The grassroots Mi Primer Bitcoin or “My First Bitcoin” program has picked up steam in El Salvador. The first group of bitcoin-come-students began the study in May of this year. Founded by John Dennehy, an American activist and journalist, the program is also supported by the government of El Salvador.
El Salvador’s first #bitcoin Diploma program launched in collaboration with Ministry of Education pic.twitter.com/ajIHPHzqap
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) 2 May 2022
To delve into the country’s struggles and successes in bitcoin education and understand the rate at which bitcoin education is spreading in the Land of Volcanoes, Cointelegraph spoke with Dennehy and Gilberto Motto, El Salvador’s Director of Education.
genesis block
When El Salvador adopted bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender on June 8, 2021, very few other than President Nayib Bukele could explain concepts such as the El Salvador seed phrase, satoshi or mining. The birthplace of bitcoin adoption in El Salvador was “Bitcoin Beach”, a name given to the sleepy surf town of El Zonte.
But, the 3,000 local residents would have to cut their work teaching the remaining 6 million population. Indeed, it would require hundreds of hours of training, learning, and “orange-piling” for Salvadorans to be able to save and transact bitcoins.
A big task unfolded for the Salvadoran government. Motto told Cointelegraph that according to Article 6 of the Bitcoin Law, approved on June 8, 2021, “the state shall provide training on the use of this cryptocurrency.” However, what would that training look like? How can the state rapidly and effectively launch bitcoin classes when they have to catch up with the new money themselves?
At all times, bitcoiners, commentators and the mainstream media watched the El Salvador experiment. Dennehy, who lives and works in Latin America, told Cointelegraph that after the law was announced, he had to move to the country ASAP:
“I knew I wanted to do something to help make sure it worked, that it was a success here.”
Dennehy was “premeditated to separate money and state” for some time, and upon first learning of Satoshi Nakamoto’s innovation, while in Ecuador in 2013, he became an avid bitcoiner. He joked that according to the experiences of most “OG” bitcoiners, the first exchange he bought with BTC was hacked, losing him about 2 BTC at the time – now worth over $40,000 at the time of writing.
Almost 10 years later and the first country to adopt bitcoin, he had to find a way to pitch in. He flew to El Salvador, a second chance would allow. However, similar to other bitcoiners making the pilgrimage to El Salvador, he was amazed at how many merchants and sellers accept bitcoin. “were effectively zero” [merchants] When the law came into force,” Dennehy told Cointelegraph in May of this year.
Bitcoin podcaster and human rights activist Rikki, who spent 45 days in El Salvador living on bitcoin and nothing else, told Cointelegraph similar stories about his journey in bitcoin land: “Nobody here, nothing about bitcoin. knows. [The government] The people of El Salvador were not educated even for a second.”
Motto explained to Cointelegraph that bitcoin has since been incorporated into financial education as well as financial literacy programs across the country. Motto told Cointelegraph that “the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology is working closely with various institutions related to bitcoin in the country:”
“The development of a training module in financial education includes the Bitcoin Beach Wallet, Mi Primer Bitcoin and others, which includes updated content such as cryptocurrency and electronic wallets.”
Still, relying on a government or third party to do the work would be contrary to bitcoin’s ethos, which is “don’t trust, verify”. A grassroots bitcoin education campaign that would spread like a network that would complement and expand the government’s bitcoin education plans would be appropriate.
“Mi Primer Bitcoin,” or My First Bitcoin in English, founded in 2021 by Dennehy, is a non-governmental organization that provides free bitcoin education to the people of Salvador. It has since received funding from Lookingglass as well as bitcoin and Lightning Network services provider IBEX Mercado.
Now this is an initiative worth investing time and effort. There are a few spots open to bitcoiners who want to help and make a difference at the grassroots level.
DM me if interested..https://t.co/y1cvrESJt1
– Svetsky. UnCommunist.com (@SvetskiWrites) 7 July 2022
The project came to Dennehy during his first conversation with Salvador while getting acquainted with his new home. He casually asked, “Do you take bitcoins?” And realized that many people not only did not accept bitcoin, but he asked Dennehy to explain the decentralized currency to them:
“They were keen to learn more. They saw something with varying degrees of knowledge level, but generally less, less but interested,” he said.
Some of the program’s first teachers came for preliminary meetings that Dennehy hosted on Airbnb and in the meeting room. The first class took place on September 24, 2021, in a yoga studio, “because we were starting from scratch,” Dennehy details.
“We had no money, we had no space. […] And in fact, in our first class, a student had come,” he said.
Unblemished and with a forged conviction in many bitcoin bear markets, Dennehy and his team sold. By October, classes had grown to about 80 students, and by November it had grown to over 250. The price of bitcoin was also starting to rise – a possible catalyst:
“The reality is that the interest level changes depending on what the price does.”
Nonetheless, interest remained intact during the 2022 price action. Class numbers hit an all-time high of more than 800 students in April this year, while prices hit an annual low. Dennehy explained that classes boil down to financial literacy, from the history of money to solving money problems. Financial literacy and bitcoin education go hand in hand.
The motto agreed with Dennehy’s assessment, which stated that bitcoin and financial literacy should work in tandem in El Salvador: “The concepts of saving, paying taxes, planning spending, personal or family budgeting and other concepts are still valid, and Unfortunately not all the population knows and knows how to use them well.”
Importantly, the Bitcoin Diploma program targets teenagers, that is, those most eager to learn about money, as they know that money is intrinsically linked to their independence. This is a clever move, Dennehy states, as they are most likely to spread the bitcoin message around El Salvador:
“If we can reach every 16 years or 17 years old in the country, we will effectively teach the whole country in a year because the demographics are really strategic. They go home and they go home to their parents, their aunts. Will talk to his uncles, his younger brothers and sisters.
The Bitcoin Diploma exam, taken in Week 10, is divided into four parts. The first part is to create a wallet and then restore it on another device. The second task is to create the transaction on-chain, find the transaction in the Blockchain Explorer, and then explain why the transaction may be considered final.
A year after his arrival, Dennehy would “put the number to 10% of the population who are now an active bitcoin user.” Similarly, Cointelegraph reported that a fifth of merchants in El Salvador now accept bitcoin.
RELATED: Morgan Stanley encourages investors to buy battered El Salvador Eurobonds
Progress is clearly good, but Dennehy stressed that bitcoin is a global currency. The progress made in El Salvador can be seen around the world:
“We are focused on El Salvador at the moment because we have limited resources and El Salvador is a sign. It is the front line. But our ambition is global. Our ambition is to change El Salvador, not to change the world. is also.
He explained that “once we build a successful template here, the idea is to rebrand it as bitcoin, El Salvador, and then open-source bitcoin.”
