your financial
privilege as a good way to to educate people people in the west and they say the west the
the developed world will be like yeah we don't need bitcoin everything works fine over here um
yeah because you live in a very high trust society things the services do work you pay your taxes a
lot of them and but at the same time that is that they are extracting a lot from you without
realizing and you will one day will wish you got into bitcoin sooner because they are still
extracting a lot of wealth from you and you are missing out on on on on on improving your situation
or improving your uh your your future wealth without without having
a savings technology as bitcoin and we're now seeing this we're not now seeing this we've seen
this now for for for several decades in the west in the in the liberal west because thanks to these
liberal policies and i i say liberal because it obviously liberal can mean a lot of things but
i say liberal in the in the in the new sense of the liberal uh which is slightly more tied to socialism
that this is creating has created um incentives and moves against family values and against um
traditional values and religion and so forth and saying that these things are archaic and they're
conservative they're too conservative they're extreme or so and so but these things were there
you know religion and traditions were there for a reason um they were there to promote family
values which is essential for a civilization and for people to create families for people to um
to protect their families not just morally and ethically but also uh
with values um where am i going with this what i'm saying is that that these countries these
developing countries developed countries the the the the liberal west are seeing birth rates are now
way below their replacement numbers uh in their below i think the birth rates should be about
2.1 or 2.1 to replace the population and above to to to expand the population but now we're seeing
some many many these countries way below two in the ones and some countries even below one
so economies are shrinking i mean i mean populations are shrinking and that also means
that that's putting a strain on the current financial ponzi scheme of a fiat system which
which means that we have more of an aging population so pension pension schemes are
are going to be failing i'm going to be trying to extract as much as we can from the younger
generations and they already have it worse off because of the fiat system has meant that uh
prices of everything has gone up and the um and thanks to to fiat the the financialization and
and of of all of everything from property to cars and everything has become much i said cars
i suppose but not about properties become much more expensive to then saving assets into in in
younger people can't save in anything but they cannot with bitcoin but they didn't have the
opportunity to save something that would grow in value over time which gives them stability
that gives them security and that is essentially what how civilizations are born how civilizations
develop is through having strong private property rights and hard money having the ability to have
strong private property rights so the state does not take much from you or nothing from you
and having something that's indestructible and that will not be uh debased away by by uh
by the state so you have security into the future and when that gives you the opportunity to be
comfortable with yourself so you can invest in yourself then you can invest in having a family
and then you can invest in your community and that has ripple effects and that's how civilizations
are born and where that comes strong a bit uh well i think you know that's this push against
um traditions and and and family values is is is having huge mental effects uh on on the younger
generations and they're turning them to be quite nihilistic and they see no hope in the future
and they don't want kids they don't have the money and or they just don't feel that they think family
is is is is is not really worth it maybe there's there's climate change that's going to destroy
the world the planet and we don't have in the future and all this sort of stuff and
and that's the wrong way to go about it i think the family is going to save you from
that from all this family is the most important part of of of what's being human
and yeah i think bitcoin helps protect all that
incredibly well said and i i could not agree more and as somebody who's just uh carlin i had our
first child you know our son he's almost a year old now 25th of december correct
uh uh they're about uh yeah not yeah yeah not not quite there uh was on almost almost yeah
i just saw them i remember seeing announcements on the 20th yeah yeah that was great yeah
but but this this this thing you're spot on like this is what gives you hope for the future
and but in order to have that that hope for the future that your family can bring you need to
actually want to have a family and feel that you can support that family into the future
and i think if it if it weren't for bitcoin i myself would probably be much more nihilistic
but as it is i am optimistic i am hopeful i'm excited about the future and i i i cannot wait
to see what the future has in store and what i can build in this future and what i other people can
build uh on a bitcoin standard that you know it starts with the individual right moving to a bitcoin
standard it does start to individuals it has to start with you starts individual and individual
can only survive with this family and then they move the family then gets our we as bitcoiners
will create that ripple effect you know if you want to say what's the best way to orange bill
someone needs to have children amen yeah that's it really it's just to start a family be the example
yourself and then you know that's gonna have that's gonna set an example to other people and that's
gonna have the uh the ripple effect that's gonna create a better civilization it starts from from
us and i i think that that is a a perfect note to wrap up on uh philp thank you so much for your
time here this has been a treat i look forward to doing it in person again soon where do you want
to send people i'll link your no-ster i'll link your x i'll link gen three as well for anybody
who wants to to reach out or see what you guys are doing anywhere else you want to do that you
you've got all those other ones yeah so gen three x and a no-ster as well and again i'd really
recommend people check out aqua it's it's a great wallet i've been loving using it and and i love
that you guys are building out this top down and bottom up approach at the same time i think it's
huge thank you now thank you walker we've hopefully got big announcements for next year i i look forward
to it now now the wheels are already turning but thank you again philp this has been this has been
a treat and thanks to everyone who had joined in on the live stream on no-ster as well well
we'll talk again soon i hope i will look forward to walker it's been a pleasure
and that's a wrap on this bitcoin talk episode of the bitcoin podcast you are a bitcoin only
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