‘There’s no more exciting time than now’ for Bitcoin: BTC Prague 2023

June 13, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Samson Mow, the CEO of Jan3, spoke with Cointelegraph about the current state of Bitcoin and why he’s bullish for the future.

In recent weeks, the cryptocurrency market has faced bearish trends , driving crypto market capitalization down to its lowest level in over two months.

However, according to some market analysts, Bitcoin (BTC) and other altcoins are still resilient despite the overall market climate. But, it’s not only the market analysts still holding onto the bullish sentiment.

At the BTC Prague 2023 conference, Jan3 CEO Samson Mow spoke with Cointelegraph about how he sees the current state of the Bitcoin market and why he’s bullish for the near and long-term future.

*Cointelegraph reporter Joe Hall with Jan3 CEO Samson Mow. Source: Cointelegraph*

In terms of price, Mow said that anything under $30,000 is “massively undervalued” and bound to make a rebound sometime soon. The last time BTC hit that price point was in April 2023, for the first time in 10 months.

Nonetheless, Mow said he’s not bearish at all and believes BTC will hit six figures.

“I’m bullish because everyone needs Bitcoin.”

He highlighted that this is becoming more apparent worldwide as traditional financial systems continue to face turmoil.

“The banking system is failing. The legacy financial system is failing. Money is not money anymore and stopped being money some time ago, payments can be frozen. Nothing works. Only Bitcoin works.”

Mow told Cointelegraph that he expects to see a wave of Bitcoin adoption within the next five years.

In terms of the technology behind Bitcoin, Mow said, “there’s no more exciting time than now.”

“We’re seeing more people talking about new Bitcoin layers, new protocols, ARK, and I think liquid is getting more traction again.”

“I think people are just now understanding that maybe we should look into liquid,” he said. “It’s a very exciting time if you’re paying attention to the technical part of Bitcoin, so pay attention, everyone.”

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Bitcoin could reach $1M in 5 years due to fiat currencies’ collapse, says Samson Mow

December 12, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin could reach M in 5 years due to fiat currencies’ collapse, says Samson Mow

Bitcoin Industry

The future collapse of fiat currencies could propel Bitcoin to $1 million in the next five to 10 years, according to Jan3 CEO and Bitcoin proponent Samson Mow.

Despite the ongoing bear market, Jan3 CEO and Bitcoin (BTC) proponent Samson Mow believes that the leading cryptocurrency could reach the $1-million-price benchmark in the next five to 10 years. The collapse of major fiat currencies will be a major catalyst, which he said can “happen very rapidly” and “are not anticipated.”

”It just sort of happens overnight, and then you are shoveling cash into a wheelbarrow,” he said in a recent interview with Cointelegraph.

Mow made his prediction while commenting on the current state of Bitcoin adoption in El Salvador, about a year after it was adopted as a legal tender. Mow said he sees El Salvador’s move as an overall success, despite the relatively low usage rate and uneven availability of Bitcoin payment infrastructure in the country.

“You’re basically recreating traditional banking infrastructure in the country. So, it’s bound to take some time, and it’s bound to have uneven deployment,” he said.

According to Mow, Bitcoin’s high volatility is among the reasons why El Salvador’s citizens still rely on cash to get by in their everyday lives instead the cryptocurrency. Mow sees it as a temporary problem, as volatility is bound to decrease as Bitcoin approaches the $1 million benchmark.

Even now, Mow believes that El Salvador can play a role in inspiring other countries to follow its example. In particular, he sees El Salvador's vibrant, grassroots local Bitcoin community as playing an important role in driving adoption.

A mix of top-down and bottom-up initiatives is needed to balance each other out in any country that wants to successfully adopt Bitcoin.

To learn more about the current state of Bitcoin adoption in El Salvador, check out the full interview on Cointelegraph's YouTube channel, and don’t forget to subscribe!

‘Buy Bitcoin, plant a tree, lower your time preference’: a Sequoia story

June 16, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin Community

“I'm trying to get people to plant trees," says Fangorn, a green-fingered Bitcoiner, "as an avenue for low-time preference.”

When the market falls faster than a tree in the forest, the phrases “zoom out,” and “lower your time preference,” take root.

“Zoom out” refers to taking a break from the omnipresent price charts that populate news feeds and Twitter threads. Consider looking at the price of Bitcoin (BTC) over the past five years–as opposed to over the past 6,12 or 18 months.

HODLing Bitcoin has far outperformed HODLing stocks over the past five years.

But what does “lower your time preference,”–popular parlance among Bitcoiners, actually mean? Commonly attributed to Saifedean Ammous, the polarizing author who penned The Bitcoin Standard, lowering one’s time preference translates to thinking long-term, and to valuing the future over the present.

In contrast to a fiat standard, where money loses value due to inflation; a system in which quick gains, immediate satisfaction, and instant gratification make the medicine go down, a Bitcoin standard promotes delayed gratification. The theory is that in a Bitcoin Standard, the value of money saved in Bitcoin goes up over time to be enjoyed at a later stage.

This lesson is a tough pill to swallow, (particularly during a crypto winter) but it's a vital step to understanding Bitcoin. At least, that’s what Fangorn, a passionate Bitcoiner turned tree-planter believes. A software developer and history major with a background in biology, he stumbled across Bitcoin on a Hacker News site in the summer of 2017 (when one BTC was worth around $3,000).

Something twigged during 2017 and 2018, but it took the Covid-19 market crash of 2020 for Fangorn to really “go down the rabbit hole.” He read more broadly, engaging with popular Bitcoin author Gigi’s works, who wrote 21 lessons as well as an article called Bitcoin is Time. At this point, a lightbulb went off:

“Holy shit, this [Bitcoin] is way more than just like digital gold. This is profoundly advanced engineering for civilization.”

His appetite for understanding sound money grew and he hasn’t “looked back since.” He shared “the one thing to focus on is Bitcoin–the rest is a bunch of fluff.”

Sequoias are the largest trees in the world. What better way to visualize a low-time preference? Source: Twitter

An outdoorsy family man with a penchant for planting trees–he regularly gifts his father Sequoia trees for Father’s Day–Fangorn’s ideas, much like the giant trees, began to germinate. He connected the dots between a low-time preference, Sequoia trees, and the Bitcoin network:

“I can look at these trees when I’m 100 years old and think, damn it’s going to persist for another 3,000 years. And my grandkids’, grandkids’, grandkids’ will think ‘Thanks, great great grandpa for planting this tree thousands of years ago!”

Like many Bitcoiners, Fangorn has faith that the Bitcoin network will sustain civilization as sound money for years to come. Moreover, Bitcoin and Sequoias are pretty similar, they take “a lot of work, they stand the test of time, and they lift the human spirit.”

“Here’s this thing that allows us to cast our minds forward for thousands of years, plan long term, and reconnect with that core aspect of civilization, which is lowering one's time preference and planning for the future.”

Indeed, while Bitcoin is a tool famed for its “number go up” properties, it’s also a tool that allows for securing a long-term outlook.

He shares that “planting trees is a super easy, super cost effective way of explaining” what a low-time preference is. The tree is a visual representation of a low-time preference; the roots are the network. Moreover, planting trees flies in the face of the environmental FUD to which Bitcoin is often subjected.

I planted a sequoia from @btcfangorn so my ancestors can harvest a 30 ft wide behemoth! pic.twitter.com/0PKwvwhmqe
— Sidd - #BitcoinTour Harley Rider (@CaptainSiddh) June 13, 2022

Fangorn encourages Bitcoiners and no-coiners to plant trees to visualize a low-time preference. He shipped seeds to Andre Loja, the man behind the island of Madeira’s Bitcoin strategy; he distributed seeds at the Bitcoin Miami conference in 2022 as well as at meetups in Winsconsin where he resides.

The Sequoia seeds received by Andre Loja in Madeira. Souce: Loja

He jokes that when Hal Finney (the first person to receive a Bitcoin transaction) comes round from his cryogenic freeze, “In 3,000 years, I want there to be 21 million trees that are fully grown and 30 feet in diameter–trees that were planted in the first few epochs.”

Bitcoin will enter its fourth epoch sometime in 2024 and its last epoch–when the last Bitcoin is mined–in the year 2140. By 2140, the Sequoia seeds Fangorn and other Bitcoiners plant now will still be considered young trees: they reach full maturity after 500 years.

For Fangorn, the Bitcoin mined today should still be in existence, maybe even used to pay for goods and services by his great-great-grandchildren.

Bitcoin Lifestyle