{ "episodeId": "SLP558", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "john_dennehy": { "name": "John Dennehy", "role": "guest", "tag": "JOHN" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:00", "start": 0.48, "text": "Hi, you're watching Stephan Livera podcast, a show brought to you by Swan Dot Com. Today, we're talking about Mi Primer Bitcoin, aka My First Bitcoin. So a couple years ago, I had John from the team on, and now he's rejoining me. The team has come so far, in fact, they have now taught this program to teach Bitcoin to students, over twenty-five thousand students, in that time since, and it is now going international. So I thought it'd be a good time to- We'll get John back on and hear some updates from him on how far they have come. So now onto my chat with John." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:47", "start": 47.31, "text": "Okay, John, welcome back to the show. Hey, thank you, thank you for having me. So let's talk a little bit about what you guys are doing. it's been a while since we last spoke on the show, but, and I've seen you around, at a few different events here and there. Yeah, it'd be good to, you know, just get a bit of an overview. What's, what's the latest with, MePrimo Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "01:06", "start": 66.4, "text": "Yeah, there are so many different things that I could say to, to answer that question, so I'll try to, I'll try to keep it short and give a, give an overview. so a couple of things that I'm excited about, like right now, today, is the newest version of the Bitcoin diploma, so that's the twenty twenty-four version, that will come out in about a week, so last First days of April, and that's a big improvement over e-every, every year we try to iterate upon it and we try to take feedback in and make it a little bit better. So we're really excited about this one, but it's not just the content that has changed, we've also redesigned the infrastructure around it. So it's always been open source, but now we've, you know, just, we've created infrastructure and that means file formats, that means Telegram groups, that means like documents that share best practices about translations. All of these things to facilitate the spread of that to other communities around the world. So currently there are-- So it had been translated, the last version had been translated into ten or eleven languages, I believe, which is amazing, and we're super happy with that. This new one, so the, so the, the last part was the design part, so the, the content was, was done about a month ago, and we've already sent it out to, to some people to, to begin on the translations, and there are-- 25 groups of people working on translating it into their local language currently, right? So that should come out like pretty soon after we release it in English and Spanish in, in a couple of weeks. and that's a big part of that is just the infrastructure that we've developed around it, right, to make it easier. so that's one thing the Bitcoin Diploma, in conjunction with that or aided by, by the Bitcoin Diploma, is, is we have a international network of nodes Bitcoin educators around the world that share a similar ethos and philosophy, and share best practices. So, so that, that philosophy, so we, we try to borrow from, from Bitcoin itself as much as possible, right? So that's why we call it the node network and all that, and, and we consider, you know, Bitcoin El Salvador, the quote-unquote genesis block. so we, we created these consensus rules, and in order to join the network, you have to agree to the consensus rules. And there are six of them, and that's that the education must be independent, impartial, community led, Bitcoin only, quality, and teach empowerment. So long as you do that and you're active, like you, you could demonstrate proof of work, then you could be in the, the, the network is actually self-governing at this point, so it's not up to us, it's, it's up to all the nodes that are in whether new people are allowed to join or not, and they're actually pretty strict. So right now there are twenty-seven nodes in twenty-one countries," }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "03:55", "start": 234.87, "text": "For a little bit more than a year now, but we're kind of coming out of stealth mode more recently. And the most, the most recent round, there were four applicants that, you know, submit their proof of work essentially, like, \"Yes, I agree to, to these consensus rules, here's my proof of work, I'd like to join.\" and that was from Spain, Nepal, Tanzania, and Mexico. And the network actually rejected three of them, right? That they, they have pretty high standards, which I think is great. and only the one that It was Mexico, which is in Isla de las Mujeres, which is a really amazing project, and I love, like the, the woman who runs it, her name is Isabella, and she is great at what I'll call working in the open, right? She started like a fundraising for it, and like as soon as she got enough money, she went out to the store, bought a bunch of materials, and like made a video about it, like, \"Hey, this is what happened with the donation.\" So she's, she's really good at, at working in So yeah, I mean, so yeah, I guess yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:56", "start": 296.19, "text": "you mentioned a lot of different locations. I think that's probably the big thing, probably for a lot of people who might have only heard my first episode with you, they might have thought it's just in El Salvador, but I guess that's probably the main thing now that it's, you know, it's, it's going out, to many different nations. and so do you wanna just, I guess, refresh people on the format here because it's like a curriculum in terms of teaching somebody about Bitcoin, is it designed Or what's the, you know, what's the format here?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "05:25", "start": 324.81, "text": "Yeah, yeah, great question. yes, so it was designed to be taught in person. So the first use case that we had for it was to teach it in person in the public school system here in El Salvador, which is something we continue to do. It, one of the other changes with the version this year, with the infrastructure changes, the formatting changes, it's easier for communities to- Remove a paragraph, a page, whatever, and replace it with something that is more relevant to their local context. And that would include, we're also working on this year creating a better online version, so there are some people that already teach it online, but it's not designed for that. It's designed to be in person. so we are working this year, we'll come out with an online first version of it." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:12", "start": 372.45, "text": "I see, yeah. And so just to give people some context, what is the normal- Normal timeframe to go from start to finish of this course? Is it like a few weeks or is it, you know, what, what's the normal timeframe there? So when" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "06:27", "start": 386.95, "text": "we teach it, and kind of what we recommend is ten weeks. So There are ten classes, each class is, is about an hour and a half long, so you could say it's fifteen hours, right? And you could break that up differently. You could, you could do it in, in five weeks if you do it twice a week. You could You could space it out longer if you want, but, but there are ten classes, an hour and a half each, and it's basically zero to Bitcoin, right? So this is targeted at no coiners, pre-coiners, people that are curious about Bitcoin, or maybe they're, they're-- maybe it's a course that they have to take at high school here in El Salvador. But they start with a base level of knowledge that is next to zero. So the first part of the, the book is Financial literacy, essentially, right? It's like, what is money? Why is money? How did we arrive at this moment in time? and then the second part, so that's the first four chapters. So it's, so it's nearly half and half. so the second half goes into, goes into Bitcoin. We don't talk about Bitcoin at all in the first four weeks of the course. It's just laying the groundwork for, you know, why we need Bitcoin, right? one of the, one of my favorite things about the, the workbook is the very first Why Bitcoin? And there's a couple of pages that they could fill out. The very last day, the very last activity, same question, couple of blank pages. And what we've seen is that first page is almost blank, right? Like people might write a paragraph or something. And by the last day, those last pages, sometimes they staple extra pages on, right? Like three pages isn't enough to explain why" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:08", "start": 487.86, "text": "Bitcoin. interesting, yeah. So, yeah, it shows, how much, people are learning. That's cool. And I think the other important point is It's not just like a university level course, right? These are school kids who are learning this course, and who were some of the first people taught this course in El Salvador. I was having a look on the website, it looks like you've, you're listing there you've taught over twenty-five thousand students in person, that, that have gone through this course. So can you just elaborate a bit on that point, or maybe that number's changed since now, maybe that number's out of date?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "08:40", "start": 519.6, "text": "Yeah, that number's higher. That number is higher, and the number actually gets harder to, to track as, as we grow, right? Just because there are-- So, I guess there's two numbers, numbers that we directly teach and numbers that, for example, we are working with the Ministry of Education, and we are actually teaching-- So they took the Bitcoin Diploma, which is, which is open source, and that's kind of their, their primary source document. And they've made a couple of edits and modifications to fit their needs, but we are helping to train public school teachers that will teach it on behalf of the Ministry of Education. So, so far, this is something that we're doing alongside Bitcoin Beach. Last year, the pilot started, we taught a hundred fifty public school teachers. starting next month, the, the next cohort is gonna be five hundred fifty public school teachers, so seven hundred total. and we actually are teaching them our Bitcoin diploma to give them that base knowledge, right, before they go into the school system and they teach a slightly modified version that the Ministry of Education has, has created. so it's like, do we count all seven hundred? I don't know, because it's kind of a crash course too. We don't do it over ten weeks, we do it over like a week. It's, it's a crash course that we do with them. But yeah, so- The Bitcoin Diploma, sorry to get back to your original question in such a roundabout way, but yeah, we probably taught, thirty to thirty-five thousand in person here in El Salvador. We- Teach it in the, in the public school system, so that's fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year olds, but we also have open enrollment courses. So we have a, we have a house slash office slash school, like a multi-purpose space that we have here in the capital. we work out of community centers and municipal buildings around the country, and we have open enrollment, right? So anybody that wants to could take the course, and there's no age restriction there. And what we've seen is It was made for teenagers, but, you know, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, we've, we've had students in their eighties, and, and it's, it's, it's basically thirteen and up, I would say, right? Because the teenagers don't have to unlearn as much Whereas the adults, even though you would think that maybe something that's for a fourteen-year-old would be too remedial for an adult, it's, it's actually not. Like it's, it's kind of the same range." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:11", "start": 670.57, "text": "So Yeah, interesting. I think it's fair to say that, over time, we've had like the average reading age has been coming down over time, sadly, right? It's almost that like, you know, it, it's sort of for that reason, it's like you, you need to make sure it's very simple and it's to remember, but I'm sure at the same time there are probably kids younger than thirteen who've done the course also, right? So it's not," }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "11:36", "start": 696.23, "text": "yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:36", "start": 696.41, "text": "it's not like you have to be thirteen to be able to do the course, I, I also would be curious in terms of how has it gone trying to localize the course for different- Countries, different languages, are there actually differences in how it's taught?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "11:52", "start": 712.31, "text": "Yeah, yeah, there are differences in how it's taught, and I think that's one of the benefits of, of the node network, right? So like- We share best practices. So, for example, we, we teach a, a certain way. We, as I said, we do, we do it once a week for ten weeks. Other people have experimented crunching it into a two-week course, right? Doing like every day, Monday through Friday, for two straight weeks, right? To get those, to get those ten days or to do class one and two, to do two classes at a time to, to make it like a longer session and do two, two classes at a time. there have been people, we're kind of in the early stages of experimenting. With, how we offer the course, so we generally do it for free. We're starting to experiment with this as well, but like one idea that people are, are experimenting with is to ask for a payment in, in dollars at the start of the course, say like thirty dollars, right? And then when they, when they graduate, if they go to all the classes and they finish, then they get thirty dollars in Bitcoin at the end. So something like that, you know, just so it's too easy to sign up to a free class and then not come, right? so to avoid that, so it's, it's, there are people that are teaching it different, and, and another thing would be stable coins. So stable coins aren't relevant here in El Salvador because it's dollarized, but in a place like Argentina, then where stable coins are, are part of the conversation. So we don't talk about stable coins in, in the, in the book that we produce because it's not relevant. Like, there's no, there's no reason to in this local context. but other people have found it useful useful to, to talk about it depending on their local context. So, so there's things like that, like, a-and that's besides changing examples. So for example, in, in Kenya, I know that they, that they talk about M-Pesa, right? Which isn't relevant in other places, so that's, that's kind of contextual there. So for the most part, it's the same, but, but it's interesting to see how people are tweaking it in different ways. And then the idea is with enough time that, that is all shared with the whole- Network, and it's like, hey, you know, this, it worked really well to charge up front and give them the money back at the end, and maybe other people start to do that or, there's a lot of experimentation, and we're kind of at the early stages of, of seeing, you know, if, if that could be applied in other places, we're kind of still in the experimentation phase." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:26", "start": 866.41, "text": "Yeah. And so I presume then it's like you have a base curriculum, and each, you know, as you said, there's a new one coming out for this year Here, each different location has to then localize, right? They have to kind of look at, okay, what's changed from this year to last year and update on their side, okay, this is kind of our new, this is what we're going with now, and this is the new localization we have to do or the new language, the new translations that we have to do to kind of keep it up to date." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "14:55", "start": 895.1, "text": "Yeah, and we try to, we try to make it what I'll call like a soft fork, right, rather than a hard fork. So from one version to the next 23 version, then it shouldn't be that big of a, a learning curve to, to teach the 2024 version. so a lot of the upgrades that we made actually aren't necessarily with the content, it's just like the infrastructure around it, making it easier for people. and there's, you know, but there's always, there's always room for improvement, right? Like we could always do better. that's the idea of perfection. Profession, perfection doesn't exist, but it's important that we always trend in the right direction towards improving this every year." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "15:37", "start": 937.37, "text": "Gotcha. and as part of the course material, do you end up referring out to other things where people would learn more, like go and read this book or? Whatever other materials out there, or is it sort of seen like, okay, this course should just be like, it should just be enough to sort of get you started, and that's it?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "15:59", "start": 958.53, "text": "Yeah, so, so I wanna say yes to both those options. yes, we do have at the end like further reading, right? And it just lists a bunch of books, right? And throughout the book, there's, you know, within each chapter, there's QR codes that lead to further reading lists where people could dive deeper if they want to, I think that Bitcoin is the best teacher, and the, the hardest thing to do is, is to get off of zero, right? So that's, that's what we're focused on, getting people off of zero, and then I think people are capable of, of continuing on their own. One of the, one of the most important things That we try to teach to our students isn't necessarily Bitcoin education, but it is the ability to think for yourself, the ability to like have agency in your own intellectual journey. so that said, this is something-- there are courses like here in El Salvador, there's Kubo Plus, which is, which is, more advanced, more technical. so we kind of see ourselves as the top of funnel, and it could go down to more advanced classes afterwards. where this year we're working on creating a number of other courses that are- A bit more specific, not, not this general, just from zero to one with Bitcoin, but, you know, about mining, about for targeting younger audiences, again, the online version, just, just a variety of different branches off of that. I think this will always be our main, this will be the trunk of everything that we do, is that zero to one. we'll develop some stuff, some branches off of that, and we'll also refer people to, Other great programs that, that can take people from, from one to infinity, right? There, 'cause there's--" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "17:55", "start": 1075.4, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. CoinKite dot com is the leading provider of Bitcoin security hardware. I use their devices regularly and notably, they've got the Coldcard and other devices such as the TapSigner, which you can use there, and of course, they've got the new Q device. I've got those in the mail. I'm looking forward to, using these, the, using the new Q device, but- Really, with Bitcoin security, it's important to use hardware devices to keep our keys offline. So instead of keeping them on online connected devices, you've got to keep them offline and use specialized, devices to interact and sign those Bitcoin transactions, which is what you do when you are sending Bitcoin. And so the Coldcard has so many features, it has multiple secure elements, you can use it in all kinds of configurations, whether that's single signature or multi- Multisig if you're advanced, or maybe if you wanna use it with a passphrase. There's all kinds of features there. I like using the cold card, and I use it as part of multiple setups that I have, some in multisig and so on. So if you wanna get your devices, go to coinkite.com and order your cold cards with the code Livera for a discount there. The lead sponsor of this show is Swan Bitcoin. Over at swan.com, you can buy Bitcoin and you can learn about Bitcoin. You can use ACH or wire transfer to send your dirty fiat into Swan, and then you can either do a smash buy and purchase a lump sum or set up an ongoing recurring purchase plan. So this is a great way to regularly accumulate Sats and not really worry so much about the volatility, whether the price is up, down, left, right, who cares? Just regularly accumulate. And of course, with Swan, we want you to withdraw your coins into your own self custody, free automated withdrawals. So make sure you use that feature to withdraw the Sats into To your own self custody, once you've hit the, the thresholds that make sense for you to do that. And with Swan, remember, the team is trying to create millions of intransigent Bitcoiners, and this is the way to win the race before we have to fight the war. So if you wanna sign up and learn about Bitcoin, go to swan dot com, and you can find out more over there. There's a range of different services, whether you're a retail individual, a high net worth, a corporate, a business, you can find more over at swan dot co- And finally, mempool dot space. Mempool dot space is the leading Bitcoin and blockchain visualizer. I use it all the time to see what's going on in the mempool. I like to see what are the fees that I would need to send a transaction at if I wanted to get into the next block. And over at mempool dot space, the team are continually innovating. They're always adding new ways that you can visualize things and understand what's going on, whether that's the mempool goggles, whether that is the different tabs that you can look at, for example, the mining tab They even have a liquid explorer also, and don't forget you can search Bitcoin transactions, whether you know, such as historical transactions, or of course you can see what's in the mempool, or in mempools, Currently. So to find out more, go to mempool dot space, and they have an accelerated program which you can sign up for at mempool dot space slash accelerator. And now, back to my chat with John. Yeah, of course. And I mean, in fairness, this is, as you said, this is a fifteen hour-- This is fifteen hours worth of material designed for a thirteen-year-old person. That's very different from, you know, the kind of thing where, I mean, there are, there already are university-level Bitcoin courses. There's already, you know, serious developer-level courses It's a free material online, but, you know, it's important to understand the context of what this is, who is it for, and then after that, you know, people can go and learn further. I mean, there are people out there who've spent hundreds of hours or thousands of hours learning about Bitcoin, and probably many, you know, people like listeners of this show probably have spent thousands of hours, right? So for them, it's kind of not that, you know, but it's just sort of important to understand the context there. You've also mentioned," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "21:57", "start": 1317.29, "text": "and Touch on that as well. What, what are you, what are you, hoping to achieve with, with those events and what, what are these events you're running?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "22:07", "start": 1327.14, "text": "Yeah, yeah. So we have what we call independent Bitcoin education on conferences, right? Maybe a better way to say that for a Bitcoin audience would be a decentralized conference. So we did the first one in El Salvador in November of last year, two thousand twenty-three. We did the second one, the first international one, in Madeira in Portugal, February twenty-ninth of this year. the next one will be in Nashville, in July. And what that is, is it's, it's a pretty small conference, so it's, it's, we sell a hundred and fifty tickets, and it's basically, so with the node network, we have monthly We have a monthly general assembly, right? So like, there's all these channels, communication channels, Telegram groups, whatever, where people could share best practices, talk to each other anytime, but once a month then we all get together and do it in a bit more formal setting. but it's online, right? Which is great, it's great to connect people around the world online, but it's like, huh? Would this be better if we could, if we could organize something in person where we could get Bitcoin educators from around the world to basically share best practices and speed up the timeline, support each other? so that, that's kind of the, the genesis of the idea. And to really go further into Bitcoin, again, Bitcoin is our teacher, so decentralization is one of our focuses. It's, it's kind of a hybrid where we do plan part of the day, so it's a full day event, right? It's like seven, eight hours, right? Morning to, to evening, lunch break in the middle, it's basically a one-day conference, and we organize a space where it's traditional format, it's somebody at the front of a room, there's all chairs facing the same direction, it's multi- it, it's mostly From the stage to the audience, right? It's like, it, it, the, the information flows in one direction. what we also do is at the start of the day, people who Haven't been selected for that stage, right? 'Cause people just apply if they're going, if, if they have something to present, then they could give a very quick, like, one minute audio introduction, who they are, what they wanna talk about. And we have someone, his name is James, who has a lot of experience with this, and he, he writes it all down on a big piece of paper in front of everyone, and based on, you know, what the topics that come in and like, how they relate to each other, he might combine some, he might, say like, \"Okay, that's not really relevant,\" whatever. But, but with the participation of everyone there, then he'll make, we'll collectively make the agenda for a second and third space, and the second and third space are more like round Sort of format, right? So it's like there is one or two or three or four discussion leads that are gonna talk about the topic, say it's the role of Bitcoin education within circular economies, and it will be a couple of people that are involved with different circular economies, right? So they'll lead the discussion, but it will be-- it'll be a discussion rather than, than a speech. So that's the second and third space are decided day of, and really the big-- the big value is Is the in-between, right? That the, as the day goes on, it's usually like people" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:24", "start": 1524.03, "text": "can connect, share notes, that kind of thing, compare notes on how they're teaching." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "25:29", "start": 1528.52, "text": "Yeah, and that's why I think 150 is a really good number for that because It's big enough that there's a lot of diversity there, but it's small enough that it's like, \"Oh, that guy said something really interesting in the morning, let me try to catch up with him.\" And like, it's- Pretty easy to catch up with that person later, right? so by the end of the day, there's usually like a fourth and a fifth space where it's just like groups of people that are continuing conversations that were a bit more organized that started earlier in the day." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:57", "start": 1556.82, "text": "Right. Okay. let's talk a little bit about, your collaboration process with governments and universities. do you wanna just talk a little bit about how that goes and, you know, what are the typical requests they have of you and what is it like for you to work with them?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "26:15", "start": 1575.24, "text": "Yeah, so a question that is always front of mind for us is how do we best stay independent and impartial? Is-- could be a challenge sometimes, right? especially with, with these large entities. so I'll give an example of-- I'll give an example and, and, and, and also just talk about, a new thing that we're doing. So we-- we are In the very, very early stages, but it's already been announced publicly, working with the Ministry of Education, as well as, not be able to pronounce your last name, but Lena from The Little Hodler. So, along with, with her, ourselves, and the Ministry of Education, we are working, or we are going to work on creating New curriculum for younger audiences for the public school system here, right? So two, two Bitcoin education courses that will precede the Bitcoin diploma, right? For seven, eight, nine, and ten, eleven, twelve, and the Bitcoin diploma starts at thirteen, then. And the way that we went into that was, in order to remain independent and impartial, we decided-- or we have never taken any funding from, from, from a government here or, or elsewhere. so what we asked for was we wanted, we wanted it to be open source, like whatever we work on and create, if it's open source so that we could share it with other educators around the world. so that was, I, I think it might be the first. Curriculum developed by a Ministry of Education that will be open source. I, I'm not sure about that, I've never heard of it before. but so that's kind of our approach, right? Like, we don't wanna get the traditional thing out of it. The traditional thing might be money. what we wanna get out of it is, is experience, and we wanna be able to use it freely for other purposes and give it away to other people that will be able to use it, and then in turn, that, that will hopefully help our own fundraising, right? Like, But okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give a few sats here, right? So it's kind of a different model, but it's a way that we think we're better able to stay independent" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:34", "start": 1714.27, "text": "and impartial. I said, \"Yeah. So I guess it's-- You're saying not taking government funding, but...\" Individual donations and maybe company donations are, you know, and, and" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "28:48", "start": 1727.79, "text": "grants are a new one that, it is a, doesn't take up a big Percent of our, of our income at the moment is grants, but I think going forward it will, that, that percent will grow, and, and, you know, it, it makes it easier to apply to grants if, if we're like, \"Hey, look, this is, this is how we've approached things,\" rather than, \"Hey, we got a bunch of money to do this workin' with the government, could we also get money from you?\" Like, that's a harder ask." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:18", "start": 1757.81, "text": "I see, yeah, yeah. Okay, great. and I guess, yeah, maybe it sort of comes back to as well, like localization aspects, right? Like if governments or, you know, you-- Well, actually, that's the other aspect. So we talk about governments. Have you had- Universities and schools reach out in terms of collaboration with them on their courses and their material or is it more like they're coming out to you and just saying, \"Hey, we'd like to use your material\"?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "29:45", "start": 1784.7, "text": "Both, but more the, more the latter. I, I think like a lot of what we do is we try to make it easier for people to say yes, right? Like easier for, university or government, whatever, to, to start to teach Bitcoin education because it's like, \"Hey, well- We'll, we'll get it started, we'll do some of the heavy lifting and just give it to you basically. so that happens a lot there. There's also people that reach out to us That are like, \"Hey, we wanna build something, can you help us build it?\" Right? So there's a university, a university in Colombia, it's one of the larger universities, I think it's, I think it's a network. There's a- I wanna say, I, I don't know the exact number, but there, it's a network of universities in Colombia. I think it's like the public university system there. they already had in mind to build a course And then they saw what we had, and they were like, \"Huh? Can this-- can you guys work with us to, to fit this into something, an idea that we already had, right? So it wouldn't be the entire course, it would be a part of it, rather than-- 'Cause this is, this will take a semester, right? So it's more than fifteen hours. So it's like, \"Can you-- can you guys be in charge of, of working this into, say, a fifty-hour course and, and put your fifteen hours in there? \" You know, and I think a lot of what we do is, is try to create that first model, right? So that's effectively what we're doing with this university in Colombia, and then You know, we'll, we'll learn some, some lessons there and it'll be easier the next time. And, and once, once that actually starts, then we'll be able to kind of pitch it, right? Like, \"This is what we did with this university in Colombia. Hey, university in Bolivia, would you like to do something similar?\" It's, it's much easier once there's an" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:39", "start": 1898.99, "text": "example to point to. Yeah, and I can imagine the content might be, it might really need a rework, right? Because if it's, if it's targeted for thirteen-year-olds, now if we're talking about twenty-year-olds at university, they, they'll need a different thing. but that said, there's also a lot of existing material. I know even, some of the work I did for the sailor-- for Sailor Academy, some of that is actually being used as well by some different universities and, companies also, where they just kind of took that material and used it, and I Right, like it's just out there. so good on 'em. but that's cool. So if we had to summarize where things are going for this year, as you said, you're updating the curriculum, and I guess maybe it sounds to me from what you're saying that, the focus now is sort of getting it out there to other countries so that other countries can pick up this material, pick up the gauntlet, and run with it. Is that the main focus for this year with twenty twenty-four?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "32:35", "start": 1954.64, "text": "Yeah, yeah. So we, we have, you know, our vision statement is three simple steps to change the world, and step one is to make El Salvador an example, basically, is to prove that, Bitcoin education could be a tool for empowerment at mass scale. And step two is to make that example easy to spread and replicate around the world. And so we're, we're kind of, you know, there's, there's a lot more work here in El Salvador. I'm not, I'm not trying to say like, okay, mission accomplished, right? We're done here. Yeah. Yeah. But, but there's a path now, right? There's like a path now that we could start to apply some lessons learned, some best practices from El Salvador to everywhere, right? To, to speed up the timeline for the next El Salvador. I mean A bit special, I don't know, but the next country, the, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the twenty-first, right? so yeah, that, that is a big focus is Is international. Me, Mer Bitcoin will increasingly become international. We'd like to say El Salvador, El Salvador is the focus, the mission is the world. We've always been We've always seen El Salvador as a really high leverage opportunity to do something that will echo, right? And we're kind of in that echo part of things now." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:00", "start": 2040.14, "text": "Yeah, interesting. One other area, I want to touch on. You mentioned this idea of, you know, education for the masses, right? Now, I guess this is gonna be a bit more hairy because at the same time, like, in terms of, you know, what happens when, you know, not everybody can, you know, go on chain, you know, like, can afford to do that. Like, what, what's the kind of approach gonna be there? Because at the same time, it's like, you, we wanna, you know, as you mentioned, one of the values is to empower and so on," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:33", "start": 2073.21, "text": "Be the, you know, the approach around that. Is it just gonna be that, you know, you have to use some kind of service provider until you're able to be self-custodial, but is that, is that just gonna be more like a, or did you sort of push that off and say, \"Look, let's cross that, cross that bridge when we come to it,\" you know, because maybe we're not there yet?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "34:52", "start": 2091.71, "text": "Yeah, I mean, we're mostly pushing that off, but to give an example of how we've, we've dealt with it in the past, like a similar thing. so the very first-- so we, we've been doing the Bitcoin Diploma since 2022, so it's crazy, it's, it's less than two years, 'cause it was later in the year. and there's already been so, so many evolutions. So in 2022, the first-- what we do at the end is, is we do a verification of the students Just our own spin on it. And one of the activities that we did in those first classes was they had to, the students had to recover a wallet from seed Like make a wallet, destroy it, recover it from seed, and send a transaction, but that was on chain. So then the fees went up, and that became, right? Like it's like, well, laughable, right?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "35:47", "start": 2146.99, "text": "Yeah, it's just not feasible." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "35:48", "start": 2148.31, "text": "Yeah, that's, we, we can't. I mean, it was just to demonstrate. It wasn't-- it's not a real transaction, like it doesn't have any real value to it. So we had to modify that and, they, they still restore the wallet and it's-- but different students are restoring the same wallet, right? So the wallet has a balance, so we know that they've successfully restored it. Yeah. but rather than everyone restoring their own wallet, now multiple people are restoring one wallet, right? So that's just-- Right." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "36:18", "start": 2178.39, "text": "Just for testing and demonstration purposes. And I know even, there's a-- Actually, I, I'm reminded now, I know there was a wallet project called- Pada one, and the idea is it's like a testnet Bitcoin wallet, and it's there to kind of teach people. So that's maybe like another example that, you know, this, and, and you're, I mean, this is right, this is the way it's gonna have to evolve over time, right? Like maybe in the early days, yeah, you can just do everything on chain 'cause it's cheap and whatever, but as fees rise," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "36:45", "start": 2205.37, "text": "then it's gonna start to really, th-those fees are gonna start to bite, and, you So, yeah, but so be it, right? I mean, that's, that's, it could be far in the future, Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "37:02", "start": 2221.94, "text": "Yeah, that, that, you know, these students never do anything on chain, but I think it's still important that they understand that, that first layer, right? So it's like, how can we help them understand it, even if they might not ever use it? And maybe like what you-- I'm not familiar with that one, but, but, but a way to use it without, without those fees, but a way to understand it" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "37:26", "start": 2245.88, "text": "Is, Bitcoin education should be interactive, right? Like it, people want it to be tangible. That, that's one of the The barriers that a lot of new people have is like, \"But I can't hold it in my hands, I can't-- it's not real 'cause it, it-- it's not physical, so it's not real.\" so as much as possible, we, we try to-" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "37:55", "start": 2275.4, "text": "let them use it, right? And then they use it, it's on their phone, they send it, and they're like, \"Oh, it makes it real to them. They're like, \"Oh, I, I, I can't, I can't see it. I, I actually am holding it in my hand because it's on my phone and my phone's in my hand.\" So that's important that to always, to always use, but there might have to be things like on testnet, basically for on-chain, and then whether it's Lightning or other layer twos that come in the future, that might be something that they actually use. And we teach them the theory about layer one, but they only use it on testnet, something like that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:34", "start": 2314.21, "text": "Yeah, that, that may just be the way it goes, because you, you just have to keep, updating, based on what's practical and what's pragmatic, and I think that's something that a lot of education over time has, it falls out of date, and so that's, that's the other important part of actually keeping the material up to date, as, as you are doing, as you mentioned. So, that's an- Interesting focus. I think those are some of the key questions I, I kind of had. If there's any, I guess, closing thoughts for listeners and, you know, if you, if you wanna call out for help, if there's anything that you would like, listeners to know, what would you like listeners to take away?" }, { "speaker": "john_dennehy", "time": "39:12", "start": 2352.02, "text": "Yeah, I think the takeaway, something that, that we try to do is, is again, always focus on empowerment, and part of that is To make it easier for people to get started, but also somebody that wants to, to educate about Bitcoin, they don't need us, they don't need anyone else, they could do it on their own. Like one of the messages that we want to send people is like, we are capable, right? We're all capable of, of being more than, than, Than what we're often told in this world, right? Like, I think that's one of the shifts from fiat to Bitcoin is that we are in control of our own lives, and that changes everything. The, the second and third order effects of that means that it, we're incentivized to plan, to build, to create, And we don't need permission to get started. So take control of your own life, take control of your own future. we think that Bitcoin education is a great tool to do that, and we wanna, as much as possible, help people get started on that journey. a-and then We always need help, right? This is a big mission, we wanna change the world with Bitcoin education, and we can't do it alone. That's, that's a huge mission. So the way that people could get involved is, I mean, the, the simplest thing is they could just donate Sats, so we have a, on our webpage, which is meprimebitcoin.io or myfirstbitcoin.io, they could donate it directly there. We also have a campaign on Geyser Fund, just a great way to support, Bitcoin projects. so find us And donate. Another way is we're always looking for expertise, right? If you could translate into your local language, if you're really great at, marketing, if you're really great at, at like, you know, technical aspects, and you could make our GitHub better, if you're-- whatever you're great at, if you could contribute that skill. So we need your sats, we need your time, we need your energy. But you don't need us, right? Like, if you want the world to be better, then make it so." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:25", "start": 2485.15, "text": "Well, that's great. So, yeah, listeners, make sure you check it out. I'll put the links in the show notes. It's me, Prima Bitcoin dot io, and, John, great work with what you're doing out there, and, you know, best of luck with it. I'll see you soon. Thanks. Thank you so much. Right. Lastly, if you enjoyed the show, make sure you thumbs up and, give it a review, share it out there with family and friends, and I'll see you in the citadels." } ] }