Firm Title: Mi Primer Bitcoin
Founder: John Dennehy
Date Based: August 2021
Location of Headquarters: El Salvador
Quantity of Bitcoin Held in Treasury: Roughly 0.5 BTC
Variety of Workers: 21
Web site: https://miprimerbitcoin.io/
Public or Non-public? Non-public (Non-profit)
John Dennehy desires to alter the world — and he believes that Bitcoin schooling is a way to take action.
Dennehy sees Bitcoin as a software to assist people reclaim company of their lives, and he understands that schooling is integral to serving to individuals use this software.
So, in late-2021, he created a Bitcoin schooling platform known as Mi Primer Bitcoin (My First Bitcoin) as a way to empower on a regular basis Salvadorans.
He believes that for the Bitcoin revolution to really succeed, Bitcoin customers should completely perceive the expertise with which they’re partaking.
“Training naturally will push again in opposition to any makes an attempt to co-opt the revolutionary spirit of Bitcoin,” Dennehy informed Bitcoin Journal.
And whereas Dennehy doesn’t hesitate to consider larger Bitcoin adoption as something lower than a revolution, take into account that his strategy is extra like Gandhi’s and fewer like Guevara’s.
Dennehy is a soft-spoken, introspective and kind-hearted one who’s notably considerate in his strategy.
The Inspiration For Mi Primer Bitcoin
In early 2021, like many people through the COVID lockdowns, Dennehy was involved with how powerless individuals felt and wished to do one thing about it.
“I used to be in New York through the pandemic, and I spent a whole lot of time on lengthy walks considering the state of the world and the course that society was heading in,” stated Dennehy.
“My conclusion was that the foundation of the issue was that we had collectively misplaced company, we had misplaced sovereignty — the person had misplaced company in their very own life — and that had a whole lot of damaging second and third order results,” he added.
“The answer was Bitcoin schooling. The answer was to convey extra individuals into Bitcoin and do it in a approach that empowers and encourages individuals to suppose for themselves, to suppose critically, and to take management of their very own life and their very own future.”
Using the wave of inspiration, Dennehy booked a flight to Ecuador, a rustic by which he’d beforehand lived and a spot that “wasn’t nicely served by the present system,” as he put it, to start his Bitcoin schooling mission.
A First Try
Dennehy arrived in Ecuador in June 2021. There, he tried to teach buddies about Bitcoin, however struggled to get individuals to satisfy in individual due to the pandemic. With out in-person conferences, he discovered it troublesome to attach with individuals.
“Unsuitable place, fallacious time,” stated Dennehy of his expertise in Ecuador.
Whereas in Ecuador, although, Dennehy acquired phrase of President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele’s announcement that bitcoin was to develop into authorized tender in El Salvador.
After snapping out of his close to disbelief, Dennehy booked his subsequent flight, a one-way ticket to El Salvador, to assist the nation make historical past.
“I made a decision to promote my possessions, get a one-way ticket to El Salvador to attempt to see how I may assist make it profitable,” Dennehy recounted. “As the primary nation on the planet to undertake Bitcoin as authorized tender, for higher or worse, El Salvador was going to be an instance for the world, and I believed it was of the utmost significance that it was instance.”
Humble Beginnings
Dennehy landed in El Salvador and shortly drafted Mi Primer Bitcoin’s mission assertion in addition to some lesson plans. He additionally started to recruit each college students and lecturers.
“The tactic was to speak to each Salvadoran I met — the Uber driver, the waitress on the restaurant, the individual standing subsequent to me ready to cross the road — about Bitcoin,” stated Dennehy.
“Earlier than the primary class, there have been a few conferences of this very random group of individuals. They got here to my Airbnb and talked about [Bitcoin] as a bunch,” he recounted.
“Of that group, a few individuals would volunteer with the challenge.”
Regardless of his years of expertise as an ESL instructor and bicycle driving teacher, Dennehy knew from the onset that he wasn’t the precise individual to show in this system he aimed to create. As an alternative, he wished locals to play that position.
“From the beginning, one of many founding ideas was that it ought to be neighborhood led, which signifies that the lecturers ought to be capable of relate to their college students in a approach that I simply by no means would be capable of,” Dennehy defined. “So, as a tough and quick rule, all of the lecturers right here in El Salvador are Salvadoran.”
The primary class was taught in a yoga studio between courses and had a whopping whole of 1 pupil attend. However by the top of the primary month, a complete of 5 had attended courses, which have been held in that very same yoga studio or in cafés or eating places.
Growing Mi Primer Bitcoin’s “Bitcoin Diploma” Program
By February 2022, Dennehy and the rising staff at Mi Primer Bitcoin began to construct a correct curriculum, which it will time period its “Bitcoin Diploma” program.
“We went via the 2022 calendar 12 months with three variations of [the program],” stated Dennehy.
“We have been simply iterating in a short time. We did not begin to construct it till February, and the third model was full in September,” he added.
Dennehy additionally shared that suggestions from college students on what was and wasn’t working significantly knowledgeable the method.
In talking with Dennehy, I acquired the impression that constructing a curriculum was hardly one of many greatest challenges the group has confronted.
The Challenges Of Working Mi Primer Bitcoin
A persistent problem Mi Primer Bitcoin has confronted since its early days has been establishing the non-profit’s independence and impartiality.
Dennehy mentioned what number of Salvadorans affiliate Bitcoin with the Salvadoran authorities, an establishment about which many within the nation have polarized emotions.
“Early on, there was a robust affiliation right here in El Salvador with the federal government and Bitcoin,” stated Dennehy.
“Folks that loved the federal government tended to love Bitcoin. Folks that did not like the federal government tended to not like Bitcoin. There have been even those that thought that Nayib Bukele invented Bitcoin. That was a standard notion in these early days,” he added.
“So, there’s a robust affiliation that Bitcoin had with the federal government. An early wrestle was to indicate those that Bitcoin is separate. Bitcoin is impartial. And so are we.”
Dennehy identified that this problem nonetheless stays, particularly as Mi Primer Bitcoin now works throughout the public faculty system in El Salvador.
“We’re at all times attempting to say our independence and never simply in deed, however in notion,” he defined.
“Working with the federal government simply amplifies that problem of separating ourselves within the notion of others from the federal government,” he added.
“One of many ways in which we meet that first problem of not being depending on the federal government is, as some extent of precept. We by no means settle for funding from the federal government.”
One other problem Mi Primer Bitcoin faces is protecting its 21 workers paid by way of a donation-based system, a problem that’s amplified by the truth that the group doesn’t settle for donations that include strings hooked up.
“We flip down most gives for sponsorships,” stated Dennehy. “4 out of 5 gives for sponsorships we flip down, as a result of 4 out of 5 include strings hooked up.”
Nevertheless, notable establishments within the Bitcoin house have begun to alleviate a few of Mi Primer Bitcoin’s monetary burden.
“We get grants from HRF, OpenSats and Block,” stated Dennehy.
“All of these come with out strings hooked up, which is nice,” he added.
“I believe grants may begin to take up a much bigger slice of the pie, however from the beginning till now, the vast majority of our funding has come from grassroots assist.”
Mi Primer Bitcoin Goes World
Mi Primer Bitcoin’s schooling supplies and curriculum are free to obtain and use. This has made it simple for lecturers all over the world to undertake the non-profit’s curriculum.
And Mi Primer Bitcoin additionally helps its worldwide lecturers that head Bitcoin academic efforts of their respective residence nations, members of Mi Primer Bitcoin that the group refers to as “Gentle Nodes.”
“We’ve 33 nodes in 22 nations, and all of us get collectively and share finest practices,” defined Dennehy.
“Possibly a instructor in Argentina will visitor educate for a challenge that began in Columbia. We’ve a node in Cuba and a node within the Dominican Republic, they usually’re truly co-teaching,” he added.
Once I requested Dennehy how shortly Mi Primer Bitcoin’s mannequin is spreading on a scale of 1 to 10, he responded with a “10,” with little hesitation. He additionally identified that attempting to increase Mi Primer Bitcoin extra shortly would solely trigger the establishment to stray from its mission.
“I believe the one approach that this spreads quicker is that if we compromise our values, if we centralize and dictate fairly than decentralize and empower,” Dennehy acknowledged.
“We try to reimagine what’s potential for the following technology and that usually means we’ve to forge a brand new path. If we try to show others {that a} completely different future is feasible, we should exhibit that ourselves,” he added.
“What you say is not vital, what you do is every little thing.”
Dennehy went on to elucidate that Mi Primer Bitcoin has obtained 4 Gentle Node purposes previously 48 hours and that he’s amazed by how shortly issues are accelerating.
By no means in his wildest desires did he see Mi Primer Bitcoin rising so shortly.
“I’m a dreamer. I’m an idealist. That’s why I’m right here,” stated Dennehy. “However when you informed me two and a half years in the past we might have taught tens of hundreds of scholars in individual, and we’d have impressed and helped facilitate this in dozens of different nations, I might be like, ‘No approach. Possibly in like 10 years.’”
Remaining Mission-Pushed
As Mi Primer Bitcoin progresses, Dennehy believes that the group should proceed to emulate Bitcoin itself if it’s to stay true to its mission of empowering others.
“Every little thing that we do at Mi Primer Bitcoin, we attempt to study from Bitcoin itself,” Dennehy shared. “And decentralization is actually vital to us, as a result of we need to empower others fairly than management them.”
And his view on what this empowerment seems like appears to be extra refined than ever.
“Bitcoin schooling is a way to an finish, and that finish is empowerment,” stated Dennehy.
“When you understand that you’ve management over your cash, that you may have extra management over your current, it flips the inducement construction. Within the fiat world, we’re disincentivized to look into the long run, to construct, to create, as a result of the foundations of the sport may change. I may begin a enterprise at this time, however the guidelines of the sport that can significantly affect whether or not it’s profitable or not are lower than me and will change at any second. So, it encourages us to be followers fairly than leaders,” he defined.
“Bitcoin is one thing that flips a change that ‘Okay, I may have extra management of my cash, which supplies me extra management of my current which makes it simpler to construct out into the long run, as a result of I’m not counting on the whims of another person.’ The extra we are able to insert ourselves into defining our personal future, the extra we’re inspired and incentivized to look into the long run — to construct and create. That’s the top, and Bitcoin schooling is the means to that finish.”
