{ "episodeId": "SLP381", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano": { "name": "John Dennehy & Gloriana Solano", "role": "guest", "tag": "JOHN" }, "guest_2": { "name": "Guest 2", "role": "guest", "tag": "GUEST" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:08", "start": 8.47, "text": "Hi and welcome to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics. Today for episode three hundred and eighty one, my guests are John and Gloriana from the My First Bitcoin project, also known as the Bitcoin Diploma in El Salvador. And so we're talking about how this project got started and the process of educating people in El Salvador. About Bitcoin. This show is brought to you by Swan Bitcoin, the easy way to buy Bitcoin and also learn about Bitcoin. Swan Bitcoin makes all kinds of resources available for free as free Bitcoin education. So for example, Jan Pritsker's book, Inventing Bitcoin. It's a great short read, you can read it in a couple of hours and you can understand a little bit about the Bitcoin system without going into too much technical detail that it is confusing. And so you can get that at swan dot com slash free book, and it's also available in Spanish for free. The website for that is swan dot com slash librogratis. That's swan dot com slash l i b r o g r a t i s. And if you are looking for an easy way to set up your own Bitcoin node using a cloud node, Voltage can help you with this. This might be useful for you if you are a Bitcoin builder, or perhaps if you just want to play around and get used to the idea in an easy, low risk, low cost way, you can set up with Voltage, and they have the options of a Bitcoin node, a Lightning node, and a BTC Pay Node so you can set this up, whether that is for yourself as a merchant or perhaps you want to spin up a BTC Pay really quickly so you can help onboard a merchant nearby you, so you can set up your Lightning node with Voltage and then connect that to your own BTC Pay node with Voltage, and it's really cheap as well. So go and check them out, they can help you, don't waste your time with maintenance, integration, deployment and iteration, Voltage can handle this for you. That website is Voltage dot cloud. Do you need to borrow against your Bitcoin so that you don't have to sell? With Lend at HodlHodl, they have a peer-to-peer Bitcoin-backed lending platform where you can anonymously borrow stablecoins against your Bitcoin. So how this works, you're putting up Bitcoin into an overcollateralized loan, you're getting some stablecoins, and then at the end of that loan, you are repaying the loan and you can receive your Bitcoin back. Now, this is all done in a peer-to-peer way where you can go there on the platform, you can see what offers are there depending If you don't see an offer that you like, you can put up your own offer and somebody else can accept your offer in terms of the interest rate and the loan and the stablecoin. So that website is lend dot hoddlehoddle dot com. Onto the show with John and Gloriana. John and Gloriana, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having us." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "02:46", "start": 165.63, "text": "Yes, thanks for having us. It's a pleasure to be here." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:49", "start": 168.79, "text": "Yeah, so I heard about this project through, some of the guys over at eBex Mercado and wanted to chat with you guys about this project of a Bitcoin diploma in El Salvador. But before we get into that, let's hear a little bit about, each of you, John, a-and then Gloriana." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "03:05", "start": 185.08, "text": "Yeah, sure. I could, I could start with that. So my name is John. I'm from New York. I'm from the United I've been in El Salvador since August. Prior to this, I had worked at the United Nations in New York for about ten years, and I had worked as a journalist. I actually worked here as a journalist on Legal Tender Day, September seventh, for Al Jazeera and BBC, but I, I realized how important what was happening here is, and, and I just, you know, I wanna, I wanna make a difference in the world, and I think Bitcoin education in El Salvador is a high leverage opportunity to, to really make a difference. So, I've been just focused on that Ever" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:45", "start": 224.81, "text": "since. Excellent. Now, Gloriana, let's hear a little bit about your background as well." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "03:48", "start": 228.43, "text": "Yeah, I'm actually 27. I'm from Costa Rica originally, and I've been living here for almost three years now. It's been a, it's been a great journey. I study, I'm a chef, actually. I'm not, and we met John, well, I met John like, maybe Seven months ago or no, no, in, in August, right?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "04:13", "start": 252.93, "text": "I think September, but yeah, around then, August, September." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "04:15", "start": 255.37, "text": "September, September, yeah. In the, and yeah, I, I've been in the, I'm gonna say in the space 'cause I didn't start with Bitcoin. So, I've been in the space for a couple of years, and then we met John, and, and yeah, we decided to run this project, and, it's been, it's been amazing since then." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:33", "start": 273.48, "text": "Yeah, right. And so, let's Idea, like how did this get started?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "04:41", "start": 281.37, "text": "Yeah, so I think maybe it makes sense to start at the beginning, right? The Bitcoin Diploma is a little bit more recent, so we, we began in September, just the idea was that So much of the population here, and, and when I'm thinking back to September, and I say so much, it's like outside of El Zante, ninety-nine percent of the population, o-over ninety-nine percent of the population had basically zero knowledge of, of Bitcoin, so there was a huge need for education. so what we started doing, the very first thing that we did was, was to create some introduction classes, some basic classes to- To bring people from zero to one that weren't targeted, people that knew nothing about Bitcoin, they might even be a little skeptical about it, and just this ninety-minute intro of the basics, and at the end of the class, they got some Sats, so they downloaded a wallet, we sent them Sats, maybe they sent it to the next student or something like that, they, they got some practical use of it, which we have found is a great way to teach, to, to show rather than tell, or, or incorporate some showing in there. So we, we just- We started just with that and humble beginnings, we, we had a total of five students in September, and, you know, seventy-nine in October, three, almost three hundred in November, and, and, you know, we've continued on that trajectory, but we've also expanded since then, like we have a monthly meetup, which is my favorite night of the month, 'cause that's like A giant class, and we give, we give Bitcoin, we give five dollars in Bitcoin to the first hundred people that come, and we work out a discount with the, with the venue. So we give people some Sat's and we give them a reason to use it, and oftentimes it's people, and our target demographic has always been Salvadorans who are brand new to the space, which is most of the country. So from there, we, we've, we've basically just expanded, we've taken every opportunity that came our way to expand. If it's Bitcoin education in El Salvador, then we so the diploma program, Gloriana is actually the, the teacher of the, of the first pilot program that we're doing in, in San Marcos. So that was-- there was just a, a meeting in February, you know, we had gotten some momentum, we had, we had grown our base a little bit, and we just had an opportunity, there was a meeting that the director of the school was interested in doing something with Bitcoin, even though he, he wasn't, very well versed or really versed at all in Bitcoin, but he understood that This is something that the next generation should probably get a handle on and, and, and he wanted to organize something for his school, so he invited myself, IBECS was there, IBECS actually invited us and a number of other people in just a very broad meeting about Bitcoin and how we might do something in his school. And from, from that larger meeting than, Meet More Bitcoin and IBECS, we had a kind of a follow-up with him. We were the ones that were like most excited about Like, okay, let's, let's like do something as soon as possible. And, and, and, you know, we had a pretty tight timeline because we wanted to be able to teach every, every student this year at the school in the final year of the school. So we, we had to, we had to get started right away. And this is probably where Gloriana could, could take off because not only is she a, the teacher there, but she's, she's also helped develop the curriculum there." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:12", "start": 491.71, "text": "Excellent. So Gloriana, how did you get involved?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "08:14", "start": 494.31, "text": "Yeah, actually, well, a-at the beginning with the organization, I was, you know, just teaching, some of, some other students. probably I-I've teach, I don't know how many students, but probably like around eight hundred or, or, or maybe a thousand students since then. And yeah, we started with the diplomado, with the, with the diploma, or the diplomado in Spanish, we started, with the content maybe around January, February, and, yeah, a-as John said, we- We had a, like, we, we had to, we had to hurry up, because, we had a deadline, which it was like, two or one, one month and a half after we started. So yeah, we, we team up. John, John came with this amazing team that we're working with, one of our team members that's called Raúl, and then he added, Dalia and, and Robert, that they're like, this experts in, you know, in ped- how to say peda-" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "09:14", "start": 553.51, "text": "pedagogy. Like teaching method?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "09:15", "start": 555.17, "text": "That I got you exactly, 'cause, 'cause we, I mean, we, we teach, you know, we used to teach, but we're not experts in, in this area specifically, so, so we had to go through them and, and with their help, you know, and we started to develop the, the content, and, it was, it was challenging, and, and it still is, because, we started working it on, on English, and then we had to translate everything to Spanish, and we're just talking about, eighty pages, around eighty page-pages of content. 'Cause the thing is that actually, you know, it, it was harder to do it this way, but there's not a lot of information in Spanish about Bitcoin, so" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "09:56", "start": 596.48, "text": "yeah." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "09:57", "start": 596.9, "text": "So we had to do it in, in English and then translate it to a Spanish. So, yeah, actually you have, well, the diploma is ten weeks, right? Ten weeks of-" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "10:08", "start": 607.72, "text": "Yeah. So the, the idea behind the curriculum development was Gloriana and Raúl, who are two teachers- Who have been working with the project since, since September, they have this real world experience, but they are, and like, you know, maybe we'll talk about individual stories about people in the project later, but this isn't their, they're not, they're not teachers by training, right? They, they didn't, they don't have a masters in teaching, they, they just saw a need for it, and, and I think everybody in the project is just really motivated to, to help educate. So the idea was that they were experts in teaching Salvadorians about Bitcoin. But we brought in some people, from the United States who are experts in teaching, right? They're not here on the ground, they don't, they don't have that, that context that Gloriana and Raul have, but they have this very deep knowledge of pedagogy and all that. So the idea was to kind of combine the strengths to come up with the curriculum from these two different groups. Yeah, sure. And it's been, it's been-- I was only there the, the first week, but, you know, obviously Gloriana is there every week and, You know, it's something, it's something new. Like this is, this is, I think, a very interesting subject for the students to learn about, and the school has been, you know, the director, as I mentioned before, has been a really great partner. Like he's very innovative. his school has actually grown quite a bit. It was two hundred students three years ago, something like that, and it's grown to about eight hundred students, in part because of programs like this Diplomado in Bitcoin. Parents are taking their students It's out of nearby schools and putting them in this school because, because they are doing innovative things. So he's, he's a great partner to work with, and, and it's just, and San Marcos is, is like a, a community that I think, you know, like I, I'd love to, to get to know it as well. I, I don't know, I'm, I'm just really happy that, that everything seems to have fallen into place, but maybe Gloriana could talk about, like the experience in the classroom." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "12:09", "start": 729.04, "text": "Yeah, maybe, maybe it And, you know, it's a school in, in social risk in a certain way. So, so for us, or personally for me, you know, teaching them about this, it's like, showing them that there's a, you know, that there's hope behind what they see in their houses and what they experience while they're growing up. So yeah, kids are very re- receptive, you know, they're, they're, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old, so for sure some of them, you know, they're not that interested. 'Cause, you know, when, when, when we're young, you don't, you don't, necessarily see the, the opportunities, you know, as they are. yes, I, I, I remember when I was in high school and, I, I, I always joke about this, but, in my school, they had, German, German classes, and I was like, \"Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah- Who wants to learn German, you know? And then, like, ten years after that, I'm like, \"Crap, why, why didn't learn German? You know, it's a-- So sometimes you can't see the, the, the" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "13:15", "start": 794.61, "text": "value, yeah." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "13:16", "start": 795.61, "text": "Yeah, the value, yeah, behind. But, but either way, you already start-- We, we just, we're having the fifth class in this Saturday, and you, you already see, you know, the, the kids that are more interested. of course, they don't have any knowledge, so the, Crazy questions, in the sense that they don't have the, you know, the knowledge to make like a, y- I, I don't know, like a congruent, question. Of course. But, yeah, it's been awesome, it's been awesome 'cause you already see the kids that approach you after the class and they're like, \"Hey, I'm seventeen years old, but I'm, I'm su- I'm super excited about Bitcoin, I wanna learn more, can, can I get into some WhatsApp groups or, or, maybe next year" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "14:03", "start": 843.42, "text": "Like that, and, and yeah, at the end of the story, even if you get like a, a small percentage of the kids that are interested, I think that's-- we, we have one with the, with the project, so, so yeah, it's, it, it has been an emer- an amazing journey and everything's going great. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:20", "start": 860.1, "text": "Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious as well because, as- Probably listeners know a lot of the Bitcoin material out there is in English, the podcasts are in English, the books are in English. Then it's about, well, what material is there in Spanish that, people can leverage? And of course, I mean, I know even, some of the, some of my colleagues in Swan had this Bitcoin in Espanol, and there are, you know, there's other people out there, there's Lunaticoin, I know he's like a well-known, like Spanish Bitcoin podcast guy. So, you know, I'm sure there" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:54", "start": 893.54, "text": "way that a school, high school student will accept that as opposed to, material that might be given at a more adult level, I suppose. So has that been your experience as well? You're trying to take some of this material and make it accessible for them, and what kinds of material are you covering in the cl-in the classes for them?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "15:12", "start": 911.53, "text": "Yeah. So, so we have, ten weeks of, the course is ten weeks. The first two weeks, it's all about money, you know, history of money, starting for, from what is money, you know, we, we don't, we don't get, financial or economic classes in, in high school, so we actually, as a grown-ups, we don't know what even money is, you know, how is it printed, what it's, I don't know, concepts like inflation, deflation, you know, all this, all this kind of stuff. So t- the first two weeks, we cover all The, the money part, you know, like Fiat, to be honest, but, but more like, the mon- the, the money part. And then from week, three to week nine, we go through, no, week three to week eight, we go, Bitcoin one on one, you know, starting from when it was created, who created it, well, who created it, and, and then, and then, yeah, we go through mining to blockchain, we go through, you know, we, we cover everything, like in general terms, you know, from Bitcoin. So from week three to week, eight, we cover Bitcoin, then week nine, we have, Bitcoin in the future. Like this is telling the students, okay, now, now that you know all this stuff What comes from you, for you in El Salvador, what's gonna be Bitcoin in the future for you? What kind of things you can do? Where can you apply, for example? What kind of, wh-where can you get a, a job from or, or, you know, it's, it's Bitcoin in the future for El Salvador. And then the, the last week it's, their pre- their final presentation, that it's, basically a, a practical presentation where you, where you need to show like, well, I, I'm not sure if" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "17:00", "start": 1019.76, "text": "The, the last week, So the, the final exam, what, what we developed was it will be, a couple of parts. The first part is to create a wallet and then restore it on another device. cool. The second task is to make a transaction on chain, find it in a blockchain explorer, and explain when and why that can be considered secure. And the third part is to bring in a no-coiner, to bring in, you know, your aunt, your uncle, and walk them through Steps one and two, and then the fourth part is, and this, so we, we really like the, the first two because that's, you know, it's very, it's very black and white, you know, it's like, you either did it or you didn't, it's very binary. And then the third part is to encourage them to, to think about teaching and education, like how to explain this to someone new, because ultimately we want, you know, we want students to become teachers. And then, the fourth part, and this isn't, It's not like we're gonna fail someone based on this answer, but we want, we want them to start thinking about this, how Bitcoin can change their world, how Bitcoin can change themselves, their country, and the world. so, so that's to get them thinking about the big picture. So, the, the idea with, with all of this is just to speed the adoption of Bitcoin and speed education of Bitcoin, and I think, I think this is a really strategic demographic because one, they're open to it, right? They're not, they're- Not entrenched in this legacy financial system, so they're just open to new ideas and they can naturally become teachers, right? So whether they literally become teachers in a, in a future iteration of the program or whether they just go home and they talk about it to their parents, to their little sister. So, so everything is, is focused on that and everything is focused on replicating this, right? Like once we-- this is a pilot, so we have hired Sid Gallup to do a survey. They did a survey Say before the classes began in this community and the school, and I'll do another one in December when this is all finished, and then we'll be able to see, you know, it's an impact survey, so we'll be able to see what the difference is. The students in the first day of class, they write in their notebook what is Bitcoin, what do you know about Bitcoin, and-" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "19:18", "start": 1157.67, "text": "Well, actually, sorry, John, sorry, John, actually the question is why Bitcoin. Why Bitcoin? That's, that's the exact thing. That's the, that's the first" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "19:29", "start": 1168.98, "text": "thing they do On the last day, the last class, there's another blank page, so we'll be able to compare how they progressed over that ten weeks, and we'll be able to, assess how the community progressed because we're also starting this upcoming Saturday after the classes at the school, for the students, we're gonna have open classes for the, for the public, for the community. So, you know, teachers, parents that know about the program, they're a little bit curious or maybe they are, possibly even hostile You know, it's, it's a chance for them to come and, and learn about Bitcoin. So we, we don't just wanna change the school, we wanna change the surrounding area as well, and we wanna be able to prove that we've done it. So we're, we're taking a lot of steps to be able to do that, because the, the goal is that this is just the beginning, right? This is one school. If we could prove that it worked here, then, then we could use that example and, and put it eventually all over this country and then beyond El Salvador Positive examples, and I think, you know, shout out to Bitcoin Beach because they, they are the original positive example, right, of what's possible. Because of Bitcoin Beach, I, I don't think El Salvador adopts Bitcoin without that example, without that, like, example to hold up. I don't think I'm here without that. I don't think Meprimer Bitcoin exists without that. So, so the idea is to just continue that of creating positive examples in order to, accelerate the growth and adoption." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:56", "start": 1256.1, "text": "Gotcha. And so how do you see that expanding out into-- future, do you see that as okay, here this success, ideally if the, if it goes successfully, then you're gonna try to roll that out to other schools? Like, what does that look like?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "21:09", "start": 1269.01, "text": "Yeah, so there's, there's a couple of things. We are planning to be capable of doing that on our own, so with, with the curriculum What they're using now is version one point zero, they're, they're working on, the curriculum group is working on two point zero, by the end of the year we'll have three point zero, which I think by three point zero we'll be pretty confident that we could share this very widely. We're also the, the Ministry of Education is al-- we had a meeting with them last Thursday with Bitcoin Beach and, and some people from the Bitcoin community, it was a large meeting, there were twenty-one people there, and they, they want to incorporate Bitcoin education into the, into the- The school system, like they want, they want to have their own, you know, project where they, where they do this on a national level, and the idea is that the curriculum that we've developed and the lessons that we'll learn from, from this pilot program, they'll be able to, to use that and borrow from that in order to work with a larger coalition, ourselves, Bitcoin Beach, to, to put that in the public school system next year. So the details are still to be worked out, like it's still in the early stages, the way that the school year works here. Is, it's basically around the, the, the calendar year, right? So the classes begin in January, so they start at the, at the beginning of the year. so we have until January, but, you know, it's a big task. We're gonna have to train teachers, right? 'Cause the, the-- We're gonna need hundreds of teachers, and there's maybe dozens that are capable now of, of imparting this knowledge on students, if that, maybe like two or three dozen, and we're gonna need hundreds. So, so there's-- We need to get Soon, if we wanna scale it at the national level." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:51", "start": 1370.68, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. Brains are creating Bitcoin software that you can use as a Bitcoin miner, so they've got Brains OS Plus. Now, you can use this on your ASIC machine. Check the site to see which models are supported, but if your model is supported, you're in luck because you might be able to improve your efficiency by as much as twenty-five percent. 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So Unchained can be that third party for you to help you with your multi- Seek without holding all the keys for your coins, so you can go buy a concierge onboarding program, they will ship you some hardware wallets, they'll do a call with you to teach you how to use this and set up the vault and deposit a thousand dollars of Bitcoin in your vault. If you're interested, go to unchained dot com slash concierge and use the code Livera for a discount. And finally, if it's a Bitcoin hardware signing device that you're looking for, my favorite is the Coldcard by CoinKite dot com. The Coldcard looks like a little calculator and it That I enjoy using it is being able to initialize the wallet without connecting it back to a server. You can just plug it into the wall and then spin up a wallet, and it'll give you your twelve or twenty-four words. You write that down or back that up onto a metal seed, such as the seed plate, also available at CoinKite, and that's your wallet. And then you can now plug that wallet into your computer with Specter or Sparrow if you're a beginner. If you're an intermediate or advanced, you can use a micro SD card to do this process. So there's Get your cold card at coinkite dot com. Back to the show with John and Gloriana. Yeah, I see. And so people talk about this idea of train the trainer, because in that sense, you're going to have to go and teach the other people who can then teach, and so they will, have to know enough about Bitcoin to be able to answer questions from the students. Right. And so, yeah, it's not a small order, I guess, but of course, there's plenty of material out there. It's about, making-- Maybe getting the right translations or having the right stuff that's just natively Spanish material. And so what would you say are the main hurdles right now? Is it things like, you know, do most people have smartphones? Do most people have the right, I guess, hardware and things like that, like, you know, things like that to be able to use Bitcoin and learn about it?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "25:55", "start": 1555.48, "text": "Yeah, in terms of cell phones, there's actually more cell phones per capita in El Salvador than there are in the United States. So that's, that's not an issue. Other things like hardware, well Wallets, there aren't in shipping. The shipping system here isn't great, it's not easy to, to get things from outside. So I think the biggest hurdle, and I'd love to hear what Gloriana has to say too, I think the biggest hurdle is more intellectual, just that this is a brand new thing and there's an association that Bitcoin is tied to the government here, which, you know, maybe for some people maybe that makes them more likely to use it, but for others it makes it less likely. And it also, people initially conflate Chivo, the, the, the government Bitcoin application, with Bitcoin, right? They think they're the same thing. and that's, that's one of the, one of the i-important things that we need to do in education here is to teach people about Bitcoin that isn't tied to, to anything here, that this is a, a global system. I think there's some people that think that, you know, Bukeli has some role in, like, you know, core development and that things like that that are-" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "27:04", "start": 1623.92, "text": "Yeah, there, there, there are people that- That think that this is Bukele's coin, you know, and that's, that's where we come, that's where, where, where we come, you know, it's, it, it's been very challenging for us 'cause the student has to unlearn, to relearn, and to stop thinking the way they, they were, to start thinking the way it is, and, that's, I, I think that's been the most challenging part, where people disconnect the idea they had to, you know, reconnect the real part, so that, that's been the, the most challenging part maybe. And there's also another thing that I think it's, you know, a, a bit challenging, and that's, and that's the reason why I think that a lot of students aren't coming to our classes, and, you know, of course, of course, we, we have a lot of students in our classes, but there's a percentage of the population that, they're, they're just not interested, and that's because of trading, and that's, people, people always relate Bitcoin with trading, and they're always related with It's an investment, you know, and then with generating money, and, that's a good point to mention because we don't teach about, about trading, you know, that's-" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:14", "start": 1694.31, "text": "Yeah. Of course, yeah. We" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "28:15", "start": 1694.91, "text": "just, we just teach about Bitcoin per se and all the, the benefits that, that Bitcoin comes with. And yeah, I think those two points are, are very important to- And, and we've had-" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:26", "start": 1706.24, "text": "To have" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "28:27", "start": 1706.58, "text": "in mind, you" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:27", "start": 1706.9, "text": "know? Yeah, because one thing that I heard that was maybe a, maybe it's a criticism or maybe it's just a Trade in and out of USD and Bitcoin as opposed to, like, actually trying to earn Sats or spend Sats. And, or the other one that people have is like, the other criticism is that, okay, there was an early airdrop of, I think, twenty-five or thirty dollars to each person, and they just spend that and then they don't use it again, sort of thing. That was another criticism I heard as well. So I'm curious if you have any thoughts to add there or of your take on the ground when you're talking to people." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "29:03", "start": 1743.48, "text": "Yeah. I, I, I am amazed with the growth that we've had, you know, like we, we really started from zero and, and now I think we're a real force here. But, there's been a lot of challenges. One is that we're focused on in-person education because we do have some online classes, but we find that students just connect a lot better in person. So, you know, we started this at the tail end of a global pandemic, so there was a, there's a challenge like gathering people in person with that. there's also- So we're currently in El Salvador, there's a state of exception, right, that we've been in for, we're in the second month of that now, and it's, it doesn't have a huge effect right now, but in the beginning, it, it definitely people went straight home from work, right? Like no one was going out, when, when this first began, so that was a challenge. And now, now with the, the price of Bitcoin is, is a current challenge, right? So there's when the price is going up, then we notice that there's more People are reaching out to us like, \"Oh, I wanna learn about Bitcoin. What is this Bitcoin that I keep hearing about?\" When the price is going down, there's just less interest. That's, that's how it is. So we're, we're always trying to find ways to, to, to mitigate whatever the current challenge is to, to continue our growth trajectory. But I would say right now the biggest challenge, besides ones that are always there, you know, association with like a political association, I think the, the biggest challenge is just getting people interested, even if- The price may be in decline." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "30:38", "start": 1838.45, "text": "Yeah. And I think the other point as well is people, rightly so, they would be interested in things like jobs pathways, right? So that also needs to be there, that people are gonna learn about Bitcoin, but then they also need to see that there's a way for them to, for example, earn Bitcoin. And if that isn't there, then it's sort of like, you know, it's like those, like an analogy is like, I've heard in different countries, right? They might have, let's say, a lot of" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:06", "start": 1865.52, "text": "Not enough jobs for them to actually go and become a doctor or a nurse or something afterwards. So it's kind of a similar kind of thing that there needs to be that overarching ecosystem. Yeah. And of course, with El Salvador, it's, it's ideally primed for that, but you sort of, it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem there, right? Right," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "31:20", "start": 1879.83, "text": "right. And, and there is, that's something that we're actively thinking about. So for the diploma program, we're working with some, with some Bitcoin companies here that are, that are looking for talent, and You know, a pathway to, to a job here with a Bitcoin company. and we hope that, that creates some momentum, you know, other, their peers will see it and be like, \"Oh, okay, there's actually-- there's something at the end of this, right? \" And because there is-- there are a lot of Bitcoin companies here that are looking for talent, right? So the challenge is to create that talent pool, to grow that talent pool, and to demonstrate that, that we're actually doing that. And to Gloriana's point earlier about, the Or something like that. Like gangs are a presence in this area. The director of the school told us in a two month period this year that, I think it was twenty-six or twenty-nine students dropped out to join gangs, that's just in a two month period, just in this one school. So people join gangs here primarily for economic reasons, right? They join gangs because, in this demographic, especially, you know, like fifteen-year-olds, sixteen-year-olds, because their family doesn't have enough money to feed themselves tomorrow, so they're thinking, you know, very short time Frame how can I make money tomorrow, like right now? They're not thinking like of a career path five years from now, ten years from now. And one of the great things about Bitcoin is it changes our time preference, right? So I think, I, I really think that we could change communities with Bitcoin education here and, and encourage people to change their time preference. And I think that would have, not just encourage people to change their time preference, but provide pathways, right, alternatives to what is there. The alternatives are to, to work with these Bitcoin companies." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "33:08", "start": 1988.23, "text": "Yeah. Gloriana, anything to add there, just around economic opportunities and pathways for people?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "33:14", "start": 1993.91, "text": "Yeah, I think we, we have to have in mind that we're just, the adoption just started and, we had this like hype, you know, in, in, November, October, November, 'cause the, the law just passed. And, there was a lot of, I think that the, tourism, raised like thirty percent just focus on Bitcoin, the tourism, raised thirty percent in November. So we had this, you know, this hype and a lot of places were rece- even accepting Bitcoin and, and stuff. So we had this, like, this hype and then they left, like, you know, they went back home, all the people went back home. And, well, some people say, like John, some, some people that, that had, work to do But, but that's important to think that, I think, like, or from my point of view, we just started the adoption, like the real, like the real adoption just started. So I think there's gonna be room for everyone that, that, that knows about Bitcoin because there's a lot of international investment that's coming, you know? There's some buildings that they, gonna develop and, I know that some hotels are coming and I'm pretty sure that even if it's not in the technological part, you know? You know, if you know about, about Bitcoin and the projects are, Bitcoin developers or the, or the projects are developed based on Bitcoin, I think they're, they're gonna have a lot of opportunities here. We also, there's a huge space for programmers and, we don't have, there's a, there's a need of this and, I know that some, there's some projects working on this too, so I think that from my point of view, there's gonna be room for, for a lot of people if, if we teach well And they learned about Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "35:00", "start": 2099.82, "text": "Yeah, and, and we also, we also hope to be an example, right? so we only use Bitcoin. So Gloriana, you know, she quit her job and she works for the project now, and she gets paid one hundred percent in Bitcoin, she spends all her money in Bitcoin. Everyone in the project, we, we, we are trying to, you know, we, we tell our students about what's possible, and we try to show them too by, by actually living Within that, so, you know, we've, we've been able to peel off a number of people from the fiat world and put them on the Bitcoin standard, and I think just that example is, is a powerful way to, to show students that this is real." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "35:42", "start": 2141.71, "text": "It is actually very powerful 'cause what, I, I love to mention this in, during my classes, you know, 'cause that's like, I'm, I'm the vivid example of, of that, that, that is possible and, people at the end, at the, at the beginning, I'm Skeptical about it and they don't think that it's, it is true, and then I'll show them that I can pay my, my phone bills and my, I go to the same supermarket every time 'cause they accept Bitcoin, I go to the same gas station 'cause accept Bitcoin. My dog, you know, has his food and the, the vaccines and everything he needs and, you know, I, I leave, you know, and that's, that's, that's the reality that maybe a lot of people don't think it's possible because, you know, The ability of the coin, but yeah, it is possible, you know, and, and it's just not me, and there's a couple of people that just receive their, their whole salary in Bitcoin and, and while, while living, you know, and, and, and yeah, as, as John says, we don't just, talk about it, but we, we prove, you know, we, we show the students that it is possible and, and the teacher that is teaching them is living this way, so, so yeah, we're, we're, It's possible to, you know, to do it in order." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "37:00", "start": 2219.9, "text": "That's cool. So for anyone listening who might want to get involved, help out somehow, what kinds of things are you guys looking for in terms of whether that's someone volunteering or helping or what kinds of things are you looking for?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "37:13", "start": 2233.31, "text": "Yeah. So there's, there's a few different things. It probably depends on whether they're here in El Salvador or they're outside of El Salvador. Here in El Salvador, I think the, the best thing someone could do is to come to one of our meetups. We have every, the last Last Thursday of the month in San Salvador, so that will be next Thursday. Or, sorry, I don't know when this will be published, but the last Thursday of the month, and in San Miguel, the second Thursday of the month, and meet the team and talk to us individually, so we're always looking for, for students, we're looking for people to, that are able to reach out in their own communities. Oftentimes, people will kind of organize a, a group of people, and then we just show up and teach them, right? It's like, hey And, you know, I, I gathered a bunch of my neighbors and friends next Saturday, can you guys come and, and teach us all? And if you're abroad, then I think a, a great way to help is, is actually just to send us some Sats, because as I said, we, we only use Bitcoin, right? And, and our idea is to combine education with practical use. And when I say practical use, it's, it's them actually using Bitcoin. So we give them, we gift them- And Bitcoin so they could use it on their own, outside of class. And also, you know, we're trying to, we're trying to encourage the circular economy here. so from the outside, Sats and also just sharing on social media, just getting a little bit more exposure to everything. But if, if they're in El Salvador, we would love to, we'd love to meet them and, and maybe see what their skill set is that, that we could use." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "38:50", "start": 2330.44, "text": "Yeah, I think that as John said, it depends where they live, even if they're in San Salvador We haven't mentioned about San Miguel, which is the, like, the eastern part of the country. That's, it's near where Bitcoin City is going to be built. And they have like this amazing places, this amazing, beaches and stuff, but they're far away. They're like three hours away from the capital. So, so they've always felt like they, they have been," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "39:20", "start": 2360.48, "text": "neglected." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "39:21", "start": 2361.46, "text": "Yeah. Exactly. So, so we have started giving classes there where, where, if we think that people in the- The capital don't know about Bitcoin, there's like we're starting over right there in the eastern part of the country. So that's why I'm saying that it depends where they are, because for example, if, if there's someone in San Miguel that wants to help, they're probably it's gonna be easier to get them into the team because they're in this particular area that we're developing or starting developing the, our growth and, and this project too. So, so yeah, it depends where they are and how can we like accommodate them into the- into the expansion that, that we're having in mind. So, but yeah, anyone that wants to help in, in any way, to say that way, they're, they're welcome. Yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "40:06", "start": 2406.23, "text": "yeah. And speaking of the learning materials, is that gonna be made available for other people who wanna, let's say, take some of the material and then actually teach the class using the material that your team has created or generated?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "40:18", "start": 2418.21, "text": "Yes, actually, we're working in the, in the two point o, version in the, you know, 'cause there's, Details that you have to, improve, and that's what-- and, and we wanna give the, the people, you know, the, the best quality content." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "40:36", "start": 2436.09, "text": "Sure. Yeah. And," }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "40:38", "start": 2437.91, "text": "so, so yeah, we're, we're thinking actually, there's a lot of people, you know, asking when we tweet about the diploma or one of our team members tweeted about the diploma, you have like fifty comments, hey, where can I, where, where can I get it? Is there a PDF? Are you selling it on, on e-books or is it on Amazon?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "40:58", "start": 2457.64, "text": "Working on it, and we're definitely gonna make it available for, for, you know, not, not only for the country, but for whoever wants to, to buy it and learn from it. So, so yeah, the answer is yes, we're, we're actually working on it. I think that in a couple of months, we're gonna be ready, and yeah, the, the plan is to get the, you know, 'cause the content is made to be used." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:19", "start": 2478.69, "text": "Right. Of course, yeah." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "41:20", "start": 2480.18, "text": "It's not for us, it's for the people that wants to learn. So" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "41:28", "start": 2487.6, "text": "And so, so we're, we're developing right now and, and I think we're gonna be ready in a couple of months. Yeah," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "41:33", "start": 2493.18, "text": "it's something that, that we're actively thinking about because we've gotten, I, I, I mean, I was surprised at, at how, how many comments, how many messages we got like, \"Hey, I'm in, I'm in India, I'd love to use this in my community, can you send this?\" \"I'm in South Africa, can I use this here?\" From all over the world. So, we want to Right? Because we, we are self-funded, right? We-- the more Bitcoin we have, the faster we could grow, and we wanna grow as fast as possible. So can we, can we sell this, right? But also we want to spread it, because our mission is to spread Bitcoin education, not just here, but around the world. So it's like, there, there would be plenty of exceptions to that. So it's like, hey, if you live in this community and you don't have the resources to be able to, to buy this, and, and the thought is that when Buy this content, that you would be supporting us, right? But maybe you just don't have the resources to do that, and you shouldn't be limited by that. So we'll, we'll give it away to some people and sell it to others." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:39", "start": 2558.65, "text": "Excellent. Well, yeah, I think that, that's cool to hear, that there's work being done to take some of this material out there and make it accessible for students and, also make it accessible for other communities around the world. So that's great to hear. So can you guys just tell everyone who's listening The best way to get in touch if they would like to?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "43:00", "start": 2580.22, "text": "Yeah, so our website is, well, we have it in both languages, but in English, it's myfirstbitcoin dot io. And then for social media, I think on all our social media platforms, which is Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, it's myfirstbitcoin underscore. Fantastic." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "43:21", "start": 2600.84, "text": "And you can also find it by miprimerbitcoin, which is in Spanish. So either way, 'cause, 'cause we have like the, the, Account name, and then you can put the, I don't know how to call, but the other name, you know, like," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "43:32", "start": 2612.36, "text": "yeah." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "43:33", "start": 2612.94, "text": "You have your, So, so you, you can either find it in English and Spanish. So-" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:37", "start": 2617.23, "text": "Yeah, I can see the website is miprima bitcoin dot io, so that's also there. So I'll put all that in the show notes for listeners. And, yeah, John and Gloriana, thanks very much for joining me, and, all, all the best with your, project." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "43:53", "start": 2633.3, "text": "Yeah" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:58", "start": 2638.2, "text": "November for adopting Bitcoin, and I'll probably gonna be back again this November, so if you're around, definitely catch up." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "44:04", "start": 2644.49, "text": "Yes, for sure. Let us know." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:06", "start": 2645.87, "text": "Okay." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "44:06", "start": 2646.15, "text": "It would be great to have you." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:07", "start": 2647.11, "text": "Thanks guys." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy_gloriana_solano", "time": "44:08", "start": 2647.69, "text": "All right. Thank you." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:09", "start": 2649.46, "text": "I hope you enjoyed the show, and of course, if you're interested, you can help them out. The website is meprimea/bitcoin.io. The links will be in the show notes at stephanlivera.com/381. Thanks for listening, and I will see you in the citadels." } ] }