E05 - My "Dear Friends & Family" Letter

Dear Family and Friends,

Over the past decade, I’ve followed a path that’s changed how I think about value, truth, and the future. Some of you know me as the marketing guy, the church planter and guitarist, or the crazy Bitcoiner. All of those are still me.

But the journeys I’ve followed have brought me to a genuine conviction: we are living through a once-in-a-generation shift - one that affects how we save, how we plan, what we trust and how we build security for our future, our companies, and the next generation.

This letter is built on a concept first shared by Der Gigi, a Bitcoiner who, in 2020, wrote an open letter to his friends and family encouraging them to research Bitcoin for themselves. My hope is to do the same: to lay out, clearly and simply, some of what I’ve learned - and why I believe Bitcoin matters more than ever in 2026.

A solution is only as relevant as the problem it addresses. Let’s start with the problem.

1. Fiat is Broken – But Most People Haven’t Noticed

We were taught to trust our money. That banks would protect it. That governments would preserve its value. But the numbers tell a very different story. (FIAT is the word for "government issued" money).

• In 1960, R1 000 could buy a house. Today, it barely covers a tank of fuel.

• In 1989, my parents bought 8,000m² of land in Bryanston for R27 000. Even after a subdivision, the property is now worth well over R4 million.

• The Rand has lost over 99% of its purchasing power since the early 1960s.

• In just the past decade, it’s lost more than 50% against the US dollar.

• Plus, since 2020, over 40% of all U.S. dollars in existence have been created.

This isn’t just stimulus - it’s a symptom of a system addicted to debt and dilution.

For savers and fiduciaries (people looking after other people's money), this creates a silent hurdle: if your wealth isn’t compounding at 12% or more, it’s quietly shrinking.

If you’re living hand-to-mouth or with debt and cash, inflation is what you feel. Debasement is the long-term effect - your purchasing power fading without a headline.

The problem isn’t just interest rates or corruption. It’s the structure itself.

Modern fiat money is “inside money” - someone else’s liability, created as debt, and managed through political decisions. No matter how hard you work, if you store your wealth in a system built to leak, you will never get ahead.

2. Bitcoin is Fixed-Supply Money: Finally, Something Scarce

Bitcoin isn’t magic internet money. It’s a protocol for monetary truth.

It has a hard-coded supply limit: 21 million coins. That’s it. No more.

• Over 95% of those coins have already been issued.

• The rest will be mined on a fixed schedule, ending around the year 2140.

• After that, the system runs on transaction fees.

Unlike gold or oil, Bitcoin’s supply doesn’t respond to price. No matter how high demand goes, no more coins will be created. It’s the first liquid, globally traded asset that is perfectly inelastic.

And because it’s digital, it’s more useful in the modern age than gold has ever been: divisible to 8 decimal places, instantly verifiable, and borderless.

Bitcoin is built for stability, transparency, and predictability - qualities we’ve forgotten to expect from money.

3. Outside Money: What You Own, No One Else Controls

In traditional finance, your money sits in someone else’s ledger. The bank, the insurer, the government - all act as gatekeepers. Gatekeepers may be useful sometimes, but the risk rises with each level of infrastructure from the source of money to you.

Bitcoin is outside money when implemented correctly. There is no counterparty. No one can freeze it, censor it, or devalue it. If you hold your own private keys, you hold the asset directly. It’s wealth you can actually own.

It’s a bearer asset - like cash in your wallet, but digital. Like Kruger Rands, but portable. Like property, but untouchable. You can memorise a 12-word phrase and carry it across borders. No permission required.

For millions - refugees, small business owners, people in collapsing economies - Bitcoin is already a tool for survival. Look at the actual elected president / opposition in Venezuela: she survived underground using Bitcoin for basic expenses and donations no one could seize.

For the rest of us, it’s a low-risk tool for sovereignty.

4. Rules Without Rulers: Monetary Policy That Can’t Be Changed

Bitcoin doesn’t rely on trust in people. It relies on rules - and those rules have never changed.

• Every transaction is validated by thousands of independent nodes.

• Every block follows a fixed schedule - no interventions.

• Every protocol update is proposed and voted on by consensus.

There’s no CEO. No boardroom. No switch to flip. No throat to choke.

Bitcoin automates monetary discipline. It gives us a neutral, global base layer that any economy, business, or individual can build on - without privileged actors in the middle.

It may sound technical, but Bitcoin’s design is painfully simple. It’s also highly relevant - because at the end of the day, most of us aren’t seeking control. We’re seeking fairness. Something we can rely on. Something that works - without needing permission, power, or political favour. Something we can trust, that doesn't rely on trust to be real.

5. The Environmental Truth: Not What You’ve Been Told

There are a few objections to Bitcoin that need to be addressed for most of my community. Bitcoin’s energy use is often criticised. What’s rarely mentioned is how much of that energy is clean - or how much would have been wasted.

• Over 52% of Bitcoin’s energy comes from renewables (Cambridge & Batten, 2025).

• Bitcoin miners capture and burn flared methane, reducing emissions and making many bitcoin mining operations carbon-negative.

• Total energy usage is less than gold, banking, or global tumble dryers.

But the real question is: what do we get in return?

Bitcoin turns energy into incorruptible truth. It creates a secure, global monetary network - one that doesn’t rely on military power or political influence. That trade-off is worth understanding.

6. “It’s Used by Criminals” – A Persistent Myth

This concern is also common. Fortunately it’s totally outdated

• According to Chainalysis, only 0.24% of all crypto volume is illicit.

• The UN estimates 2–5% of global GDP is laundered through traditional currency systems.

Bitcoin runs on a public, permanent ledger. Every transaction is traceable. Once an identity links to an address, the full history is visible - forever.

That makes it a terrible tool for criminals, and a powerful tool for transparency.

Cash is anonymous. Bitcoin is not. I can trace stolen Bitcoin, file a case, and have it recovered.

What Bitcoin really does is expose dishonesty. And systems that benefit from opacity don’t like that.

7. Volatility Is Not a Bug – It’s part of the Adoption Process

Bitcoin is often called volatile. That’s true of its price - but not the protocol iteself.

• A new block arrives roughly every 10 minutes, as it has since 2009.

• The code hasn’t changed the rules once.

Price volatility is part of adoption. Every asset that becomes money goes through this phase. Gold did. Stocks did. Bonds did.

Bitcoin is still being understood. It's important to zoom out to the four or five year level and review the trend and growth in adoption and price together. Bitcoin is transitioning from curiosity to store of value - and then we expect it to be used more frequently as money before it becomes a global reserve.

And a few facts help put volatility in context:

• Volatility has declined steadily over time.

• It’s now comparable to large tech stocks - and it's volatility is lower than ~20% of S&P 500 companies.

• Anyone who has held Bitcoin for four years has never lost purchasing power.

• The 200-week moving average has never fallen.

Volatility is the price of early adoption. Traders may try to take advantage of it - but most lose to the house. That’s why I don’t trade Bitcoin. I save in it.

8. From Fringe to Fiduciary: Institutions Have Arrived

This is probably the most relevant piece in this letter. The time to ignore bitcoin has passed. This shift has been a long time coming - but it’s no longer on the horizon. It’s happening already.

The launch of Spot Bitcoin ETFs in 2024 changed the narrative overnight. BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF became the fastest ETF in history to reach $10 billion in assets under management - achieved in just seven weeks. Fidelity followed shortly after. With even Morgan Stanley applying for a Bitcoin EFT on 7 Jan 2026 - institutions no longer see Bitcoin as speculative - they’re allocating capital.

Public companies have gone further. Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) now holds nearly 1% of global bitcoin supply, managing Bitcoin as a long-term treasury reserve. Firms like Metaplanet in Japan and Semler Scientific in the US have adopted similar approaches.

Africa Bitcoin Corporation, where I have done some consulting work, are now on the JSE with a focus on generating profit and building a bitcoin treasury from their revenue.

Even the accounting standards in the US and UK have changed. The U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has now approved mark-to-market accounting for Bitcoin, removing a major disincentive that previously discouraged corporate adoption.

This gradual adoption has created a new balance sheet strategy. It’s risk mitigation in a world of over-leveraged fiat systems and fragile institutions.

My cousin, who worked for a major bank, shared how slow and cautious institutions are. But once they move, they move deliberately and structurally. It’s a slow drip that becomes a flood, and internationally those flood gates are opening. In fact today I read a list of 25 top US banks actively building Bitcoin-related products.

Bitcoin has moved from being ridiculed, to debated, to quietly allocated behind closed doors - and now even in public.

9. Why This Matters in South Africa

Bitcoin adoption isn’t just a global story. It’s deeply local as well.

South Africans understand currency risk better than most. We’ve lived through it. The Rand has lost more than 99% of its purchasing power over the past few decades. Our capital controls make it difficult to protect value offshore. Exchange rates and inflation aren’t just stats - they’re lived reality.

Bitcoin offers something rare in this landscape:

• A neutral, global asset, not tied to any country’s policy decisions.

• A way to store value outside the traditional banking system, legally and transparently (when done in the SimplB methodology).

• A tool to build a long-term savings reserve, whether you’re running a multinational or managing a household budget.

This isn’t theoretical. South Africa quietly ranks among the highest adoption countries globally. Local projects like Bitcoin Ekasi in Mossel Bay show that Bitcoin isn’t just for the wealthy or the West. It’s being used in informal economies, by real people, every day.

On the compliance front, South Africa has also matured. Bitcoin is now a regulated financial product, falling under the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act (FAIS). I’ve spent the past three years building Simple Bitcoin (Simpl₿) - to help people engage this space responsibly and legally - without trusting offshore schemes or custodians.

You don’t need to send your wealth to another country. You just need the right tools.

This is no longer the Wild West. This is becoming infrastructure - and it works. Beautifully.

10. Still Early: The Strategic Window is Open

Even after everything above, we are still early.

Less than 1–2% of the global population holds Bitcoin in any meaningful way. It represents just 0.2% of global wealth. If you feel like you’ve missed it, that’s the fiat conditioning talking.

If Bitcoin absorbs even 5–10% of global wealth, it implies prices in the millions per coin. That’s not a prediction, it's just basic maths - fixed supply meeting growing demand and an ever increasing money supply.

What’s important is this: the window won’t stay open forever. History shows that once institutions start allocating meaningfully, repricing happens fast - and permanently. This is not a forever opportunity. It’s measured in years, not generations.

There’s a premium for foresight. You don’t need to be certain. You need to be aware. You need to understand the dynamics at play. Bitcoin rewards understanding, not hype.

11. Final Word: What This Means for You

I’ve written three books over the past few years, and they represent the two most meaningful ideas I’ve wrestled with.

• The Strategic Reserve is a basic intro to Bitcoin for financial minds - and how you can respond by limiting your risk, without fear or speculation.

• The Way Jesus Walked is about what matters beyond wealth. No financial system, Bitcoin included, will give your soul peace or your life meaning.

I’ve also spent time with hedge funds, listed entities, family offices, entrepreneurs, families, and even local communities working on circular economy initiatives - where Bitcoin flows between small businesses, freelancers, and shops without ever touching a bank. It’s not theoretical, on the ground here in the garden route you no longer need Rands to live.

In the last decade, I've built a wealth of knowledge and experience in Bitcoin. I’ve walked this road, and I’m happy to share the learnings as more of my community starts exploring Bitcoin.

If anything in this letter sparked a question or a thought - reach out. This is my invition to you to understand something that has changed how I see the world.

As we say in Bitcoin:

Don’t trust. Verify.

With much love.

James Caw

Founder and Bitcoin Strategist | SimplB www.simplb.co.za

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SimplB (Pty) Ltd is a Juristic Representative and James Caw is a supervised Representative of CAEP Asset Managers (Pty) Ltd FSP No: 33933 - an Authorised Financial Services Provider. Nothing in this newsletter should be construed as financial advice. Before taking any action speak to your financial advisor.