This week I had two long discussions with two very different people close to me. Both were confident in their objections to Bitcoin and both were really arguing from the same foundation.

We tackled the usual: “Bitcoin is too volatile.” “It is not really money.” “It has no intrinsic value.” “It can be replaced.” “It completely depends on infrastructure.” “It’s a Ponzi.” “Property is safer.” “Stablecoins make it unnecessary.” “Institutions are conflicted.” “The narrative is driven by belief.” “It’s a cult.”

In these engagements I can almost predict the next point before it’s even raised. We’ve heard it all before.

So why do the same major objections keep coming up? Yes, we know the Ethereum Foundation continues to fund Bitcoin FUD. But what is interesting is not that these arguments exist. Sure - the best of them usually contain a grain of truth.

To me, what is interesting is that they consistently start from the wrong perspective.

Most criticism of Bitcoin does not begin with the question: "What is this thing?" but rather - they begin with the assumption of what it should already be.

That creates the problem. My dad-in-law taught me the truth: "When you AssUme you make an Ass out of both U and me."

People expect Bitcoin to already behave like mature global money. Stable pricing. Broad merchant adoption. Regulatory clarity. Familiar valuation models. Predictable behaviour.

Those are the characteristics of systems that have already won.

As we covered in our last newsletter - Bitcoin is still winning.

Money does not appear fully formed as international tender. Gold did not become global money in a decade. Fiat systems did not become dominant overnight either. They were backed by law, enforced by taxation and supported by military and political power over long periods.

Bitcoin has had none of that backing it.

Yet 17 years in, it is globally recognised, independently verifiable, fixed in supply and held by individuals, companies and institutions across jurisdictions. That is not how failed money behaves.

One of the more persistent assumptions is that people involved in Bitcoin have latched onto a simple idea and stopped thinking critically.

In practice, the opposite happens.

The deeper you go and the longer you’re around it, the more you realise how much there is still to learn.

Bitcoin forces you back to first principles. What is money? How does value get assigned? Why did gold emerge? Why did fiat replace it? What is inflation in practice, not theory? How do central banks actually operate? What is the M1 and M2 money supply? Why does the Eurodollar system matter? How do foreign exchange markets function? What sits behind cross-border payments? How do correspondent banking systems work? How do sanctions shape incentives? What is a reserve asset? How do institutions think about capital preservation? Why do ordinary savers continue to get poorer while asset holders seem to keep compounding wealth?

Then it expands further.

You end up learning about market structure, trading analiysis, charting, leverage, derivatives, custody, counterparty risk, cryptography, distributed systems, energy markets, financial regulation, property rights and the reality of financial surveillance.

The more you understand, the broader the horizon becomes.

Bitcoin does not narrow your thinking. It tends to expose how little most of us were ever taught about money in the first place.

Part of the problem with attacks on Bitcoin is that people approach it through completely different lenses.

Someone who has only known a relatively stable banking system sees unnecessary risk. Someone who has experienced inflation or capital controls sees protection. A trader sees volatility. An engineer sees a system. A regulator sees exposure. A business owner sees optionality. A family office sees a reserve asset which may or may not be credible.

Without a basic understanding of the fundamental properties of Bitcoin, most people just see RISK.

From there they often study the same Bitcoin and arrive at completely different conclusions.

That's why these conversations often feel disconnected. We think we are debating the same thing, but we never start from the same assumptions.

In this edition, we're going to look at some of the most frequent attacks - frame them correctly - especially on the ones I came across this week:

Bitcoin is actually not volatile in the way critics usually mean.

Bitcoin is trustless in its consistency. The rules do not change. The supply schedule does not change. The network does not care who you are. The issuance is predictable. The validation is predictable. The governance is brutally conservative.

The price of Bitcoin however - now that is volatile.

That is an important distinction and one most people miss.

The real question on volatility is whether price volatility disqualifies something from becoming money, or whether it reflects something earlier in its lifecycle. An asset that is still being monetised, traded globally and absorbing liquidity across a 24-hour market will move. That is expected.

Money does not begin stable. It becomes more stable as liquidity deepens and adoption broadens.

If Bitcoin’s price were already stable at this stage, it would suggest it had already finished monetising.

Fortunately for us who are all still early, it would seem that it has not arrived. Yet.

Today, in many cases, that is still true.

Because the world still operates on fiat rails. Businesses price in fiat. Salaries are paid in fiat. Taxes are settled in fiat. Expenses arrive in fiat. So conversion is still required.

That is not evidence that Bitcoin has failed as money. It is evidence of the system it is currently interacting with which is still priced in fiat.

New monetary systems do not replace old ones instantly. They coexist for long periods. Then their role expands as the majority of users revolt against the incumbent system.

Here on the Garden Route, where I live, the question “Is Bitcoin money?” is becoming harder to dismiss with a smug answer.

It is money here.

I can spend sats via Lightning at 120 stores in just one town. A Bolt Card works. MoneyBadger works nationally at more and more retailers. A growing number of merchants accept Bitcoin in practical ways. That does not mean the whole economy has moved onto a Bitcoin standard. It does mean critics who say Bitcoin cannot function in trade are already behind reality. I've partnered with a Ferrari dealership in Fourways to barter any trade on Bitcoin.

The limitation is not that Bitcoin cannot be used.

The limitation is that most of the world still thinks and accounts in fiat.

This is the most popular attack from the TradFi incumbents and is actually just a category error.

Cash flow assets are valued in an appropriate methodology. Property is valued using a different strategy. Businesses are valued another way. And money is not valued like any of these.

Money must be valued for its monetary properties.

Durability. Portability. Divisibility. Verifiability. Scarcity. Acceptability.

Bitcoin brings those properties into the digital age in a form no other asset has managed before - either physically or digitally. Fixed supply. Open verification. Transfer without permission. Self-custody. Global liquidity.

You may disagree with the conclusion.

But the framework must to be right first.

Trying to value Bitcoin like a company is like trying to compare gold to a supermarket chain. Wrong category.

Bitcoin is closer to money, collateral and settlement infrastructure than it is to an operating business.

No CEO. No revenue line. No marketing department. No margin to optimise.

Different game entirely.

Just because bitcoin's price performance can outperform many of those other asset classes does not mean it is one of them. Zoom out and re-look at your definition of what Bitcoin is.

Code can be copied. History? Not so much.

Bitcoin did not launch into the market we know today. It emerged from a cypherpunk community that had been trying to solve digital money for decades. It launched quietly, without a pre-mine, without insider allocation, without marketing and without institutional support. It had to survive on merit.

There were many points where it could have died early.

It did not.

It was tested, attacked, improved and carried forward by people more interested in solving the problem than extracting quick value from it.

That window does not exist anymore.

Thousands of coins have been launched since. Most were shortcuts to self-enrichment dressed up as innovation. Bitcoin is the one that actually had to earn its position the hard way.

It is irreplacable because of this early birth process and the lack of control from an influential founder.

Phew. This one never dies.

Ironically that is one of the clearest signs that the label itself does not fit, because Ponzi schemes die. They always do.

They have operators, guarantees, hidden liabilities and a clear point of collapse when inflows stop. Bitcoin has none of those characteristics. There is no issuer. No central operator. No guaranteed return. No payout structure dependent on recruiting the next layer of victims.

It is an open network with transparent rules and a known issuance schedule.

Most importantly, it does not die. It has been declared dead hundreds of times. It has collapsed in price. It has been mocked, attacked, regulated, banned in places and dismissed by intelligent people who should have known better.

Yet it keeps going.

That clearly shows that the Ponzi label does not hold.

Ponzis collapse. Bitcoin survives the obituary and carries on mining the next block. Tick tock.

Property is familiar. It moves slower. You can see it. You can touch it. Banks understand it. Families understand it. That familiarity makes people feel safe.

But safe and familiar are not the same thing.

Property is jurisdiction-dependent. It is illiquid. It carries ongoing cost. It can be damaged, taxed, regulated, occupied, neglected or trapped in a weak local market. It is also usually bought with leverage, which changes the risk profile completely.

Bitcoin* sits at the other end of the spectrum. Portable. Liquid. Global. Volatile. Hard to stop. Easy to move. Impossible to dilute.

These are different tools.

Using debt against property to buy Bitcoin was one of the attacks I received this week which was new. To me this is a strategy that makes immense sense while we are in the phase of exploration - while Bitcoin takes over as money - but only if you have the cashflow to service the debt repayments for a period of at least four years. I've partnered with a friend who is building a company to facilitate exactly this.

Holding some Bitcoin as part of a broader long-term savings and reserve strategy is a different discussion entirely. Critics often blur those together because it makes the argument easier.

*When I talk about Bitcoin as an asset I am speaking about bitcoin in a backed-up securely stored and appropriately instituted multisignature vault. Not paper bitcoin.

Stablecoins are useful. Very useful.

They improve payments. They reduce short-term volatility. They help people move through the banking system more efficiently. In some parts of the world they are a real upgrade on local currency rails.

But they are still fiat proxies.

They depend on issuers, reserves, banking relationships and trusted counterparties. They are digital IOUs. Useful IOUs, yes. But still IOUs.

Bitcoin is not trying to do the same job.

Stablecoins are useful for spending and settlement inside the fiat system. Stablecoins have already proven themselves as weaponised money much like we saw in the objections to CBDCs. Bitcoin is a bearer asset outside of all that.

They solve different problems.

This one is more true than most. Of course actually using bitcoin depends on the infrastructure functioning. So does every modern financial system. The big difference here is the decentralized nature of the technology.

Yes, using Bitcoin in the modern world depends on infrastructure. Phones, internet, electricity, routers, satellites, miners, nodes, wallets, payment rails. None of that is controversial.

But critics usually smuggle in a second claim. They move from “Bitcoin depends on infrastructure” to “therefore Bitcoin is not real money” or “therefore it is no different to the existing system”.

Every monetary system depends on infrastructure. Fiat depends on banks, card networks, cell towers, data centres, regulators, central banks, courts, armies, political stability and a long chain of human trust. Most people only call that “normal” because they grew up inside it.

Bitcoin’s difference is not that it floats above the physical world like magic. It is that the infrastructure required to verify and protect it is radically more open, decentralised, distributed and impossible to control.

Bitcoin is infrastructure-dependent, yes. But it is not institution-dependent in the same way.

That is the major distinction. Who controls the choke-points and if it all goes to the dogs - are you able to navigate around them?

In Bitcoin, you can run your own wallet. You can hold your own keys. You can verify the supply. You can broadcast a transaction without needing a bank manager, a compliance desk or a government-approved intermediary to agree that you may use what is yours.

Bitcoin did not remove the need for infrastructure. It removed the need to trust one institution sitting at the centre of it. That is a very different breakthrough and a much more important one in an ever-changing world.

Certainly - some institutions have not done the research into what bitcoin actually is. Some are conflicted. But that is true in every market.

Property has agents, banks, developers and politicians with incentives. Equity markets have brokers, fund managers and listed companies with incentives. Bond markets are full of distorted incentives. Fiat itself is managed by the very institutions that benefit most from monetary expansion.

This is not unique to Bitcoin.

The responsibility still sits with the individual to understand what they are holding, what risk they are taking and who stands between them and the asset.

Bitcoin often reveals those conflicts more clearly because it forces the custody question and delivers a better course of action.

Do you own the asset, or do you own a claim on the asset?

Many people do not like Bitcoin because it shines a rather harsh light on that distinction. Imagine if you were Nokia watching the iPhone launch - and within a few years - seeing its success with no idea what to do. You'd also be conflicted.

Every monetary system runs on belief.

Fiat runs on belief in governments, central banks, taxation power and legal enforcement. Property runs on belief in title systems, municipalities, political stability and market demand. Equity runs on belief in future earnings and the rule of law.

Money is never just math. It is social trust layered onto rules and institutions.

The main question is what is that belief anchored in?

Bitcoin asks you to comprehend rules instead of rulers. Verification instead of promises. Mathematics and code instead of committees.

That is still belief in a sense. But it is trustless belief.

It is belief grounded in something you can audit.

This usually gets raised when people run out of precision.

Yes, some Bitcoiners can be insufferable. Every field has zealots. Finance has them. Property has them. Politics has them. Nutrition has them. Religion certainly has them.

That tells you almost nothing about the underlying thing.

A few loud or immature advocates do not invalidate a protocol any more than a reckless property promoter invalidates private ownership or a foolish fund manager invalidates equities.

Often what critics call cult-like behaviour is just conviction that comes from time spent studying a topic more deeply than they have.

That does not mean the conviction is always right. It does mean it is lazy to dismiss strong disagreement as fanaticism.

One of the more interesting pushbacks I saw this week was that Bitcoin hitting major market cap milestones is less meaningful than the headlines suggest if you ignore how much fiat debasement has already taken place.

That is a fair point. Once you've studied fiat money, you'll see that this is also true for all stocks and store-of-wealth assets.

Reaching a trillion dollars today is not the same thing as reaching a trillion dollars 10 or 15 years ago. Global debt has exploded. Money supply has expanded. Fiat units buy less than they used to. Statistics can look more dramatic when the measuring stick itself is melting.

But that is not a criticism of Bitcoin. It is actually one of the very reasons that Bitcoin exists.

The fact that fiat debasement distorts the numbers is exactly why more people are starting to think in sats instead of fiat headlines. It is why a $1 million Bitcoin target can sound absurd to someone thinking in today’s dollars and perfectly reasonable to someone looking at the direction of the measuring unit itself.

In an inflationary system, ever-larger nominal valuations become normal. What becomes rare is an asset that cannot be diluted...

...Ah yes. Bitcoin.

As we've covered a few times now - Bitcoin is not trying to replace every transaction on earth tomorrow.

Monetary adoption happens in layers.

Savings first. Then reserve asset status. Then treasury use. Then broader trade and settlement functions. Not all at once and not in a straight line.

This is one reason I keep returning to the Strategic Reserve idea. The strongest case for Bitcoin today is not that it replaces card payments next year. It is that it offers an alternative form of capital preservation in a world where fiat units keep expanding and real savings keep leaking value over time. Even gold's supply now grows at a faster rate than Bitcoin's new issuance.

That is why individuals are studying it. It is why family offices are studying it. It is why companies are studying it. It is why countries have started paying attention. It is why Wall Street finally capitulated and plugged Bitcoin straight into global capital markets through ETFs. It is why Lightning keeps improving. It is why self-custody matters more after every blow-up. It is why the network’s lack of a CEO is not a weakness but part of the point.

Bitcoin is no longer just “an asset” in the simplistic sense. It is increasingly behaving like base layer financial infrastructure.

Stafford Masie reminded us today that we should not be trying to value bitcoin based on the standard business metrics.

Not revenue. Not profit. Not cash flow.

Rather we need to consider it's properties as money and how the adoption is going:

Security budget. Credibility. Immutability. Liquidity. Final settlement.

It's a different game entirely and bitcoin just keeps marching forward, regardless of the price.

We are also beginning to see Bitcoin appear in conversations far beyond retail speculation.

When trust between counterparties weakens, neutral settlement starts becoming relevant. When sanctions bite, reserves get frozen, correspondent banking becomes political and settlement risk rises, the attraction of an asset with no issuer begins to move from theory to practicality.

These shifts do not arrive with a trumpet blast. They arrive quietly and then suddenly look obvious in hindsight.

Most people only notice once the process is already well underway.

I think this is the harder truth sitting underneath all of this. Scarcity still has not been fully understood.

We know some bitcoin is lost forever. The exact figure is unknowable. Some old coins thought lost have moved again. Others almost certainly never will. The real circulating supply is almost certainly lower than the headline number.

That only matters if demand keeps growing. But as demand continues to grow, the market eventually has to discover that it has been pricing an asset with less available supply than most people assumed.

Late can become an overnight reality very quickly in a system with fixed supply. For now though, we are still early.

Bitcoin does not need to be defended with slogans. What it does need is to be understood properly.

It is not simple. It is not risk-free. It is not helped by every person who chooses their own angle to promote it. There are weak arguments for Bitcoin just as there are weak arguments against it.

But it has introduced something genuinely new: a fixed-supply asset. Globally accessible. Independently verifiable. Capable of being held without reliance on a third party.

And perhaps the most important observation after 17 years is still the simplest one.

It is still here. Still running. Still being adopted. Still being attacked. Still being misunderstood. Tick tock - next block.

And the real risk may not be that Bitcoin fails, but that it succeeds while people are still arguing from the wrong starting point.

I highly recommend getting your hands on "The Strategic Reserve" and making sure your foundational understanding matches the true definition of "What Bitcoin is". That way you'll frame your real-world usage from a perspective that leaves you empowered to navigate these difficult times.

Keep learning - and keep engaging with the attacks. It's important to bring this revolutionary money to more people while we're still early.

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 or book a call with James at www.simplb.co.za/meet.