Company Name: Mi Primer Bitcoin
Founder: John Dennehy
Date of Establishment: August 2021
Headquarters location: Savior
The amount of Bitcoin held in the vault: Approximately 0.5 Bitcoin
Number of Employees: 21
website: https://miprimerbitcoin.io/
Public or private? Private (non-profit)
John Dennehy wants to change the world – and he believes Bitcoin education is a way to do it.
Dennehy sees Bitcoin as a tool to help individuals take back power in their lives, and he recognizes that education is integral to helping people use this tool.
So, in late 2021, he created a Bitcoin educational platform called My Bitcoin Primer (My First Bitcoin) As a way to empower everyday Salvadorans.
He believes that for the Bitcoin revolution to truly succeed, Bitcoin users must fully understand the technology they are dealing with.
“It is only natural that education will push back against any attempts to capture the revolutionary spirit of Bitcoin,” Dennehy told Bitcoin Magazine.
And while Dennehy doesn't hesitate to think of further Bitcoin adoption as anything less than a revolution, keep in mind that his approach is more like Gandhi's and less like Guevara's.
Dennehy is soft-spoken, contemplative, kind-hearted and remarkably thoughtful in his approach.
Inspiration for Mi Primer Bitcoin
In early 2021, like many of us during the coronavirus lockdowns, Dennehy was concerned with how vulnerable people felt and wanted to do something about it.
“I was in New York during the pandemic, and I spent a lot of time on long walks thinking about the state of the world and the direction society was headed,” Dennehy said.
He added: “The conclusion I reached is that the root of the problem is that we have collectively lost our agency, we have lost sovereignty – the individual has lost agency in his own life – and that has had a lot of second- and third-order negative effects.”
“The solution was to teach Bitcoin. The solution was to get more people into Bitcoin and do it in a way that empowers and encourages people to think for themselves, think critically, and take control of their lives and their futures.”
Riding a wave of inspiration, Dennehy booked a trip to Ecuador, a country he had previously lived in and a place “that was not well served by the current system,” as he put it, to begin his educational mission about Bitcoin.
First attempt
Dennehy arrived in Ecuador in June 2021. There, he tried to educate friends about Bitcoin, but struggled to get people to meet in person because of the pandemic. Without in-person meetings, he found it difficult to communicate with people.
“Wrong place, wrong time,” Dennehy said of his experience in Ecuador.
While in Ecuador, Dennehy received word of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele's announcement that Bitcoin would become legal tender in El Salvador.
Snapped out of disbelief, Dennehy booked his next trip, a one-way ticket to El Salvador, to help the country make history.
“I decided to sell my belongings and get a one-way ticket to El Salvador to try and see how I could help make it work,” Dennehy said. “As the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, for better or worse, El Salvador has been an example to the world, and I think it's important to set a good example.”
Humble beginnings
Dennehy arrived in El Salvador and quickly coined Mi Primer Bitcoin Mission statement As well as some lesson plans. He also began recruiting students and teachers.
“The tactic was to talk to every Salvadoran I met — the Uber driver, the waitress at the restaurant, the person standing next to me waiting to cross the street — about Bitcoin,” Dennehy said.
“Before first class, there were a couple of meetings of this very random group of people. They came to my Airbnb and talked about (bitcoin) as a group.”
“Among this group, two people will volunteer for the project.”
Despite his years of experience as an ESL teacher and cycling coach, Dennehy knew from the beginning that he was not the right person to teach in the program he aimed to create. Instead, he wanted locals to play that role.
“From the beginning, one of the founding concepts was that it had to be community-led, which meant that teachers had to be able to connect with their students in a way that I was never able to achieve,” Dennehy explained. “So, as a hard and fast rule, all the teachers here in El Salvador are Salvadoran.”
The first class was taught in the yoga studio between classes and was attended by a huge total of students. But by the end of the first month, a total of five had attended the classes, which were held in the same yoga studio or in cafes or restaurants.
Development of the “Bitcoin Diploma” program for Mi Primer Bitcoin
By February 2022, Dennehy and the growing team at Mi Primer Bitcoin began building a suitable curriculum, which will be called “Mi Primer Bitcoin.” “Bitcoin Diploma” program.
“We went through the 2022 calendar year with three versions of (the program),” Dennehy said.
“We were iterating very quickly. We only started building it in February, and the third version was completed in September,” he added.
Dennehy also shared student feedback on what worked and what wasn't extremely helpful in the process.
In speaking with Dennehy, I got the impression that building the curriculum was not one of the biggest challenges the organization faced.
Challenges of running Mi Primer Bitcoin
An ongoing challenge Mi Primer Bitcoin has faced since its early days has been establishing the independence and impartiality of the non-profit organization.
Dennehy discussed how many Salvadorans associate Bitcoin with the Salvadoran government, an institution about which many in the country have had polarized feelings.
“Early on, there was a strong association here in El Salvador with the government and Bitcoin,” Dennehy said.
“People who liked the government tended to like Bitcoin. People who didn’t like the government tended to not like Bitcoin. There were even people who thought Nayib Bukele invented Bitcoin. That was a common perception in these early days,” he added.
“So, there's a strong connection between Bitcoin and government. The early struggle was to show people that Bitcoin is separate. Bitcoin is independent. And so are we.”
Dennehy noted that this challenge remains, especially since Mi Primer Bitcoin now operates within El Salvador's public school system.
“We always try to assert our independence, not only with actions, but also with perception,” he explained.
He added: “Working with the government increases the challenge of separating ourselves from the government in others' perceptions.”
“One of the ways we meet the first challenge of not being dependent on the government is, as a matter of principle. We never accept funding from the government.”
Another challenge Mi Primer Bitcoin faces is maintaining the salaries of its 21 employees via a donation-based system, a challenge exacerbated by the fact that the organization does not accept donations that come with strings attached.
“We decline most sponsorship offers,” Dennehy said. “We turn down four out of five sponsorship offers, because four out of five come with conditions.”
However, prominent institutions in the Bitcoin space have begun to ease some of the financial burden on Mi Primer Bitcoin.
“We get grants from Human Rights Fund, OpenSats And roadblock“Dennehy said.
He added: “All of these come without conditions, which is great.”
“I think grants may start to get a bigger slice of the pie, but from the beginning until now, the majority of our funding has come from grassroots support.”
Mi Primer Bitcoin is going global
The educational materials and curriculum for Mi Primer Bitcoin are Free to download And use. This has made it easier for educators around the world to adopt non-profit curriculum.
Mi Primer Bitcoin also supports its own international educators who head up Bitcoin educational efforts in their home countries, and Mi Primer Bitcoin members whom the organization refers to as “Light nodes.”
“We have 33 nodes in 22 countries, and we all come together and share best practices,” Dennehy explained.
“Maybe one of the teachers in Argentina is guest teaching for a project started in Colombia. “We have a node in Cuba and a node in the Dominican Republic, and they are actually co-teaching,” he added.
When I asked Dennehy how quickly the Mi Primer Bitcoin pattern would spread on a scale of one to 10, he answered “10,” with little hesitation. He also noted that trying to scale Mi Primer Bitcoin too quickly would only move the organization further away from its mission.
“I think the only way this will spread faster is if we compromise on our values, if we centralize and dictate rather than decentralize and empower,” Dennehy said.
“We are trying to reimagine what is possible for the next generation, and that often means we have to forge a new path. If we are trying to teach others that a different future is possible, we must prove it ourselves,” he added.
“What you say is not important, what you do is everything.”
Dennehy went on to explain that Mi Primer Bitcoin has received 4 Light Node requests in the last 48 hours and that he is amazed at how quickly things have accelerated.
Never in his wildest dreams had he seen Mi Primer Bitcoin grow so quickly.
“I'm a dreamer. I'm 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 taught tens of thousands of students in person, and we would have inspired and helped facilitate that in dozens of other countries, I would have said: ‘No way. “. Maybe in like 10 years.
The rest are mission driven
As Mi Primer Bitcoin moves forward, Dennehy believes the organization must continue to emulate Bitcoin itself if it wants to stay true to its mission of empowering others.
“Everything we do at Mi Primer Bitcoin, we try to learn from Bitcoin itself,” Dennehy shared. “And decentralization is really important to us, because we want to empower others rather than control them.”
And his view of what that empowerment looks like seems more nuanced than ever.
“Bitcoin education is a means to an end, and that end is empowerment,” Dennehy said.
“Once you realize that you have control over your money, and that you can have more control over your present, that flips the incentive structure. In a paper world, we're less motivated to look to the future, to build, to create, because the rules of the game might change. I can start with A business venture today, but the rules of the game that will greatly impact whether this venture succeeds or not are not up to me and can change at any moment. He explained that he encourages us to be followers, not leaders.
“Bitcoin is something that flips a switch that says, 'Okay, I can have more control over my money, which gives me more control over my present which makes it easier to build for the future, because I'm not dependent on people's whims.'” Another person.' The more we can involve ourselves in determining our destiny, the more we will be encouraged and motivated to look to the future – to build and create. This is the end, and Bitcoin education is the means to that end.