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- [00:00]
A
The US absolutely needs a bitcoin reserve and I think every other country does as well. The way I see it is bitcoin is going to be the next major economic driver. People are very bullish on AI and they think AI is going to change the entire financial landscape because of massive investment amounts into it. But all those companies that are doing things like AI, they need to store their money somewhere. Like Nvidia needs a vehicle to store their money from selling chips and whatnot, similar to what MicroStrategy is doing. Right. They're trying to protect their savings and it's just the same thing, but on a nation state level where countries realize that this is the next big thing, this is a superior asset class.
- [00:47]
B
We're joined now by one of the most vocal advocates for bitcoin, Samson Mao. Welcome.
- [00:54]
A
Thanks. Great to be here.
- [00:55]
B
Nice to see you. Irl. You need to hold the microphone so people can hear you. Nice to see you irl. This is an instance where Samson and I have met on the computer, but never in real life. And that is a big theme of this conference.
- [01:11]
A
It is.
- [01:13]
B
Okay, let's get into it. You were talking on a panel about bitcoin's evolution with Adam Beck. He joined us at the desk earlier. What was your biggest takeaway? What happened on that stage?
- [01:24]
A
We talked about a lot of things. The bullish thesis for bitcoin adoption. Around the world we covered things like MicroStrategy. Just the immense buy pressure, pension funds coming in, sovereign wealth funds, nation states. And oddly enough, the takeaway was I mentioned something about bitcoin prices, probably suppressed now. And that's what made the media cycles for some reason. I don't know.
- [01:46]
B
Media loves a good bitcoin price prediction, I can tell you that. Yeah, I think the last time Samson, you and I talked, you said a million dollar bitcoin in how long? Maybe by 2030.
- [01:57]
A
I think it should have been last year, but I had to push it back. So let's say 2025. One million.
- [02:03]
B
One million by 2025. That's a very bold prediction. What gets us there?
- [02:06]
A
Well, the thing you have to understand is as the bitcoin price goes up, the entire market dynamic changes. So Bitcoin at $100k, it's kind of like this. People are excited, but now they're bored again. People think it's a top. People are making predictions of a reasonable price target, maybe 150, maybe 200. They don't want to go too crazy out there. But when bitcoin goes to 250 it's a very different landscape when we get to 500,000. It's also a very different landscape too. We're halfway to overtaking gold, and at that point, people are starting to wonder, what do I sell bitcoin for? Why am I selling bitcoin for dollars? And then that catapults us again. So it's probably like a 2 or 3x from here and then another 2 or 3x to get us to 1 million.
- [02:50]
B
I'm sorry I said 2030. I think it was so unfathomable for me that I had to give it that extra year. But it is by 2025.
- [02:57]
A
Everything's happening faster now, especially with the Trump admin talking about strategic bitcoin reserve. And it's things like this that can really change the market dynamics in an instant because it's just such a powerful shift, much like with the ETFs. When the ETFs launched in the US it was sort of like a blessing worldwide that bitcoin is a legitimate asset class now and everyone can build products around it and financialize it. So everyone followed the US And I think it's going to be the exact same thing with SBRs. Once the US does it, everyone's going to realize, okay, we need it too, and there'll be a fast follow in a scramble to get theirs put together.
- [03:37]
C
So in terms of SPRs, you've been having conversations with governments for a while now about bitcoin helping El Salvador in terms of the biggest pools of institutional capital in the world. You know, you have pensions now allocating to crypto for a while. You have endowments now allocating to crypto. Sovereign wealth was kind of like that untouchable last thing to come. Now you have El Salvador, rumors of us. Like, what does that look like in the future? Do we. Is it inevitable that we get a US Bitcoin reserve? And it's just a matter of when and then if we do, what does the world look like after that?
- [04:09]
A
I think it is inevitable. The US Absolutely needs a bitcoin reserve, and I think every other country does as well. The way I see it is bitcoin is going to be the next major economic driver. Like, people are very bullish on AI and they think AI is going to change the entire financial landscape because of massive investment amounts into it. But all those companies that are doing things like AI, they need to store their money somewhere. Like Nvidia needs a vehicle to store their money from selling chips and whatnot, similar to what MicroStrategy is doing right. They're trying to protect their savings and it's just the same thing. But on a nation state level where countries realize that this is the next big thing, this is a superior asset class and they're going to need to do something. And you couple that with the astronomical debt levels and the attempts to mitigate that, like creating the Department of Government Efficiency. Right. And it goes to show that people are realizing that the existing system is not sustainable. The interest payments are approaching 1 trillion or at 1 trillion a year. And it's only going to snowball because interest compounds unless they magically fix the interest rates somehow. But everything points to big Bitcoin becoming the new asset that everyone's just piling into. And I think the US doing it will trigger it everywhere else.
- [05:28]
B
Have you spoken to the US government about this?
- [05:30]
A
No, I haven't, but there's tons of people already working on the us Our main focus is LATAM and other regions that are not as much in the spotlight.
- [05:38]
B
What governments have you been in conversation.
- [05:40]
A
With in this region? Yeah, we've talked to politicians in Korea, Taiwan and Japan and they're all very conservative. The message is really we're waiting to see. We're aware of bitcoin, but we're going to wait for the US to make a move. And I think that's a strategic blunder because what they're looking at it from, the point of view they're looking at it from is they want to be risk averse and they say that we're very risk averse. But risk and risk is sort of a circle. If you go too far in risk aversion, you go to the risky side of the circle. And I think that's what's going to happen because they're going to miss the boat on front running the U.S. most countries don't have the fortitude to front run the us they're waiting for a sign and I believe it's going to be an exact replay of the ETFs. So the US launched ETFs first. Now they're at 1.3 million or so coins. And Hong Kong I think has 3, 3, 4,000 coins. Australia was third and they have a few hundred coins. So you can see like if the US goes first, the other countries are not going to be able to keep up if it plays out the same way as ETFs.
- [06:51]
C
I have one question for you that I'm sure you get a lot. You know, the original vision of Bitcoin was non government backed and non government based. And now we're in a world where we have governments regulating it, adding it to strategic government reserves. How do you square that circle with the original vision? Is this good for crypto other than number go up? Like, what does this mean for the future of the asset?
- [07:10]
A
Governments always want what is valuable. And if Bitcoin succeeded, it was inevitable that governments will want Bitcoin because it's valuable. Right. Governments didn't just wake up one day and say, we wanted gold. They just wanted gold because it was valuable. It's what the people are using and then that's what they want. So it's the same with Bitcoin. And I think the risk to Bitcoin is less than that of gold. Gold can be captured and it's very hard to verify. There's talks of trying to audit Fort Knox now, and that's a massive undertaking, if even possible at a massive cost. And you just don't have that problem with bitcoin. So with gold, you don't have delivery. Most of the time, it's always paper. And that's what leads to this unverified pile of gold, theoretically in Fort Knox. But with Bitcoin, you can always verify easily if you run a node. And I think that it's so easy to transport too, that you don't come across the same problem as gold, where it's captured. So even if governments buy up a large amount of bitcoin, which I also don't think is possible, it's not going to end up like gold. Where it's captured, Bitcoin will still be money for the world.
- [08:19]
B
Samson, thank you so much for joining us at the desk. You must come and join one of our shows again soon. It's always such a pleasure chatting with you.
- [08:27]
A
Happy to. Thank you.
- [08:28]
C
Meet you, Samson.
- [08:30]
B
That was January CEO Samson Mao. All right, we are going to the builder stage now where there is a ton of excitement building for our pitch fest winner announcement. Let's take a look.