Bitcoin education can change the world, but it needs to be community-led, independent and focused on putting tools in the hands of students.
This is an editorial opinion by John Dennehy, founder of the educational program My First Bitcoin based in El Salvador.
Community-led, independent, unbiased Bitcoin education will change the world.
I know that most people would agree on the importance of education, but let’s be honest, it’s often just lip service. So let’s talk about why Bitcoin education is so important and why we need to not only agree that it’s important, but act on it.
Bitcoin Is A Tool
Bitcoin is money, yes, of course. But that’s just scratching the surface. Bitcoin is also a tool that, if used correctly, empowers individuals. It gives us agency in our own lives that encourages decentralization and personal responsibility. All that will reverberate far beyond money, they will change the very relationship we have with the concept of power.
Every previous revolution has focused on which group wields power – Bitcoin can help us change our relationship with power itself. It is difficult to overstate the magnitude of this potential.
But realize that potential is not a certainty. And the best way to predict the future is to create it.
Education is the first step in bringing new people to the place and as such, it will have a significant impact on the path they follow. That’s why it is must be clean. Bitcoin’s deepest potential is to allow individuals to make their own choices, so to begin that journey by telling students what to think is not only counter-productive, but counter-revolutionary.
Community-led, independent, impartial Bitcoin education is an idea that has arrived. This is a revolution, the first step that newcomers take is to preserve Bitcoin’s core ethos.
Proof of Work Is Important
But how? How do we turn these theories into reality? Talk is cheap, what matters is proof of work.
My First Bitcoin is working on how to implement this style of Bitcoin education in El Salvador and elsewhere, and we learned some lessons quickly.
These efforts must be community-led. This means that when we enter a new area, we identify the best students who have the potential to become teachers and we train them to do so and continue teaching long after we leave. Local context is also important, and the people who know it best are those with deep roots.
Bitcoin education should be interactive and Bitcoin tools should be used. Many people are skeptical about Bitcoin because it is not physical – so it is important to put it in their hands and show, rather than tell, that it works. We do this by sending sats to students’ phones in class. We also reward seating at meetings, where we often negotiate discounts with the host bar or restaurant for anyone who pays in bitcoin to encourage attendees to make their first real transaction. Using Bitcoin is definitely easier than you think and it shows that it is very effective right away.
It should also be simple and accessible. Unnecessary complexity is a problem in a fiat world that encourages dependency over agency. Things like the law, taxes or even car repair are so complex that we have to trust others to navigate the system for us, which leads to centralization and deferral of responsibility. If we strive to create a world that empowers individuals, we need to create accessible systems.
There is always more advanced learning that is required and it is always complicated, but the first step that a new student takes in the world of Bitcoin should be easy and accessible. It should be useful. This is a local context, as Bitcoin will solve different problems for different people. It could be comfort, or cost, or sensor resistance, or something else. That is why the teacher must be local, he knows the most important context.
Think about the World in New Ways
And it can’t be about making a profit. Greed is a powerful thing, and many people are drawn to Bitcoin because they think they can make more money. Not.
Bitcoin is not a way to make more dollars, is a way to make dollars irrelevant. To teach people how to make a profit is to adopt an old way of thinking – the goal should be to reverse it. The power of Bitcoin is to teach us to think about the world in a new way, to think about ourselves in a new way. In the world of fiat, money and power are synonymous. If the goal of bitcoin trading is to create more comparative power than others, then the same mentality as the legacy world and will only change who has power, rather than changing the relationship with power. Bitcoin changes the incentive structure and encourages collaboration while giving agency to individuals. Trade encourages competition while encouraging centralization of authority.
Bitcoin will win, that’s for sure. What we have to decide is how.
It will be a long and difficult journey to ensure that Bitcoin is not co-opted by the negative forces of centralization. This is the greatest challenge of our time. If we do this right, we can change the course of civilization in the future.
Community-led, independent, impartial Bitcoin education is an idea that has arrived. Start a project in your own community and make the status quo irrelevant.
This is a guest post by John Dennehy. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.