We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - BTC139: Educating the World On Bitcoin w/ John Dennehy (Bitcoin Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to TIP. Hey everyone, welcome to this Wednesday's release of the Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast. So one of the really interesting engagements that I had during the Bitcoin Miami conference back in May was stopping by the El Salvador booth and talking to a member of a nonprofit organization called My First Bitcoin. The organization created a robust curriculum around Bitcoin and how local citizens, students, business owners, or even government officials can participate in this 10-week, all-in-person course. So to tell us about this incredible program and a step-by-step walkthrough of their curriculum is Mr. John DeNahy. If you're a person that's new to Bitcoin or just looking for a general overview of the important characteristics, this is also a fantastic discussion for people like that as well.

Starting point is 00:00:46 So without further delay, here's my chat with John and this really exciting My First Bitcoin Education Foundation. You're listening to Bitcoin Fundamentals by the Investors Podcast Network. Now for your host, Preston Pish. Hey everyone, welcome to the show. I'm here with John, like I said in the intro. And this one's going to be really fun because you are doing some fascinating and important. work and I can't wait to dive in. So welcome to the show, John. Thank you so much for having me. So we had a chat down in Miami and you just showed me the course material and the workbook that

Starting point is 00:01:38 you guys teach. I was blown away because I've never seen something just so well organized and just thoughtful in the way that this is laid out. And I just, some of the stories you were telling me about what was happening in the classroom. We're just fascinating. And I just couldn't wait to have this conversation with you. And I guess my first question for you is, what started you down this journey to do this nonprofit and set this up in El Salvador? Like, what was the impetus for this? We all have a long story to how we got here, right? How far back should I go? I don't know. You don't have to go too far back. Maybe just a little bit before like actually committing to something like this because I mean this is a really big commitment.

Starting point is 00:02:25 So I'm from New York originally and I happened to be there when the pandemic hit that would have been early 2020 and it was an interest in time to be alive, right? It's an interest in time to be in New York. And I had a lot of free time. So I spent that pondering the world, right? like thinking it seemed very clear that we were on the wrong path. It seemed as clear as ever that we were on the wrong path. So I spent a lot of time having pretty negative thoughts, to be honest,

Starting point is 00:03:03 thinking about like what logical conclusions are to the path that we're currently on. And then it kind of dawned on me that there is a hope. There is something that we can do. And I think Bitcoin symbolizes that for me. So during the pandemic, I thought, okay, we're on the wrong path, but Bitcoin could be a way to get on the right path. And the reason why I say that we're on the wrong path and Bitcoin could be the right path is because I think one of the main things that is important to me is critical thinking, is self-sovereignty, is having an agency in our own lives. And it was as obvious as ever that we had lost that, that we had gone away from that. And I think Bitcoin naturally brings us back to those values.

Starting point is 00:03:48 That was in my head already. By the tail end of the pandemic, I had moved back to Ecuador, which is a place that I had spent years in previously. And I thought that I wanted to help people learn about Bitcoin there. Ecuador was a much different place than New York. It was a place that needed it more than New York and that I thought would be more open to change because they weren't at the top of the Beckin order and the financial system. So I gave a little bit of of Bitcoin to some people to teach their neighbors, coworkers, tried to get something started. It didn't really get any traction.

Starting point is 00:04:26 Part of that was the pandemic was still going on, and this was focused on like interactive in-person stuff. But I kind of forgot about it. And then a few months later, then Al-Savider announced that they were adopting Bitcoin as legal tender, which was a really, it like shook me, right? Like it was in disbelief, to be honest. Like, it took me a few days to come around,

Starting point is 00:04:48 I bet this is real. This is really happening. I'm very interested in Latin America. I'm very interested in Bitcoin. Both of them have made up good portions of my adult life focusing on these two things. And this is Bitcoin in Latin America. And it was not on my radar. Right.

Starting point is 00:05:03 I was like, okay, wow, this is an earthquake. And then so I thought, okay, I want to help. I want to do something to make sure that Elsaver would be a success. So I'm going to go there. I'm going to go there. I'm going to live there. And then from that, it was like, well, should I do? And then it was like, well, I wonder if this education thing. I wonder if that would

Starting point is 00:05:22 have more traction in El Salvador. So I went thereafter having some initial analysis, conversations with friends, just trying to work through some stuff, but not having any idea if it would be successful, if it would get any traction, if anybody else would think it was a good idea. So yeah, I arrived in August 2021 shortly before the law went into effect. With not that much more than an idea. You know, there was a website and like a mission statement and some basic stuff, but really it's taken off because it's attracted the right people, both here on the ground, the people that teach these courses, the people that develop the next courses, the people that create the financial infrastructure. Like, they're just really wonderful

Starting point is 00:06:11 people that are committed to this idea. And then outside of El Salvador, you know, like just even coming on this podcast and helping with that. Like, it's really taken on a life of its own since then. John, I can tell you, honestly, the course material is off the charts phenomenal, having gone through it, like every single page in the course material. It's phenomenal. How many students have you guys had go through the program at this point? We actually have a few different offering.

Starting point is 00:06:42 So we started out with just intro classes. Uh-huh. So in 2021, it was just intro classes, just a 90-minute one-off. What is money? Why do we need to change it? And then what is Bitcoin, which is effectively what the Bitcoin diploma is, right? It's just a longer version of that explaining how we've arrived at this moment, like the history of money and how we've gotten here.

Starting point is 00:07:03 And then how Bitcoin could be an alternative to that. So with intro classes, we've had much more students. We had 400 in 2021. we had 10,000 in 2022. And this year we have as many as 5,000 per month now. Per month, 5,000 per month. So they're dialing in via video to go through the... No, this is all in person.

Starting point is 00:07:27 No way. Yeah, this is all in person. And then so the Bitcoin diploma is something that is a little bit newer. It's about a year old at this point. It was developed in 2022. And that's that 10-week program that, you know, the course material that you had seen. And we, that has doubled every, the number of students has more than doubled every session that we do. So every like 10 week period.

Starting point is 00:07:53 So we started with 38th and we did 100, 200, 500. The group that had just graduated that cohort, you know, we're teaching it in different places. But a similar timeline like we start and finish around the same time. The one that just finished that group was 500 students, the next. These numbers are massive. For in person, these numbers are massive. I didn't know the numbers were that huge. That's, okay, here's where I want to go with this.

Starting point is 00:08:22 So you have this course material. Like one of the very first pages in the course material is, and how many pages is it? It's 104 pages. One of the first pages in the, it's a little longer now, I think you're going to say. Well, yeah, we're always, with each new group, we try to learn from the previous one and update. it. So the one that will be coming out, well, the English version is already up, but the Spanish version that will be coming out soon is, is I think we added like 60 or 70 pages. Wow. And I mean, it is high quality content you guys got in here. It's not filler, but that's for sure.

Starting point is 00:09:01 Whenever I look at the course material, one of the very first pages is this blank page and it says, why Bitcoin, why is Bitcoin important to you and how do you think it will change humanity? and talk us through what people are writing down before they take the course. Like you said, this course is 10 weeks long. What are they writing initially? And then you have this at the very end of the book that they do this exercise again and talk to us about the differences that people are writing here. Yes.

Starting point is 00:09:33 This is one of my favorite things about the book, actually. So it's probably worth stating that are. target demographic are Salvadorians who are brand new to the space so they know little or nothing about Bitcoin when they begin. And what that means is the first page, that first blank page, why Bitcoin, is mostly left a blank page. They don't know. Like they sometimes literally leave it blank. And if they do write something, then it's like a sentence or two. It's effectively, they just don't know how to answer that when they start the course. and then you can pair that with what students write at the end.

Starting point is 00:10:18 And this is, so the first page, the first blank page is just one page. So then we leave three pages for them. Sometimes students don't have enough room at the end. And there have been times where they actually staple pages onto that so they could keep writing. And one of the things that we try to do with this course, and I think it resonates at least with these super writers at the end, is we do not teach trade-in. We do not teach Bitcoin as an instrument to have more dollars.

Starting point is 00:10:49 Our focus is Bitcoin is a tool for empowerment, is a tool to take control in your own life. And so that comes across with these students' answers at the end, that this is a way for them to be involved, to be able to create their own future, define their own destiny, which again, so 70% of El Salvador is unbent. And this is a way to, I hesitate to put too much emphasis on whether someone has a bank account or not. But it's access, right?

Starting point is 00:11:21 It's like whether people feel that they have the same tools at their disposal as everyone else or if they're at the will of others. And many students get that Bitcoin is a way for them to have more control in their own life, to better control their present and therefore their future. I want to go through some of the course material, the various chapters that you have and just kind of talk to you about some of the course exercises that you have because some of the stories are just fascinating that you were telling me when we were in Miami. Section one, and this is another thing that I think is just so profound about the course outline that you guys have. You don't even really talk about Bitcoin until the second half of the entire course. So like the person goes through half of this course, this 10 week course, and you haven't even. talked about Bitcoin in the first half of it. It's truly teaching people about money, about

Starting point is 00:12:15 sovereignty, about all these really important ideas that I think society has just been, I don't know, brainwashed is the right word or what, but they just don't even think about these things. So the first chapter in your book is called The Power of Money. And you start off the 10-week course with this piece of candy sitting on a desk. Talk to us about what this is. explain it to folks and then explain what the class's takeaway is typically out of this. As you said, we start the course, not even talking about Bitcoin. We're talking about money. And most people never even think about what money is or why money is. So one of the things that we do in the class, so with much of what we do, we try to make it as interactive as possible.

Starting point is 00:13:03 So one of the things that we do with the class is we give them a piece of candy and we ask them if they would trade it for $1, one U.S. dollar, which is the currency here in El Salvador, in addition to Bitcoin. And everybody raises their hand. Everybody would trade this little piece of candy for a dollar and who would trade it for one monopoly dollar and nobody raises their hand. And that is a really powerful way to demonstrate to students that, to encourage students to question, right? Encourage students to question why one piece of paper has more value. than the other, which is something that they've probably never done before. Why is this paper and ink more valuable than this paper and ink?

Starting point is 00:13:48 And it's the fact that we don't question it, which allows that to continue. And so much of what we do is trying to lead students to their own conclusions, but just kind of setting it up for them, making it a little bit easier for them to ask themselves the right questions. So this is probably worth saying that we are very careful to never dictate to students what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is bad, but encourage them to think about these questions for themselves. Because at the end, this actually isn't about Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:14:25 This isn't about Bitcoin education. This is about what that encourages, what that incentivizes. and our ultimate goal is to allow, if our ultimate goal is to allow people to think for themselves, to encourage people to think for themselves, then it's important that we don't tell them what to think, right, that they have to come to their own conclusion. So we try to prompt that. We try to prompt the right questions, but the students actually come to their own conclusions. I love it.

Starting point is 00:14:54 Shortly followed by this demo that you have, you immediately get into this idea of scarcity and limited resources and time and being an important concept to understand when you're thinking about money. And when I look at just modern society and you're looking at some of the stuff that's happening in Europe that's happening in the U.S. with respect to energy. And it's almost like the world has forgotten this really simple and basic idea of scarcity. And there's only so many resources to go around. There's only so much time to go around. And if we're just printing or making up these fictitious digital units at will and just keep adding them into the economy, that there's going to be a run on those very scarce things.

Starting point is 00:15:38 So when you go through this idea in the classroom, I would imagine it's, I don't know, a little earth shattering or maybe it's immediately like generating this challenging thought base for people that they're just like, I never thought about it that way. What's happening? Yeah, one of the really interesting things is so much of this is obvious in hindsight. It's obvious once you ask the question, but we just never ask the question. We grow up in a world in which we just accept. We accept the way things are. We don't question them. And we're not really encouraged to either, specifically with money.

Starting point is 00:16:23 Specifically with money, we're not encouraged the question. that we're encouraged to just accept it. And it's actually obvious, right? It's like once you take a big step back and you remove yourself from this, and a lot of students get it, right? Like, we try to encourage them to take that step back and remove themselves and, like, kind of see it with fresh eyes. And, yeah, students, there's like, you see it.

Starting point is 00:16:44 You see this aha moment that they have. And that aha moment is often, you know, it's often before we even get to Bitcoin. Because the, I think it's very important. important. In order to understand the solution, you have to know what the problem is. Amen. Yes. So that's really the first half is you're trying to, without forcing them to understand the problem, to get them to think creatively on here is the problem. It's very obvious now, but I've never been afforded the opportunity to think from this vantage point and actually see it. Yeah, that's wonderful. And that's empowering. That's empowering. Right.

Starting point is 00:17:26 To be like, wait, this is this very important concept that dictates much of my life, which is money, which is synonymous with power. And wait, I could, there's an alternative. Like, there's, I could be involved with this. Like, this isn't something that I have to be passive about. Like, I could be active about this. I could have a say. Like, that by itself is very empowering. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.

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Starting point is 00:21:56 All right. Back to the show. In the second section, so moving along in the course guide, so you guys, chapter two, you go through the history of money. You start off with bartering. You go to the dollar. You provide this amazing history.

Starting point is 00:22:14 You get to CBDCs. But in this section, you have something that you term. This is a popular economics idea, but I don't think I've ever even covered it on this show. It's called the double coincidence of once. Can you explain this simply to the audience and explain how it kind of fits into the history of money picture? It's not just to understand why money is broken. It's also understanding why money is.

Starting point is 00:22:43 So the double coincidence of once is a really good example of why money is. It's like money serves a purpose. If we all have different things that we want and different things that we have, and the double coincidence of wants is that it only works if what I have is the same thing as what you want, which usually is not the case, right? Like I have, I have mugs and you have books and you want, you want shoes. I don't have that though. So we need to find a third person or a fourth person, a fifth person, a sixth person.

Starting point is 00:23:17 person to create this chain to actually arrive at the two of us ending up with the product that each of us wants, which doesn't really happen, right? That's a very cumbersome, inefficient process, which is why we have money. Money is a, it cuts away all that fat and it allows, I forgot what the example was that we're using. It allows the book that you want. You could give me money, this agreed upon thing, dollars, Bitcoin, whatever. And then I could use that to get the shoes that I want or whatever the other product it is because it's this common denominator in the middle that we all agree as a unit of account. But that is something, and, you know, there is like an interactive exercise that we do with that,

Starting point is 00:24:04 that like students have a piece of paper, what they have and what they want, and like you just have to try to figure it out in a class of 20, 30 students. And it's a very inefficient process to do that. And then it's like, well, imagine there was something, something in between. Imagine there was something in between, which is what money is. And that is something like people don't even realize why we need money in the first place. But if you explain it to them, and it's not even that complex of a of a concept, right, especially when you could make it interactive and you could like, the students physically get up and they're moving around and trying to find the other person and has this thing that you want. And it's like, wait, but then I don't have what you want. So

Starting point is 00:24:45 have to make this trade here and there. And like, it becomes very obvious very quickly why we need money. Why like the benefit of having money. But again, that's a concept that I never learned in school, right? I learned that because Bitcoin, because, you know, after I got into Bitcoin, then I started reading more about what money was and why money was. But it's the same sort of thing. Like, it's not even that complex. It's just something that we never think about. Later in that section, you get into central bank digital currencies. And I think for most people that really aren't dialed into Bitcoin or paying very close attention to this,

Starting point is 00:25:28 they're looking at a CBDC and they're just like, well, the dollar is already digital or the euro is already digital. I log into my bank account. It's not like I'm actually handling currency. So how is that any different than this central bank digital currency that everybody keeps talking? How do you guys lay that out in your course? Yeah, so it's about control. It's not about whether it's physical or digital. It's about control.

Starting point is 00:25:49 Do you have control or does somebody else have control? And here in El Salvador, and this is contextual, right? So in different environments, then you would use different things to teach this lesson. But we're not too far from Venezuela here, and there are Venezuelan migrants here. you can't, and people are instinctively aware of this, you can't send dollars to Venezuela easily. You can't send value to Venezuela easily because you need somebody's permission, you need a bank's permission, a government's permission. And people know that.

Starting point is 00:26:22 They know that there are restrictions with their money. And then to show them, again, with all the courses in an effort to try to make it interactive and show rather than tell, then we have students actually make Bitcoin transactions. right? So they're just sending it to the to the person next to them or somebody else in the class. But it's a very easy step to be like, and they don't even think about it. So they download a wallet and the student next to them downloads a wallet. We'll send them a few sets over Lightning. They'll send it to the next person. And it's an aha thing. They're like, wow, that was so easy. Like, is Bitcoin easy? I didn't think Bitcoin was easy. Before this moment, I thought it was going to be really complicated.

Starting point is 00:27:04 That's really easy. And then, you have to usually explain to them and break it down even further. You didn't need your ID for that, right? You didn't need to verify like a bank account for that, right? No, no, I didn't. I didn't. Okay. And then when you sent it, did you have to,

Starting point is 00:27:22 did it have to go through a process where it passed through someone else? No. So that's direct. You were just sending it to that person. And they don't have to be right next to you. They could be in Venezuela. They could be in China. They could be anywhere.

Starting point is 00:27:33 and you don't need permission to do it and they don't need permission either. And it's something that like when they do it, they have one aha moment of how easy it is. And then when you explain it to them, then they have a second aha moment where they're like, right. Okay. So that's that's unstoppable. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:27:55 And that is again, it's it opens up a whole new world of possibilities because we're so used to someone else having authority over us. And to show people that not only does it not have to be that way, but it's easier than you think. Because it is a really powerful combination. I love that. Let's go to the third chapter that you guys have here. You have discovering the dark side of Fiat. And in this section, you get into, I love this. You force the students, not that you force them, but you have the students go through this exercise of fractional reserve banking. And one of the exercises, you have them take a 10% reserve ratio of a bank, and you send it through six different participants in order to create more additional fiat in the money system.

Starting point is 00:28:50 I'm curious as they're doing this drill, this mathematical drill, what are the comments or like, what are the thoughts that they're talking about? I'm sure they're blown away that this is how the existing system works. because most people don't ever do this in any type of public education process. Right. And it's basically the converse of Bitcoin. It's like the more that students learn about Bitcoin, the more confidence they have in it.

Starting point is 00:29:17 The more students learn about Fiat, the less confidence they have in it. To be like, wait, so when I put money in a bank, they don't actually, like that money's gone then. It's, yeah. But again, they don't question. That's not something that we're talking. taught to question generally.

Starting point is 00:29:33 So, yeah, the more they learn about the less confidence they happen in. Yeah, I would imagine they're just like, there's no way this is how this actually works, right? Is that pretty much the... Yes. Because it doesn't really, I mean, I don't know, this is a whole different debate that we could talk about, whether the benefits of something like that, which I would not be on that side of the debate. I'd be on the other side. But yeah, it's the financial system that we have doesn't really hold up.

Starting point is 00:30:02 right? Like the deeper you probe, the less things is logical. When you perform these calculations, you realize that it's totally impacted by outside forces and the desires of a few people pulling the strings and conducting these calculations to make sure that there's enough units in the system. And it's like, oops, well, that person's really upset and they're really important. So now I just, you know, I can just sprinkle a few more units in there. And then that issue kind of goes away. And you can just see how. influenced the legacy system is in this section. I love how you guys lay it out for the students to, I mean, why didn't we ever do these calculations in school, right? I mean, it has to be by design,

Starting point is 00:30:46 right? Anyway, let's go to the fourth section. This is titled, The Future Can Be Decentralized, empowering communities and individuals. In this section, you really get into the abuse of centralized systems. Tell us maybe some stories or anything that you think is an important highlight from this particular section. Yeah. So this is one of the more important chapters. And maybe that's what the whole book is about. And that's what this whole question is about centralization versus decentralization. And again, students understand this without realizing it yet. Some students have talked to us, ones that have had accounts with centralized system, like let's keep with money and with banks, they have had, people have had their accounts frozen. People have, you know,

Starting point is 00:31:39 kind of come up against these systems, these centralized systems, and they have had experiences with it. So they know that. They know it without realizing it. And it comes up in every part of our like this centralization versus decentralization question. But most students, again, it's they don't realize that there's an alternative. They don't realize that there is something different. And, and, you know, back to Venezuela, like, people have, we have had students that have tried to send money to Venezuela and it's caused them a bunch of hassle, right? It has flagged them and, like, created headaches for them.

Starting point is 00:32:26 They already know that's a broken system. They just don't know that there's a different way. So, yeah, again, I think in many ways, this is the crux of everything, really centralization versus decentralization is the... So it's something that they can intuitively feel and that they've experienced, but they haven't necessarily maybe understand how capital. controls actually work or remittances, how the plumbing of all of that actually works. But you lay that out in the course guide and they get all the details on how that exactly works. Let me just say this,

Starting point is 00:33:03 John. So here we are. We're halfway through the course guide. The students haven't really even played around or talked about Bitcoin at all at this point. What's the general consensus? Are people, have you lost many students? Is the attendance up? Are they bringing their friends? Like, where are we at the halfway point through the course? No, students are generally excited to hear. This is a subject that I think people are interested in without knowing. This is a brand new concept. But it's interesting because it's a brand new concept for people to think about money

Starting point is 00:33:40 and to think about their relationship with money. And it's interesting because it's a brand new concept, but it's also something that is so relative to their own lives that they could feel, that they could see how it affects them. Usually it's one or the other. Usually things that affect us so much we're familiar with. And things that we're unfamiliar with don't affect us that much. This is that rare case where it's something that students see like,

Starting point is 00:34:08 this has real effect on me, on my own life, and I don't know anything about it. I want to learn more. Let's keep going. Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, so chapter five, you're getting into the future of money, you're talking about Bitcoin. You introduce cryptography. And I'm just, I've been talking about cryptography and Bitcoin for many years at this point. So it's not something that I really even think about all that much.

Starting point is 00:34:36 But I'm sure for a person who's never been introduced to cryptography or how any of this works, it may be a little overwhelming for them to see this and say, like, what are we even talking about? and how in the world is this money. What is the, I guess, how is it received when you do start to dive into it? Because it gets very technical, very technical. And you lay it all out in the multiple chapters that follow, but I'm sure for a lot of people, it's overwhelming at first. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:35:06 And I think the book does a great job generally, not just here, but throughout of breaking down complex topics in a way that is easy to understand. and I want to shout out Dalia Platt and the whole curriculum team for doing an excellent job there. You know, you talk about the difficulty of this, right, about this particular chapter, but I think you could be, you could say the same thing for the whole course. I believe that we underestimate ourselves. We underestimate humanity. This is pretty high-level stuff, but the assumption in much of the world,

Starting point is 00:35:45 is, it's too much for you. You can't handle this. Our assumption is the opposite. Our assumption is you can. Our assumption is that you are capable of understanding these high-level concepts. And what we have found, we have found that to be true, right?

Starting point is 00:36:02 That's been proven true. People, you know, we teach this in high schools, so it's like 16 years old, 17 years old. But we teach it. We also have open enrollment. We have a house that is effectively a school in office for us. We teach you out of community centers and, you know, we have people who are great grandparents that come and they learn about this. I would imagine after you teach section

Starting point is 00:36:27 five, that first lesson that when you guys are done with the instruction, there's just all these people hanging around like with a hundred more questions at the end of the lesson. Is that what you're seeing? Yes. Again, this kind of depends a bit on the set in. So when we teach them in the high school sudden that maybe they don't have time afterwards, they have to go to the next thing. But not only do they have questions, which is true, but they want to share what they learned. One of my favorite things is, so we have these graduations at the end. And, you know, so it's in, it's in a school. We usually only have the graduations if it's in a public school.

Starting point is 00:37:04 And you see students, and you could identify who the students are because we'll give them a t-shirt, right? That's like they pass the test at the end and they get this t-shirt, like I made it, whatever. So you know who the students are and who the other students are at the high school who haven't gone through this course. And just walking around, you know, you go to the bathroom, you go to get like some water or whatever, then you see all these little micro interactions of people who have taken the course who are really excitedly telling their peers about things that they've learned, concepts that they learned. And that is one of my favorite things to see is to see not just that students are able to absorb this knowledge, but they're able to disseminate it as well. Let's go to the case.

Starting point is 00:37:53 So chapter six, you get into self-custody versus custodial services, and you talk about lightning for the first time here. And just going through the material, and I'm trying to look out at it with the beginner's, mindset or I, right? And I'm just like, man, this is really, there's a lot to do this, right? We talk about it all the time and you just kind of lose sight of like how complex a lot of this is. And when I'm looking at it in the course material, I'm saying, man, this would be so overwhelming for a person to see for the first time and just kind of come to grips with, what is this? I guess my first question for you is on the self-custody side. Do you get the inclination that the students view custodial services as being evil on their own? Because I know you don't lay it out

Starting point is 00:38:39 that way in the guide. You just, you present it in a way that, hey, there's this, there's that. How do most of the students view, like, self-custody? It's mixed, right? You know, here and elsewhere, people are usually familiar with Chivo wallet, which is a self, no, sorry, not self-custody, but. Custodial, yeah. Yeah, it's a custodial wallet. And that's a reference point for a of people and a lot of people come to the course with an opinion about that already. If their opinion is already positive about that, then maybe they don't see it as such a bad thing. If their opinion is already negative about that, then they're like, yep, I knew it. This gives me a framework for identifying why I didn't like it. So that is a bit mixed, but it trends towards people

Starting point is 00:39:32 not liking it, right? And further into the course they go and trends further in that direction. And I mean, people can still withdraw their Bitcoin out of the Chiva wallet to whatever wallet they want that could be a self-custody lightning wallet. Do you find after this chapter that they're like, I'm getting my funds out of Chivo if they had it there? Or is it just a broader awareness or education on what they currently have versus what they could have. Yeah, a big part of it is, and yes, I think a lot of people do start using alternatives to Chivo after this, but part of that is because they didn't know there was an alternative before that. So, like, Chivo is kind of the default option here.

Starting point is 00:40:21 And this is only for the older students because you have to be 18, 18 and above to use Chivo. So this doesn't apply to high school students, but for the open enrollment courses, if they do have a Bitcoin wallet already, then it's likely Cheebo. And yes, less of them use Cheebo afterwards. But I think part of that, I don't think they become like crusaders against it, but they weren't even aware of the differences between that and other products. So just that basic awareness that they have is inevitably inevitably going to lead them to reduce that market share. What's the general consensus after they learn about the Lightning Network? Are some of them surprised that they didn't even realize they were using Layer 2 with Chivo?

Starting point is 00:41:09 Yeah, people don't really, it's such a great thing to watch because, you know, I learned about Bitcoin first, and then Lightning was this thing that came afterwards. So in my mind, it's very clearly separated because Lightning didn't even exist in the first place. But now here in El Salvador, people use Lightning, people don't really use on chain. So if you go to Starbucks and you want to buy a coffee or whatever, it's with Lightning. People aren't using it on chain. They think of them much more interchangeably than I do. I separate them a lot more in my head than they do.

Starting point is 00:41:44 They think of as Bitcoin, basically, whatever. Bitcoin. Yeah, they're Bitcoin, right? I love it. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. No, it's not your imagination. Risk and regulation are ramping up, and customers now expect proof of security just to do business.

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Starting point is 00:45:11 fundrise.com slash income. This is a paid advertisement. All right. Back to the show. So, John, at the end of the course, when you're all done here, do you find that the students are really proud of being an El Salvador citizen for figuring this out before everybody else in the world? Absolutely. Yes. Yes. So, you know, I mentioned the graduations that we have. And what we do with the graduation after they finish the course, then we bring in people to verify their knowledge. And these sometimes are Salvadorians, but. sometimes they're foreigners. These are people who are already well-versed on Bitcoin. It's actually sometimes former students that come back to do this part. But as part of the ceremony, we talk about that.

Starting point is 00:46:02 We talk about, you know, how important what's happening here is, how important what's happening in El Salvador is. Like, El Salvador is the tip of the spear. And then within that, you are. You are this first generation in the first nation. to learn about this, to have this knowledge as part of a normal aspect of your life. And that will change everything. You will change everything.

Starting point is 00:46:30 You are the precedent. You are the example. And they feel it. And they really feel it. Like I think at most, if not all of the graduations that I've been to, at least some of the students have cried. They've cried at like the, moment that they're in at the, you know, whether they're hugging their teacher when they get the certificate and they're crying, or they go back and they go to their mom or their dad and they

Starting point is 00:46:58 hug them and tears in their eyes. Because this is, the students, again, it's about empowerment. They haven't, they are feeling their own power maybe for the first time in their own life. They are feeling their own importance, their own, that they matter, right? Like, that's, That's one of the things that we like to try to impart is that you matter, right? You matter. This is your life, your decision, your sovereignty, your destiny, your future. And yeah, you see that at every graduation. Like the students, they feel it in ways that maybe they're not used to feeling it.

Starting point is 00:47:43 It's awesome. They're feeling empowered. Yeah. What are you guys doing to expand? this because when I'm looking at the course guide and I'm looking at, I mean, this whole movement is about education. It really is like you can't move this forward without people, A, understanding the problem, like you said earlier, and then B, understanding the solution, which is where I get really frustrated, especially with legacy finance, because it's like, how can't you see the solution?

Starting point is 00:48:08 It's practically hitting people in the face. And it's an education gap. People have to be able to wrap their head around the nuances of this to truly understand why it's so revolutionary, why they can't be debased, and why it stores their savings on a long tail. There's going to be volatility along the way. But if you can store your savings in this, it's going to be just empowering for them. So how can you guys expand this? Are you guys expanding this? Just give us a glimpse as to what you guys got in the future here.

Starting point is 00:48:41 Yes, that's a great question. we can expand it. We are expanding it. We will expand it. And the way that our strategy for that is our strategy for everything is to empower others. So the book that we're talking about and everything that we do is either open source now or will be open source. So the Bitcoin diploma is open source. Every time we have a new edition, it's open source.

Starting point is 00:49:04 You can find it on the website or GitHub. And we are also, this is at the moment of recording. Not yet released, but by the time the recording is live, I presume it will be in that in that interim. We'll release our vision statement, which is this three-part process. The first part is what we're doing in El Salvador. That is to demonstrate that Bitcoin education could be a tool for empowerment at mass scale. The second part of that, which is something that's already happening, is to empower others to do in their own communities.

Starting point is 00:49:44 So we are working, and this is just people who have reached out to us. We've never advertised this. This is literally the first time that I'm saying it publicly. But people have reached out to us from places around the world, whether it's Bitcoin and Kasi in South Africa or Amni Age, Nandoros, or so many others. And they are teaching the Bitcoin diploma where they are in their own way that fits best for the local context.

Starting point is 00:50:10 And we're trying to encourage that and speed that up and ensure high quality of that. So we are linking teachers who have experienced with it, who have gone through it with teachers who are teaching it for the first time so they could share best practices. We're trying to create multidirectional communication channels between these different nodes and the network. So you can share best practices, not just from one teacher to another, but one accountant to another, one manager to another, you know, just in the same. the different facets that it takes to make this successful.

Starting point is 00:50:44 And then the third part is to create a space where we could all come together. Because Bitcoin education, independent, impartial, community-led Bitcoin education is something we can all support. We all come at Bitcoin from different angles with different perspectives. We have different, we have different end goals, but this is something that we can all align on, right? this is common ground for all of us. And so we want to create that space where we can all come together there. So it's this three-prong strategy that we have.

Starting point is 00:51:18 But it all starts with creating a positive example here. That's the basis of everything. The basis of our scale in philosophy is not for us to go to other places, other parts of the world and do the same thing. It's to help others do it there. It's to encourage others to do it where they already are. they know the local context. And it's about decentralization, right?

Starting point is 00:51:43 That's a whole, that opens up a whole can of worms if we are, if we are actually doing this everywhere. Like that becomes centralized then, right? So the whole point of this is to empower others. And that means the students that we teach. It means the people that work for the project here in El Salvador. But it also means the people that want to do something similar, wherever they are. All of this is about creating positive examples and empower and others to take control of their own life, their own situation. Well, John, so the PDF that I'm looking at,

Starting point is 00:52:20 the whole course guide is open source. And people can go into the show notes. We are going to have a link in the show notes that will take people to the page where they can view this outline that I'm looking at, which is mind-blowing, how incredible this outline is. Even if you don't plan on showing this to anybody, just having it for yourself to go through in reference is insanely valuable. I cannot recommend it enough to go into the show notes to what you're listening right now and just click on the link to go to what they have made. It is phenomenal. My next question for you is what should someone do if they're listening to this and they want to get involved then they're hearing this and they're saying, I've got to do something similar for my local area

Starting point is 00:53:09 or can I donate some money to help this organization succeed even more than what they already are? Like, what is the call to action here for somebody who's listening and wants to assist or help in any way that they can? Our objective is to change the world. And because that is so broad, we need all the help that we can get. And that help comes in a variety of different ways. Like the simplest way is money, right? It's just to donate. You can donate on our webpage, which is my first bitcoin.io.

Starting point is 00:53:44 Or we have an open campaign on Geyser on the Geyser platform. So either of those are great ways to donate if you have some spare sats and that's very helpful. Other ways to help. And we have, we try to stick to an order of priority. One is the mission, two is the project, and three is the individual. If you could help the mission, and the mission is to reimagine what's possible by allowing and encouraging people to think for themselves, have agency in their own lives, take control over their present, therefore their future, that's it. That's all you have to do, right? And we have a toolkit that we share with people that reach out to us that are interested in doing just that. And we can connect you with other people who are doing similar things in other places to make it easier to do that on your own.

Starting point is 00:54:44 And just, you know, all our materials are open source. We're actually the long-term plan is open-source everything. So it's not just the Bitcoin diploma. It's also our accountant practices. It's also how we do marketing, how we do market and how we. make internal decisions, all that stuff. So it's just, and again, people will do it in their own way, but to create a framework and a guideline to help people get started

Starting point is 00:55:07 because the first step is very often the hardest. Yeah, so the call to action is do donate if you can. Do come to El Salvador and see it for yourself if you can. Do join the project to reach out to us. And if you have a special skill, like you could help with translations, with web design, literally anything that whatever, whatever you're great at and you could donate your,

Starting point is 00:55:33 your skills, your time, your energy, your passion, then that is super helpful to us because we need so many different skills. And then the third part is you are, you can do this in your own community.

Starting point is 00:55:48 This is a global movement. This is El Salvador is the Genesis block, but it's not the only one. El Salvador is the example of the mission is the world. Cannot thank you enough for doing this. And for folks that are listening, click on the show notes. Look at this guide. You're going to spend five minutes flipping through this guide and you're going to see what I'm talking about and how profound this is and how important this project is with just a very little effort here, folks.

Starting point is 00:56:21 So go into that. Please click on the link. Check it out. And John, thank you for making time and thank you for your amazing efforts down there. This has been a real treat to be able to talk to you. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. And just, I want to give a quick shout out to the team.

Starting point is 00:56:38 We are doing on Twitter right now, which is my first Bitcoin underscore. We are doing a share your story campaign because the team, which is about 25 people here in El Salvador, they all are doing such incredible work. And this is the product of so many different. different minds, so much labor from so many different people. And everyone is sharing in their story how they arrived at this point. And, you know, we're a couple of days since the campaign. And it's so inspiring, even for me and like, I know these people, right? But it's still to read what brought them here and like why they're doing this. It's really inspiring. And I would

Starting point is 00:57:19 love to get more eyeballs on the individual personal stories of everyone on the team. And, and yeah, why they want to change the world and how they're already doing it. I love it. We'll have a link to the Twitter as well. John, thank you for your time. Thank you so much. If you guys enjoyed this conversation, be sure to follow the show on whatever podcast application you use. Just search for We Study Billionaires. The Bitcoin specific shows come out every Wednesday, and I'd love to have you as a regular listener. If you enjoyed the show or you learned something new or you found it valuable, if you can leave a review, we would really appreciate that. And it's something that helps others find the interview in the search algorithm. So

Starting point is 00:58:04 anything you can do to help out with a review, we would just greatly appreciate. And with that, thanks for listening, and I'll catch you again next week. Thank you for listening to TIP. To access our show notes, courses or forums, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decisions, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network. Written permissions must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.

We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - BTC139: Educating the World On Bitcoin w/ John Dennehy (Bitcoin Podcast)

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