Based in 2021, My First Bitcoin started with a single class of 4 college students. Over the subsequent 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 school rooms to a worldwide motion. Founder John Dennehy says the main target is on empowering educators, not working applications straight.
“We need to assist others reach their very own communities and hyperlink them collectively,” Dennehy stated in a observe to Bitcoin Journal.
The challenge can be embracing a completely distant construction, closing its workplace in El Salvador. Native meetups will now be run by impartial 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 provides individuals company, encourages important thought, and builds long-term freedom. Bitcoin is the instrument, training is the pathway.”
The transfer represents a brand new section for the initiative. By coaching academics, sharing sources brazenly, and supporting community-led initiatives, My First Bitcoin goals to ignite a worldwide motion. The staff invitations educators, organizers, and Bitcoin advocates to affix the community and assist increase entry to information in every single place.
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 individuals through Bitcoin education. 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 typically really feel powerless.
The thought took root through 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 pals about Bitcoin.
Nevertheless, pandemic restrictions made in-person engagement troublesome. Shortly afterward, Dennehy realized 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 organization’s mission and lesson plans, recruiting each college students and native academics. He made group management a core precept, guaranteeing that every one instructors have 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 have been repeatedly collaborating.
In 2022, Dennehy and his staff formalized their curriculum into the “Bitcoin Diploma” program. The diploma contains ten classes masking financial techniques, Bitcoin fundamentals, wallets, nodes, mining, safety, the Lightning Community, and Bitcoin’s future. By the tip of that yr, 38 highschool college students in El Salvador had earned their diplomas.
The group’s influence 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 ideas: impartial, neutral, community-led, Bitcoin-only, high-quality training targeted on empowerment reasonably than revenue.
In Might 2025, the nonprofit received a $1 million grant from Jack Dorsey’s Begin Small to scale its world efforts, together with enhancing the Bitcoin Diploma, intro programs, trainer workshops, and its On-line Faculty and Neighborhood 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.
