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 international locations.
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 working packages immediately.
“We wish to assist others reach their very own communities and hyperlink them collectively,” Dennehy stated in a word to Bitcoin Journal.
The venture can 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. “Unbiased, neutral Bitcoin training offers folks company, encourages crucial thought, and builds long-term freedom. Bitcoin is the device, training is the pathway.”
The transfer represents a brand new part for the initiative. By coaching academics, sharing assets overtly, 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 broaden 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 venture in El Salvador with a mission to empower people by Bitcoin training. Dennehy, a soft-spoken and introspective thinker, noticed training as a way to revive private company and sovereignty, particularly in a world the place folks usually really feel powerless.
The concept 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 troublesome. 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 academics. He made group management a core precept, guaranteeing that each 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 usually collaborating.
In 2022, Dennehy and his crew formalized their curriculum into the “Bitcoin Diploma” program. The diploma contains ten classes overlaying financial methods, 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 influence has since expanded globally. In 2023, Mi Primer Bitcoin launched the Unbiased Bitcoin Educators Node Community, now encompassing over 65 initiatives throughout 35 international locations. These initiatives vary from round economies to native meetups, united by six core ideas: unbiased, neutral, community-led, Bitcoin-only, high-quality training centered on empowerment moderately than revenue.
In Might 2025, the nonprofit acquired a $1 million grant from Jack Dorsey’s Begin Small to scale its world efforts, together with enhancing the Bitcoin Diploma, intro programs, instructor workshops, and its On-line College and Neighborhood Hub.
Regardless of the funding, Dennehy emphasised that the nonprofit won’t ever settle for authorities funding and thoroughly vets different sources to protect independence.
