Bitcoin education can change the world, but it must be community-driven, independent, and focused on putting the tools in the hands of students.
This is an opinion piece by John Dennehy, founder of the My First Bitcoin educational program based in El Salvador.
Community-driven, independent, and equitable Bitcoin education will change the world.
I know most people superficially agree on the importance of education, but honestly, it’s often just lip service. So let’s break down why bitcoin education is so important and why we need to take action rather than just agree that it’s important.
bitcoin is a tool
Of course, Bitcoin is money. But that only scratches the surface. Bitcoin is also a tool that empowers individuals when used correctly. It gives us agency for our own lives that encourages decentralization and individual responsibility. All of this reverberates far beyond money and changes the very relationship we have with our concept of power.
All previous revolutions have focused on which group wields power — Bitcoin can help change our relationship with power itself. It Is difficult.
But realizing that potential is far from certain. And the best way to predict the future is to create it.
Education is the first step in bringing new people into space and therefore has a huge impact on the path they take. Must Be pure. Bitcoin’s great potential is to allow individuals to make their own choices. So starting by telling students what to think is not only counterproductive, it’s also counter-revolutionary.
A community-driven, independent, and equitable Bitcoin education is an idea whose time has come. This is a revolution and the first steps new people take must preserve the core spirit of Bitcoin.
Proof of work matters
But how? How can we turn that theory into reality? Talk is cheesy and proof of work is important.
my first bitcoin We are working on how to implement this style of Bitcoin education in El Salvador and beyond, and are quickly learning some lessons.
These efforts must be community-led. That is, when we enter a new field, we identify the best students who have the potential to become teachers, train them to do so, and encourage them to continue teaching long after we are gone. Train. Local conditions matter too, and the people who understand it best are those with deep roots.
Bitcoin education must be interactive and must use Bitcoin tools. Many people are skeptical about Bitcoin because it is not physical. That’s why it’s important to get and show bitcoin instead of telling it, if possible. This is done by sending satellites to the student’s mobile phone during class. It also often negotiates discounts with bars and restaurants that host people paying with Bitcoin to gift sats at meetups and facilitate attendees’ first real-world transactions. Using is always easier than people think and directly shows that it is highly effective.
It should also be simple and accessible. Unnecessary complexity is a problem in a fiat world that fosters dependence, not agency. Laws, taxes, and even car repairs are so complex that you have to trust someone else to navigate these systems, which leads to centralization and deferred responsibility. If we are to create a world that empowers individuals, we must create accessible systems.
There is always a need for more advanced learning, which inevitably becomes more complex, but the first step for new students into the world of Bitcoin should be simple and accessible. Must be useful. His local context is important here because Bitcoin solves different problems for different people. It could be convenience, cost, censorship resistance, or many other things. They know the context that matters most.
think about the world in new ways
And it’s not about making a profit. Greed is a powerful thing, and many people gravitate toward Bitcoin because they think it can make them more dollars.
Bitcoin is no It’s a way to make more dollars, and it’s a way to make dollars meaningless. Teaching people how to make money is anchoring them in old ways of thinking. The goal should be the opposite. The power of Bitcoin is that it teaches us to think about the world in new ways and about ourselves in new ways. In the world of fiat money, money and power are synonymous. If the goal of bitcoin trading is to create more power than others, then it’s the same idea as in the conventional world, it doesn’t change your relationship with power, it just changes who wields it. . Bitcoin changes the structure of incentives, facilitating collaboration while giving individuals agency. Trading fosters competition while facilitating the centralization of power.
Bitcoin wins, that’s for sure. We decide how.
Keeping Bitcoin out of the negative forces of centralization will be a long and difficult road. This is the greatest challenge of our time. Get this right and you can change the future course of civilization.
A community-driven, independent, and equitable Bitcoin education is an idea whose time has come. Start a project in your own community and make the status quo meaningless.
This is a guest post by John Dennehy. Opinions expressed are entirely his own and do not necessarily reflect those of his BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
