Based in 2021, My First Bitcoin started with a single class of 4 college students. Over the following 4 years, it grew quickly, educating greater than 27,000 college students, creating the world’s first Bitcoin Diploma in public faculties, internet hosting educators’ unconferences, and constructing a Node Community now spanning 50 initiatives in 27 nations.
Now, My First Bitcoin is shifting from native lecture rooms to a worldwide motion. Founder John Dennehy says the main focus is on empowering educators, not operating packages instantly.
“We wish to assist others reach their very own communities and hyperlink them collectively,” Dennehy stated in a observe to Bitcoin Journal.
The challenge can also be embracing a completely distant construction, closing its workplace in El Salvador. Native meetups will now be run by unbiased collectives, utilizing open-source blueprints developed by My First Bitcoin.
The group will proceed creating curricula, creating digital platforms, and fostering connections amongst educators worldwide.
“Our mission stays the identical,” Dennehy provides. “Impartial, neutral Bitcoin training offers individuals company, encourages crucial thought, and builds long-term freedom. Bitcoin is the software, training is the pathway.”
The transfer represents a brand new part for the initiative. By coaching lecturers, sharing sources brazenly, and supporting community-led initiatives, My First Bitcoin goals to ignite a worldwide motion. The crew invitations educators, organizers, and Bitcoin advocates to affix the community and assist develop entry to information in all places.
My First Bitcoin background
Based in August 2021 by John Dennehy, Mi Primer Bitcoin (My First Bitcoin) started as a small, community-led challenge in El Salvador with a mission to empower people via Bitcoin training. Dennehy, a soft-spoken and introspective thinker, noticed training as a method to revive private company and sovereignty, particularly in a world the place individuals usually really feel powerless.
The thought took root throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, when Dennehy spent lengthy walks in New York considering society’s challenges. Concluding that the answer lay in training, he initially traveled to Ecuador to show associates about Bitcoin.
Nonetheless, pandemic restrictions made in-person engagement tough. Shortly afterward, Dennehy discovered of El Salvador’s historic adoption of Bitcoin as authorized tender and relocated there to assist the nation’s efforts.
Touchdown in El Salvador, Dennehy drafted the group’s mission and lesson plans, recruiting each college students and native lecturers. He made group management a core precept, guaranteeing that each one instructors had been Salvadoran to higher relate to college students. The primary class had only one attendee, held in a yoga studio, however the initiative grew steadily. By the tip of the primary month, 5 college students had been commonly collaborating.
In 2022, Dennehy and his crew formalized their curriculum into the “Bitcoin Diploma” program. The diploma consists of ten classes overlaying financial techniques, Bitcoin fundamentals, wallets, nodes, mining, safety, the Lightning Community, and Bitcoin’s future. By the tip of that 12 months, 38 highschool college students in El Salvador had earned their diplomas.
The group’s impression has since expanded globally. In 2023, Mi Primer Bitcoin launched the Impartial Bitcoin Educators Node Community, now encompassing over 65 initiatives throughout 35 nations. These initiatives vary from round economies to native meetups, united by six core rules: unbiased, neutral, community-led, Bitcoin-only, high-quality training centered on empowerment quite than revenue.
In Might 2025, the nonprofit obtained a $1 million grant from Jack Dorsey’s Begin Small to scale its international efforts, together with enhancing the Bitcoin Diploma, intro programs, trainer workshops, and its On-line College and Group Hub.
Regardless of the funding, Dennehy emphasised that the nonprofit won’t ever settle for authorities funding and punctiliously vets different sources to protect independence.
