Firm Identify: 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 Staff: 21
Web site: https://miprimerbitcoin.io/
Public or Non-public? Non-public (Non-profit)
John Dennehy needs to change the world — and he believes that Bitcoin schooling is a method 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 method to empower on a regular basis Salvadorans.
He believes that for the Bitcoin revolution to actually succeed, Bitcoin customers should completely perceive the know-how with which they’re partaking.
“Schooling naturally will push again towards any makes an attempt to co-opt the revolutionary spirit of Bitcoin,” Dennehy advised Bitcoin Journal.
And whereas Dennehy doesn’t hesitate to consider larger Bitcoin adoption as something lower than a revolution, understand that his strategy is extra like Gandhi’s and fewer like Guevara’s.
Dennehy is a soft-spoken, introspective and kind-hearted one that’s notably considerate in his strategy.
The Inspiration For Mi Primer Bitcoin
In early 2021, like many people throughout the COVID lockdowns, Dennehy was involved with how powerless individuals felt and needed to do one thing about it.
“I used to be in New York throughout the pandemic, and I spent numerous time on lengthy walks considering the state of the world and the route 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 numerous unfavourable second and third order results,” he added.
“The answer was Bitcoin schooling. The answer was to deliver extra individuals into Bitcoin and do it in a approach that empowers and encourages individuals to assume for themselves, to assume critically, and to take management of their very own life and their very own future.”
Driving the wave of inspiration, Dennehy booked a flight to Ecuador, a rustic by which he’d beforehand lived and a spot that “wasn’t effectively 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 coach associates 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.
“Flawed place, mistaken 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 turn out to be 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 an excellent instance.”
Humble Beginnings
Dennehy landed in El Salvador and rapidly drafted Mi Primer Bitcoin’s mission assertion in addition to some lesson plans. He additionally started to recruit each college students and academics.
“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 gaggle,” he recounted.
“Of that group, a few individuals would volunteer with the mission.”
Regardless of his years of expertise as an ESL instructor and bicycle using teacher, Dennehy knew from the onset that he wasn’t the proper individual to show in this system he aimed to create. As a substitute, he needed locals to play that function.
“From the beginning, one of many founding ideas was that it ought to be neighborhood led, which implies that the academics 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 academics right here in El Salvador are Salvadoran.”
The primary class was taught in a yoga studio between lessons and had a whopping whole of 1 scholar attend. However by the top of the primary month, a complete of 5 had attended lessons, which had been held in that very same yoga studio or in cafés or eating places.
Creating 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 might time period its “Bitcoin Diploma” program.
“We went by means of the 2022 calendar yr with three variations of [the program],” stated Dennehy.
“We had 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 drastically 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 powerful 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 folks that thought that Nayib Bukele invented Bitcoin. That was a typical 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 point out folks that Bitcoin is separate. Bitcoin is unbiased. 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 making an attempt 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 a degree of precept. We by no means settle for funding from the federal government.”
One other problem Mi Primer Bitcoin faces is holding its 21 staff 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 affords for sponsorships,” stated Dennehy. “4 out of 5 affords for sponsorships we flip down, as a result of 4 out of 5 include strings hooked up.”
Nevertheless, notable establishments within the Bitcoin area 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 feel grants would possibly begin to take up an even bigger slice of the pie, however from the beginning till now, nearly all of our funding has come from grassroots assist.”
Mi Primer Bitcoin Goes International
Mi Primer Bitcoin’s schooling supplies and curriculum are free to obtain and use. This has made it straightforward for academics around the globe to undertake the non-profit’s curriculum.
And Mi Primer Bitcoin additionally helps its worldwide academics that head Bitcoin instructional efforts of their respective residence international locations, members of Mi Primer Bitcoin that the group refers to as “Gentle Nodes.”
“Now we have 33 nodes in 22 international locations, and all of us get collectively and share finest practices,” defined Dennehy.
“Possibly a instructor in Argentina will visitor educate for a mission that began in Columbia. Now we have a node in Cuba and a node within the Dominican Republic, they usually’re really co-teaching,” he added.
After I requested Dennehy how rapidly 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 making an attempt to increase Mi Primer Bitcoin extra rapidly would solely trigger the establishment to stray from its mission.
“I feel the one approach that this spreads quicker is that if we compromise our values, if we centralize and dictate relatively than decentralize and empower,” Dennehy acknowledged.
“We try to reimagine what’s potential for the subsequent era 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 reveal that ourselves,” he added.
“What you say is not necessary, what you do is all the pieces.”
Dennehy went on to clarify that Mi Primer Bitcoin has acquired 4 Gentle Node purposes previously 48 hours and that he’s amazed by how rapidly issues are accelerating.
By no means in his wildest desires did he see Mi Primer Bitcoin rising so rapidly.
“I’m a dreamer. I’m an idealist. That’s why I’m right here,” stated Dennehy. “However in the event you advised me two and a half years in the past we might have taught tens of 1000’s of scholars in individual, and we might have impressed and helped facilitate this in dozens of different international locations, 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.
“The whole lot that we do at Mi Primer Bitcoin, we attempt to be taught from Bitcoin itself,” Dennehy shared. “And decentralization is actually necessary to us, as a result of we need to empower others relatively than management them.”
And his view on what this empowerment seems like appears to be extra refined than ever.
“Bitcoin schooling is a method to an finish, and that finish is empowerment,” stated Dennehy.
“When you notice that you’ve management over your cash, that you can have extra management over your current, it flips the motivation construction. Within the fiat world, we’re disincentivized to look into the longer term, to construct, to create, as a result of the foundations of the sport would possibly change. I may begin a enterprise in the present day, however the guidelines of the sport that can drastically affect whether or not it’s profitable or not are less than me and will change at any second. So, it encourages us to be followers relatively than leaders,” he defined.
“Bitcoin is one thing that flips a change that ‘Okay, I may have extra management of my cash, which provides me extra management of my current which makes it simpler to construct out into the longer term, 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 longer term — to construct and create. That’s the top, and Bitcoin schooling is the means to that finish.”