Bitcoin Education Can Change the World

Company’s name: Mi Primer Bitcoin

founder: John Dennehy

Establishment date: August 2021

Headquarters location: Messiah

Amount of Bitcoin held in Treasury: About 0.5 BTC

Number of employees: 21

Website: https://miprimerbitcoin.io/

Public or private? Private (non-profit)

John Dennehy wants to change the world and believes Bitcoin education is the means to do that.

Dennehy sees Bitcoin as a tool to help individuals regain agency in their lives and understands that education is essential to helping people use this tool.

So in late 2021, he created a Bitcoin education platform called Mi Primer Bitcoin (My First Bitcoin) as a means to empower everyday Salvadorans.

He believes that for the Bitcoin revolution to be truly successful, Bitcoin users must have a thorough understanding of the technology they use.

“Education will naturally push back against any attempt to embrace the revolutionary spirit of Bitcoin,” Dennehy told Bitcoin Magazine.

Dennehy has no hesitation in deeming expanding Bitcoin adoption less of a revolution, but keep in mind that his approach is closer to Gandhi than Guevara’s.

Dennehy is soft-spoken, reserved, kind-hearted and exceptionally thoughtful in his approach.

Inspiration for Mi Primer Bitcoin

In early 2021, like many of us during the coronavirus lockdown, Dennehy was worried about how helpless people felt and how much she wanted to do something about it.

“I was in New York during the pandemic and spent a lot of time taking long walks and thinking about the state of the world and where society was heading,” Dennehy said.

“My conclusion is that the root cause of the problem is that we have collectively lost our agency, we have lost our sovereignty. “Individuals have lost agency in their lives, which has had many negative secondary and tertiary impacts,” he added.

“The solution was Bitcoin education. The solution was to attract more people to Bitcoin and do it in a way that empowers and encourages people to think for themselves, think critically, and take control of their own lives and future.”

Riding a wave of inspiration, Dennehy booked a flight to Ecuador, a country he had previously lived in and one that was “underserved by the current system,” to begin his Bitcoin education mission.

first attempt

Dennehy arrived in Ecuador in June 2021. There, he tried to educate his friends about Bitcoin, but had difficulty getting people to meet him in person due to the pandemic. He found it difficult to communicate with people unless he met them in person.

“Wrong place, wrong time,” Dennehy said of his experience in Ecuador.

However, while in Ecuador, Dennehy heard El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele announce that Bitcoin would become legal tender in El Salvador.

Almost in disbelief, Dennehy booked a one-way ticket to El Salvador on his next flight to make history there.

“I decided to sell my belongings and buy a one-way ticket to El Salvador to see how I could make it,” Dennehy said. “As the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as fiat currency, El Salvador will be a model for the world, whether good or bad, and I thought setting a good example was most important.”

humble beginnings

Dennehy arrived in El Salvador and quickly drafted Mi Primer Bitcoin’s mission statement and several lesson plans. He also began recruiting both students and teachers.

“My strategy was to talk about Bitcoin to every Salvadorian I met—an Uber driver, a restaurant waitress, the person standing next to me waiting to cross the street,” Dennehy said.

“Before the first class started, we had a few meetings with a very random group of people. “They came to my Airbnb and talked as a group about (Bitcoin),” he said.

“Several of those groups volunteered for the project.”

Despite her years of experience as an ESL teacher and cycling instructor, Dennehy knew from the beginning that she was not the right person to teach the program she wanted to create. Instead, he wanted local residents to play that role.

“One of our founding concepts from the beginning was that the community should lead. This means that teachers have to be able to relate to students in a way that I could never do,” Dennehy explained. “So the hard and fast rule is that all teachers here in El Salvador are Salvadorans.”

The first class was held in the yoga studio between classes and was attended by a total of one student. However, by the end of the first month, a total of five people were attending classes held at the same yoga studio, cafe, or restaurant.

Development of Mi Primer Bitcoin’s “Bitcoin Diploma” program

By February 2022, Dennehy and the growing team at Mi Primer Bitcoin had begun building a proper curriculum, which they called the “Bitcoin Diploma” program.

“We’ve had 2022 with three different versions of (the program),” Dennehy said.

“We were iterating very quickly. We didn’t start the build until February and the third version was completed in September,” he added.

Dennehy also shared that student feedback on what worked and what didn’t was a huge influence on the process.

In speaking with Dennehy, I got the impression that building a curriculum was not one of the biggest challenges facing the organization.

Challenges of running Mi Primer Bitcoin

Mi Primer An ongoing challenge that Bitcoin has faced since its inception has been establishing the independence and fairness of the non-profit organization.

Dennehy discussed how many Salvadorans associate Bitcoin with the Salvadoran government. There are polarized feelings about the government of El Salvador.

“Early on, there was a strong connection to the government and Bitcoin here in El Salvador,” Dennehy said.

“People who liked government tended to like Bitcoin. People who don’t like government tend not to like Bitcoin. Some people thought that Nayib Bukele invented Bitcoin. “That was a common perception in the early days,” he added.

“So Bitcoin has a strong connection to governments. The initial struggle was to show people that Bitcoin was separate. Bitcoin is independent. And so do we.”

Dennehy noted that these issues still remain, especially since Mi Primer Bitcoin now operates within El Salvador’s public school system.

“We are always trying to assert our independence not only through our actions but also through our perceptions,” he explained.

“Partnering with the government only amplifies the challenge of separating the government’s perceptions from those of others,” he added.

“One of the ways to solve the first challenge of not being dependent on government is in principle: “We never receive any funding from the government.”

Another challenge facing Mi Primer Bitcoin is paying its 21 employees through a donation-based system, which is further amplified by the fact that the organization does not accept donations with strings attached.

“We turn down most sponsorship offers,” Dennehy said. “I turn down four out of five sponsorship offers because there are strings attached.”

However, notable institutions in the Bitcoin space have begun to alleviate some of the financial burden of Mi Primer Bitcoin.

“We receive grants from HRF, OpenSats and Block,” Dennehy said.

“All of this comes with no strings attached, which is really great,” he added.

“I think grants could be a bigger piece of the pie, but most of our funding from the beginning to now has come from grassroots support.”

Mi Primer Bitcoin goes global

Mi Primer Bitcoin’s training materials and curriculum are free to download and use. This has made it easier for teachers around the world to adopt non-profit curriculum.

And Mi Primer Bitcoin also supports Mi Primer Bitcoin members, whom the organization calls “light nodes,” international teachers who lead Bitcoin education activities in their respective home countries.

“We have 33 nodes in 22 countries, and they all come together to share best practices,” Dennehy explained.

“A teacher from Argentina may end up guest lecturing on a project originating in Colombia. “We have a node in Cuba, we have a node in the Dominican Republic, and we are actually co-teaching,” he added.

When I asked Dennehy how fast Mi Primer Bitcoin’s model was spreading on a scale of 1 to 10, he answered “10” with little hesitation. He also pointed out that trying to scale Mi Primer Bitcoin faster would only divert the institution from its mission.

“The only way for this to spread faster is to compromise our values: to centralize and direct instead of decentralize and empower,” Dennehy said.

“We are trying to reimagine what is possible for the next generation, and that often means blazing new trails. “If we want to teach others that a different future is possible, we need to show it ourselves,” he added.

“It doesn’t matter what you say. What you do is everything.”

Dennehy went on to explain that Mi Primer Bitcoin has received four light node applications in the last 48 hours and that he has been surprised to see how quickly things are accelerating.

Never in his dreams had he seen Mi Primer Bitcoin growing so fast.

“I am a dreamer. I am an idealist. That’s why I’m here,” Dennehy said. “But if you had told me two and a half years ago that we would have directly taught tens of thousands of students and facilitated and inspired dozens of other countries, I would have said, ‘That’s ridiculous.’ Maybe in 10 years or so.’”

Focus on the remaining mission

Mi Primer As Bitcoin evolves, Dennehy believes that organizations must continue to emulate Bitcoin itself if they are to stay true to their mission of empowering others.

“Everything we do at Primer Bitcoin tries to learn from Bitcoin itself,” Dennehy said. “And decentralization is really important to us, because we want to empower other people rather than control them.”

And his view of what this empowerment looks like seems more sophisticated than ever.

“Bitcoin education is a means to an end, and that end is empowerment,” Dennehy said.

“When you realize that you can control your money – that you can have more control over the present – ​​the incentive structure flips. In a fiat world, the rules of the game can change, so we lose the motivation to look, build, and create into the future. You can start a business today, but the rules of the game that will greatly affect your success are not up to you and can change at any time. So it encourages us to be followers and not leaders,” he explained.

“Bitcoin is like, ‘Okay, you have more control over your money, you have more control over the present, so you can build the future more easily. Because I am not dependent on the whims of money. Others.’ The more we participate in defining our own destiny, the more encouraged and incentivized we are to look, build, and create into the future. That is the end, and Bitcoin education is a means to that end.”