Interview with Samson Mow and the Prince of Serbia

The Cryptonomist exclusively interviewed both Samson Mow, the crypto expert, and Filip Karađorđević, Price of Serbia to talk about Bitcoin adoption and regulation.

The interview has been conducted during the Lugano Plan B event in November 2022.

How do you see the future of Lightning Network?

Samson: It can help Bitcoin adoption in the world because what Lightning network does is that removes friction in the bitcoin transactions so you can live in a circular economy. You can earn bitcoin and spend bitcoin. I think this is the key to get people into bitcoin. We can stop thinking that bitcoin is only digital gold, it’s not only something to keep in cold storage but it’s money. I think that it’s important that people understand that bitcoin is money. 

What’s your opinion about the Lugano initiative? 

Samson: I think it’s good. It’s showing that El Salvador is starting to grow their influence around the world because now cities and other countries want to work with them and form a Bitcoin alliance. 

Prince of Serbia: I would say that I think it is great that a highly developed nation like Switzerland is actually taking initiatives to adopt Bitcoin. Not to the level of El Salvador but to some level embracing bitcoin a country that doesn’t quite need it, I mean any country doesn’t need it but Switzerland is the latest country you would think about it and so it’s great we have an example in a highly developed nation for this. As El Salvador is a less developed country where they need it more, it’s good to have more case studies to show the positive effect of embracing Bitcoin.

In a tweet you said we will never see Bitcoin at 20k again, what’s your take on the BTC price and adoption in the future?

We’ll never see #Bitcoin under $20k again.

— Samson Mow (@Excellion) October 25, 2022

Samson: The origin of the phrase “we will never see Bitcoin under something again” is started by Hodlnaut. He used to say it and people of course would say he is jinxing Bitcoin, so I am just trying to get out of the way. Someone should say it and if it stays under 20k then that’s great but bitcoin is volatile so it is possible that it goes up and down but we will see how it goes. In the long-term, bitcoin is going to millions of dollars per coin.

What do you think about Elon Musk buying Twitter? 

Samson: I think it is a good thing that Elon bought Twitter because he seems to want to open it up and remove politics from the platform. As we know, Twitter is very left wing, they surface democratic tweets and democratic people much higher than republican so just depoliticizing the platform is a move. 

Now the expectation is that Elon should take the advice of Micheal Saylor and allow to use Lightning to filter. It’s simple: you just top up your bitcoin wallet on Twitter with a few dollars and you just pay a few sats and that should eliminate most of the spam from the platform. It’s similar to the point of Hashcash from Adam Back, using a bit of computer power to prevent spam and DDOS attacks but you can directly apply it to Twitter.

It’s unfortunate that Elon Musk is a shitcoiner but I hope he will definitely not use his platform to promote Dogecoin.

Prince: I don’t know what Elon is going to do in the long term, but in the short term it’s going to be great for Twitter. 

What do you think about the new crypto regulations coming?

Samson: I think we need smart regulation, that doesn’t look at crypto as one big basket. You have to separate Bitcoin as its own class because it is decentralized, then you have altcoins and then stablecoins. 

Each thing is very distinctive and unique itself and it’s important that politicians and regulators understand the difference. You can regulate altcoins and stablecoins because they are issued by centralized issuers but it’s important that we recognize Bitcoin as money and not try to regulate money. It’s similar to trying to regulate gold coins. 

You can’t say you can only own some gold coins and you need to register your coins because money should be just money. Money is a mechanism for people to facilitate trade and exchange value. It doesn’t need regulation.

Prince: I agree. Bitcoin should be seen like a commodity and not like unregulate security which is the rest of crypto. One of the main differences is that Bitcoin doesn’t have a CEO or a marketing team like Ethereum does. It’s decentralized, it’s pure money, it should be allowed as a way of communicating from person to person. 

In Serbia, my country, they have a new law and they are not great because there are high barriers for entry for new companies to get licenses and for new companies to get new licenses. I would say that when you are creating a new crypto law you have to engage with specialists and to have open sessions with regulators. It should be a slow process because it has to be fully understood and I think education is key and what’s missing before.