Excellent podcast, I really enjoyed it and learned from start to finish.

Samson is wrong. And should stop this bullshit with "onboarding states". Bitcoin empower the individual, the sovereign individual, that is the OPPOSITE of states.

Monetary hegemony is the USAs prime asset and strategic lever. It is hugely profitable to operate and has enabled the US to sustain decades of trade deficits while continuing to consume far more than it produces. New Zealand moved under Uncle Sams imperial wing shortly after WW2, shifting allegiance from the UK to the US when a senior government minister visited Washington to sign us up to subservient tribute status primarily in a military sense but subsequently ina monetary sense as well. Just as NZ had been an obedient British colony sending soldiers, wool and butter to bolster Britains military efforts, NZ had also been a monetary tribute- by having its currency tied to the imperial currency. As NZ moved its allegiance from London to Washington our monetary system as well as our military began to increasingly take orders from the US. The shift of NZs monetary system from Pounds to Dollars symbolised this shift. And over the post war decades US banks and insurers often via Australian subsidiaries increased their market share in NZ while British ones gradually retreated. Surprisingly at least initially the left leaning Labour governments, while being in power when the shift began where much more nationalistic in their attitude toward imperialist financial institutions. The Labour governments established and strengthened NZ financial institutions and enabled NZ owned mutuals to expand much more tha was the case under National governments who have always been more subservient to British then US financial imperialism. This tendency as briefly reversed when the 4th Labour government undertook extreme neoliberal reforms including those overseen by Don Brash. These reforms included removing restriction upon what form of debt could be used by foreign commercial banks to inflate NZ$ currency circulation. Commercial banks had removed the requirement that only productive investment purposes could be funded- this began the gradual but relentless increase in house prices funded by competitive profit motivated debt. Don Brash and those before and since are largely answerable to the Federal Reserve and the US banks who own majority shares in all the Big Four 'Aussie' banks that dominate the NZ banking system. So the major barrier to Bitcoin adoption in NZ is probably, perversely, the right wing parties Act and National who are now in power. These parties are essentially composed by industry lobbyists, from tobacco, alcohol, retail, banking insurance, fossil fuels, and farming sectors. Conversely the Labour party and Greens opposition fund from unions and grassroots membership. While a NZ Labour government can be expected to be cautious about a pro Bitcoin strategy a National/ Act one can be even less amenable. The current Prime Minister being the hand picked successor to the previous National PM John Key, who came from Bank of America and immediately after resigning as PM went to become chairman of the largest US shareholder majority owned NZ bank, the ANZ. Key served on the AirNZ board where current National PM C.Luxon was then CEO. Interestingly NZs only large Bitcoin/Crypto CEX (technically a brokerage as they source all stock from foreign exchanges) Easycrypto, was established by the then serving Corporate Strategy Officer for the second largest US shareholder majority owned bank in NZ, Westpac. Westpac and ANZ have many times worked together on their investment strategies and in this case Westpac literally employed the CEO/Founder of the only NZ crypto exchange to gain and retain secure banking access. One by one all competitors to Easycrypto were refused banking and closed down- the most famous one being Cryptopia where systems analyst operators employed by Cryptopia on the instruction of their bankers were in turn close associates and partners with the ANZ bank. While these systems analysts had access to Cryptopias inner systems, they were hacked and rendered incapable of continued business. Easycrypto would never have gained any significant market share in NZ had Cryptopia remained in business as Cryptopias offering was far superior and globally popular for low fees and broad markets. But within months of Westpacs CSM incorporating Easycrypto, Cryptopia were taken down by a massive inside job hack. Note the funds removed have not profited whoever did the hack as they have been traced and never moved off the blockchain to any substantial extent- the major achievement of the hackers being the removal of Cryptopia from the NZ and global marketplace. The CEO founder of Easycrypto, 9 months after incorporating Easycrypto moved to work at5 AirNZ in a senior corporate role under CEO C.Luxon and board member John Key (ANZ chairman). Easycrypto dominate NZs social media with their paid proxy operatives controlling NZ main crypto groups on Reddit and Facebook. From the start Easycrypto were a slick operation dominating the narrative capturing and controlling the majority of the market. NZ is a small south pacific nation with a lot of cosy deals done by senior Nact politicians on behalf of their corporate banker sponsors. So unfortunately Bitcoin Adoption in NZ is thus unlikely to lead the world, certainly not under the current corporate sponsored Nact government.