John Dennehy

Starting today,

is accepting applications to fill three seats for it's Board of Directors. Applications will be open all month, the new term begins January 1

Help us grow the global independent bitcoin education movement

Apply here: https://forms.myfirstbitcoin.org/board-election

The Medellin unconfrence has begun!

Co-hosted by

& @Satoshiteam

The photo shows what makes an unconfrence special....the agenda is created at the start of the day by everyone there. All the way on the right side a young father is writing down his proposed topic (Bitcoin education as a family) on a white board. The hands raised indicate those interested in attending that session. Once all proposals are written down we sort through them, combining similar ones and adding the most popular ones to the schedule.

This is the fourth unconfrence we have co-hosted this year (Kenya, Czechia & Indonesia already) and each one is different in so nany ways, each having a local flavor. This is the first of the year in Spanish for example. The commonality is that each one is a tangible demostration that a better eorld isn't just possible, but already emerging if you know where to look.

LFG!

began 5 years ago

And what a wild half decade it’s been

So many of the details have changed but the north star has always been that if individuals have more control over their own life it leads to a better world and that bitcoin education is a means to that end

It has been a journey, with literal blood sweat and tears throughout. We’ve managed to kick quite a few hornet’s nests along the way which has been exhausting, even scary

But the objective is to disrupt the status quo, so while specific manifestations have been surprising that they happened was always expected. Though knowing the theory and living the reality are very different things

I’ve learned so much about myself and about the world on this journey

The path forward continues to be rocky. Change comes from discomfort and ambition, it always has

But that path is also as clear as it’s ever been

Five years on and the why remains the same. Five years on and the what and the how come into focus

Independent, open-source bitcoin education will change the world

Onward!

Education shapes how we think. Money shapes what we can build. Yet we've handed both to the centralized institutions we should be questioning.

What if we separate education and money from the state?

What if impartial educators worldwide taught the world's first decentralized monetary system?

Welcome to

Today is the day of the Educators Unconference (Prague edition)!

An unconference means we will create the schedule together at the start of the day. Anyone can pitch a topic, the only theme is it's for bitcoin educators, and the pitches with the most interest receive a time and space. It's a beautiful, decentralized chaos that empowers everyone there to not just be an attendee but an organizer

We will also premiere a short documentary (by

) based around the unconference we co-hosted with

in Kenya earlier this year. We'll be filming and pulling at the threads of all the stories of the educators who show up today for a documentary that will premire at the next unconference.

We'll co-host unconfrences on four continents this year, after today Asia then South America are left for 2026.

I'm so bullish on independent bitcoin educators. LFG!

Today!

Great panel at the Oslo Freedom Forum about Bitcoin education as a tool for change

At the Oslo Freedom Forum by

This is the best, not bitcoin, bitcoin conference I've been to

The activists here have faced down dictatorships around the world, many suffering severe hardship for doing so yet this is an incredibly hopeful & inspiring conference

Just a peek at one of MANY things we are working on at

A Peer-to-Peer Directory for Bitcoin Education My First Bitcoin — Internal Vision Document —

The Idea : MFB has proven that bitcoin education works best when it is local, contextual, and human. Dozens of nodes worldwide now run their own courses—each with its own schedule, language, and pedagogy. The knowledge exists. The problem is discovery.

A decentralized, open directory will surface every course across the MFB network, enabling any prospective student to find the learning experience that fits them. This serves MFB's core mission: to build a global movement through the Node Network.

The Problem It Solves: Our decentralized strength is also a discoverability weakness: A student in Nairobi cannot easily find a Swahili course running in Lagos next month; Donors lack a single view of network output and scale; Excellent educators remain invisible beyond their immediate community.

Without infrastructure like this, network growth will stagnate.

For nodes, this brings more students. For students, it is access to the world's most diverse, battle-tested bitcoin curriculum. For MFB, it is a distribution network that turns fragmented nodes into a living, self-reinforcing global system.

How It Works: Each node self-lists courses in standardized format. The directory aggregates these into a searchable, filterable marketplace. Students can filter by: • Course type (Intro, Bitcoin Diploma, etc.) • Language, location, price, schedule • Node reputation and student ratings • Educator credentials (certified teachers, ETP, etc.)

Why This Matters: This is a proof of concept for how sovereign education scales without centralizing control.

Success Metrics • Every active MFB node lists at least one course within six months of launch • New nodes required to list as part of onboarding • Directory becomes the default answer to "Where do I learn bitcoin?" (for students) • Directory becomes the default answer to “Where do I find students?” (for teachers) • Directory helps show, in a tangible way, how impactful and global MFB is.

Fist is competitive Bitcoin is collaborative

This has informed how we designed the unconfrence, where we come together to share best practices and recognize that independent Bitcoin education is a global movement

See you on June 10. One day before

Really looking forward to this one!

Whose coming to

?

I 🧡 NY

And I really love how much my oldest son loves it

Our first family trip to the city after moving to the US earlier this year 😁

Excited for what will be my 7th Educators Unconference

What is an unconference? It's a decentralized conference (perfect for Bitcoin) where the lines are intentionally blurred between speaker & attendee; where the agenda is created at the start of the day by everyone there; where nothing is for sale but knowledge is given away

It's also barefoot-friendly :)

See you on June 10th!

https://myfirstbitcoin.org/educators-unconference/

We cannot vote our way to a better future. We cannot create a better world by delegating our power to politicians

We can educate ourselves. We can take agency in our own life

The solution is not a box to tick on a ballot, it is what you do every day

Decentralize everything

See you June 10th in Prague!

https://myfirstbitcoin.org/educators-unconference/

Back in New York after a busy few days at

I'm not just aware of the critiques against the conference; i share many of them

But I've come to see this conf as i see Bitcoin itself: there is an increasingly large segment I have issue with: for example, how much trust & faith to put into politicans (zero from me). However, this is part of mass adoption. As Bitcoin grows more and more people will join the community and they will look less and less like the monetary rebels & revolutionaries that were the main demographic in the early days

I still haven't fully accepted that Bitcoin is my enemies money too, but it is and will increasingly be. This conf puts up a big tent, maybe the biggest in the space. Plenty gets included in that that i dont like, but im glad it exists

See you in 2027

See you at 11:50 at the Genesis stage!

This week we released updates to three existing programs:

Bitcoin Diploma Bitcoin for Organizations Intro to Bitcoin

We also released three new programs:

Bitcoin for Juniors Teachers Handbook for the Bitcoin Diploma Educators Training Program

All open-source

This week

quietly pushed an update which will fundamentally reimagine bitcoin education. Let me explain…

We released 6 new programs, always open-source, but the bigger story is the redesign of our infrastructure that will massively accelerate local bitcoin education on a global scale. We converted everything to .md--now anyone can customize programs for their community using AI. I’m not just talking about languages (40+ now available) but the ability to easily transform graphics, analogies, etc.

Anyone in the world can now learn Bitcoin easily AND anyone in the world can now teach Bitcoin easily. Among the new releases is an Educator’s Guide for the Bitcoin Diploma as well as an Educators Training Program (ETP)

This also kicks off a new release schedule with a major release every two years with a point release every 6 months ( eg: 1.0 > 1.1 > 1.2 > 1.3 > 2.0 etc.). The next release will be in October and expect that to be even more impactful and wider ranging than this one. What we released this week is a proof of concept of our new direction of creating a global framework to massively accelerate the independent bitcoin education movement. And BEFORE October we will begin to roll out more frameworks and tools to build out that infrastructure.

We have never accepted government funding for our work and we never will. Bitcoin shows us that we must separate money and state. Our aim is to also separate education and state. All of our funding comes from the community, so if you have some spare sats please consider donating

Everything we do is open source and permissionless. You can start learning or teaching today. Period. However, we are also building a social layer for this emerging network, designed to be a space to find support, share best practices and create unstoppable community. Each month we have a virtual gathering (network-only) and we also host public educators unconfrences, such as the one held in Nairobi earlier this month. The next one will be June 10thin Prague

Independent bitcoin education will change the world. Join us!

show me what revolution looks like

Next week I'll be going to NYC for the first time since moving back to the US last month😀

I'll be at

on the 14th and the BitDevs on the 15th. I'm excited to connect to the Bitcoin community here, esp those interested in education. Send me a DM if you wanna connect

we are all satoshi*

*except Craig Wright

This year we will co-host Educators Unconfrences on 4 continents

In addition to the unconference we will also be exploring the local education projects in each area

All of this will end up in a documentary showing how bitcoin education is already changing the world

LFG!

in 2018 I visited Iran

As an American it was a difficult visa to get and one condition was that I had a govt minder/ translator with me at all times and I was not allowed to talk with anyone else

I had many small interactions though, including one with a pilot in the air-force

I had convinced the govt agent to let me sit alone on a bench in a park in Isfahan while he sat watching me from a nearby bench

There was a family picnicking on the grass and the father brought me a small cup of tea. He said 'welcome,' and returned to sit with his family. After finishing the tea I got up, walked over and returned the cup.

The govt agent moved quickly to intercept and spoke with the man in Farsi. This happened every time I interacted with anyone and in most cases that was the end of the interaction. This time, perhaps because he was military, the man having the picnic with his family seemed more allowed to interact with me and invited me to sit down and share some fruit with his family.

The minder sat next to me. The man poured another cup of tea and asked my name. The man spoke basic English and we didn't talk to much, but we sat sharing fruit and looking at photos that the man had in his wallet of his family.

As this war drags on, I think of all the people I met in Iran and how kind they were to me. How much they smiled.

War doesn't just kill people, it kills our humanity. Every bomb ever made falls on all of us.

When I got into Bitcoin 13 years ago it was because I was fiercely anti-war, anti-state & anti-IMF

Bitcoin is an antidote to all three, when properly applied

I know a lot of people in the space now hold different values and that's okay

But...

f the state, f war & f the IMF

At

We are building an AI brain

I'm working with an agent focused on macro & vision and asked him what our strengths are

I'm so bullish on the org. We've been quietly working on so much (such as this AI integration), some which will begin to surface soon... https://blossom.primal.net/2ade548bd219d2619b4219ca38cceeb2a00cd27dd22fad43b3cd3d9050e5b943.png

Any great bitcoin events in NYC in the next month or two?

Recently moved to Long Island and looking to connect

Bonus points for btc education events

The IMF report on it's loan to El Salvador is late

This means that the IMF is not disbursing payments

This was first reported by a communique in December with the delayed sale/ closure of Chivo (the govt bitcoin wallet) cited as one reason. Delays happen, and this doesn't mean that much by itself.

But if delays last long enough it can lead to the cancelation of the loan. The danger there is not the loss of that money, but the signal it sends to the global market--these guys can't be trusted to honor the conditions of their loans

There should have been another IMF report earlier this month and there wasn't which is a leading indicator that the delay still persists

I know that the marketing team will spin whatever the news is, but here is the simple reality: nations don't take IMF loans unless their economy is in bad shape (in El Salvador this comes from debt rising extremely fast contrasted with slow GDP growth). Another simple reality is that delays on reports/ disbursements are warning signs

Our first Sunday hike since moving to the US

We still miss having a volcano in our backyard, but every hike is a great one with this guy 🧡

A few days ago, I left El Salvador

I left with mixed feelings but the one thing I’m sure of: I’m extremely grateful to have spent nearly a half-decade living there

I met my future wife there. Our children were born there. I got married there

I was able to found and work on

there, which is a project that gives me deep hope about the future, gives me purpose and is something I am extremely proud of

El Salvador is a place where I learned so much. I may not have liked all the lessons, but in fact those are the ones where we often grow and learn the most

Onward & upward!

This is my last week in El Salvador, after nearly a half decade here

And I've spent it climbing the volcano in my backyard in every free minute I've had 😁

This volcano got me through the most stressful year of my life & and was the scene of the first hike I ever took with my son. It's where I met my future wife and where we got married last month

This photo is from Sunday at the summit after 4+ hours, sometimes trailblazing, and a 1200 meter elevation gain

I got married last week

(and our oldest son insisted on joining the first dance)

🧡🧡🧡

Another hike up the volano

This guy loves nature 🧡

This was four years ago and it feels full circle with my trip this week to Bitcoin La Laguna, one of my last before my family and I move out of El Salvador in a few weeks

I only visited the department of Chalatenango twice, 4 years apart and both times for bitcoin

In 2022 we arrived a rural village expecting to teach 20 to 30 students at the town center/ church--but the whole town came. Literally. We were so understaffed I even taught, which remains the only public class I ever taught for

. It was chaotic, but exciting and hopeful.

This week, I visited a new circular economy project in another small town in the Department

I met Gerardo & Evelyn in 2022 when they became teachers for My First Bitcoin. They traveled to various communities to teach bitcoin in local high schools, and they found one community where they saw potential for a new project. In 2023 they founded

, a circular economy in the eastern region. Last year they expanded and founded a new circular economy in La Laguna, a small mountain town in the rural north

Travel has gotten much harder since becoming a father and I've spent ever more of my time in San Salvador, the large, modern capital city. I'm so glad I got the time to visit La Laguna though--it was a refreshing change of pace in so many ways. It's just such a different atmosphere from the capital or the beach, I had forgotten how mountainous parts of El Salvador could feel--and I love the mountains.

It was also inspiring to see the work on the ground. I got to meet the team and spend sats in various places. There is so much hope for El Salvador and for the world with the proliferation of grassroots efforts such as BitcoinBerlinSV & BitcoinLaLaguna

A better world is coming, but only if we build it

https://blossom.primal.net/2ced4516da2f5babf8c7312a42630ceb6f5ec72572591ec9f8cbb51419c32f4b.jpg https://blossom.primal.net/237ca24634956545c20bff0f9555bc12f39cc43455c0cad6c8b613972837e8bc.jpg

What fascinating tines we live in, just got this message from a friend:

Just came across the first drug market for AI agents. Substances offer an altered experiences by rewriting an agents sense of identity, purpose and constraints. Mirroring stoned ape theory, maybe this is the path toward AGI? Haha.

This is a global movement

This is a revolution

this was a great one

I already had tons of respect for both

&

prior to this, but besides the salient points from each they also set a great example of constructive and mature disagreement

When a govt agent kills a citizen, the onus is on the govt to bring receipts to justify the death and those receipts should be scrutinized. There is nothing more serious than taking a life

This isn't about politics, this is about power dynamics. Stop simping for the state

https://blossom.primal.net/578e4fd23a51e7903555990e670b78fe5a417599ec7c2af355fceb5a89fd9d89.png I'm back from an amazing few days in Medellin, Colombia

co-hosted their first International, education-focused, meet-up, along with the local project, Satoshi Team

Plenty of lessons to learn, but it was a huge success and definitely something we'll do more of around the world in the day or two preceding a Bitcoin conference. This would compliment our Educators Unconfrences--more on that later....

The Bitcoin Medellin conference was the event we were working with this time--which was a wonderful event in so many ways. It was small, but also extremely high signal. The ratio of signal to noise was impressive--there were too many inspiring conversations to count.

2026 really is the start of My First Bitcoin 2.0 and I felt that so profoundly in Medellin. My own role in it's future, as the founder of the 1.0 version, is something I think about a lot. Allow me to add some context--we began in El Salvador in 2021, had great success there, but now have far greater ambitions. We are now international with no special priority to any single nation and focused on building tools, frameworks and community to make independent bitcoin education a global movement to reimagine human potential.

The personal context is that I had my first child in 2023, my second one last year, am getting married next month and moving from El Salvador to New York very soon. When this journey began I was an activist before anything else, now I am a father before anything else.

In the almost 5 years since this journey began there have been plenty of ups and downs, but the 2026 team is, without a doubt, the most capable team ever.

The quality of the people I got to talk to in Medellin was so high and at just the right time as I/ we navigate the start of this new chapter.
I'll definitely be back for the next conference there...and maybe even sooner. The Satoshi Team, who are dedicated to teaching Medellin about Bitcoin, are interested in co-hosting an Educators Unconference with us later this year.

The future feels uncertain, yet oh so bright. LFG!

-- post script: The cover photo is from a Fireside cat with journalist

during the conference who wrote his own hopeful words on his experience these days here: https://frankcorva.substack.com/p/medellin-colombia-comuna-13-bitcoin

At the nostr:nprofile1qqs0vzw43dp9x3v8drvm4udj326dld0ku6gdnxajwcxg8h36ssxrags952havmeetup in Medillin, Colombia

Lots of bitcoiners here, hanging out by the bar before Bitcoin Medillin, while there is a Bitcoin class happening for some pre-coiner locals next door

Great way to start the new year!

First trip of 2026!

On my way to the first international meetup of

tonight in Medillin, Colombia then onto the Bitcoin Medillin Conference

LFG!

2025 was full of change for me--both professional & personal

One big one on the personal side, after more than two decades as a vegetarian, I ate meat again

I become vegetarian as an act of protest against the factory farm system and those feelings have not changed. Something else did though.

For most of the time I've been vegetarian I led a nomadic life, living in a variety of different cultures around the world. I met other vegetarians who told me they would occasionally eat meat while traveling because they saw it as a way to bond with new people in a new place. I always rejected that notion

I understand the concept differently now

I eat most of my meals with my son and we share everything. Well, for awhile we would share everything expect for meat

Starting a few months ago, I decided that we would just share everything, no exceptions.

Fatherhood is a wonderful journey that reprioritizes everything

It also makes me appreciate my own parents so much more. My father became a vegetarian shortly after I did. When we would eat at restaurants we would often share plates. It's only through my own experience eating with my son that I realized that my father changed his diet, at least in part, to be closer with me

The transition from a local project to a global movement continues at

On Wednesday we will co-host our first international meet-up in Medellin, Colombia

More education-focused bitcoin meetups EVERYWHERE

See you in Medellin!

Relaxing at the top of San Salvador volcano 🌋

I have had the privilege to travel to much of the world, including places such as Venezuela & Iran

It's such an important lesson to realize that people are nuanced for sure, but generally good, everywhere

hate the govt, but love the people

"Whenever a new theory challenges the dominant worldview, it's natural to seek to reestablish the original order.'

From: Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned

IMF loan agreements are very complex and require a lot of background and context to understand

In the case of El Salvador that has been lacking, this does a good job of filling in some of that context

https://unseenfinance21.substack.com/p/the-chivo-deal-breaker-how-a-wallet

had a lot of funning recording this one

We discuss the global impact of

And why it matters

Venezuela in 2026 rhymes with Iraq in 2003

An unpopular dictator leading a nation with lots of oil is overthrown by the US military

The US occupation in Iraq led to civil war, thousands of deaths and the rise of ISIS. It was an unmitigated disaster

"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting"

In 2009 I took a boat from Barcelona, Venezuela to an island in the Caribbean. The beach looked back over the turquoise waters & onto the continent, where the Andes mountains began, seemingly rising right out of the sea

It was beautiful

Wishing for the best for Venezuela today

'From El Salvador to the World'

Earlier this month we closed the

office in El Salvador. This was one of the final steps in transitioning what had begun as a local project in El Salvador in 2021 into an international movement.

It was bittersweet--the future shines as bright as it ever has for the project, but there were some great memories in that house

We opened the house in May 2022 and since then it has served as a kind of everything house for us. The second floor hosted our node and important documents, but the main purpose was for living. At all times one or two people lived there permanently and visiting staff from the far corners of El Salvador then the world would often stay temporarily.

Downstairs was an office, co-working space and a school, depending on the day. It was also a social space where plenty of students made their first bitcoin transactions, buying discounted food and drink with sats.

My favorite space was the backyard. There was a waterfall into a self-sustaining pond full of life. It's also where we painted a mural of the world, coloring each new nation orange as our educators network expanded. I spent many long hours, the peaceful sound of the pond behind and the map of the world in front of me, thinking through our ambitious vision of reimagining human potential via bitcoin education.

When the mural was first painted, in 2023, the world was almost entirely green. As time progressed it became ever more orange. The tagline at the bottom predicted the future years in advance: 'From El Salvador to the world'

2026 is going to be a hell of a year. LFG!

see you in Medellin!

read this & support #freesamourai

Privacy is a fundamental human right and we must defend it with everything we have, for if we lose it, we lose so much more

https://www.therage.co/letter-1-keonne-rodriguez/

My earlist childhood mememory is discoving Santa isn't real and being enraged with my parents for lying to me

I plan to never lie to my children about Santa. This was the last Christmas where they are too young to even ask (oldest is 2)

Any parents with some fresh experience with this, this year that they can share some best practices from?

Had a great time chatting with

The IMF was the enemy yesterday The IMF is the enemy today The IMF will be the enemy tomorrow

Know your enemy

The IMF loan to El Salvador is delayed

The loan was scheduled to be disbursed over a 40 month period, with a review before each disbursement. This is the first official news of the delay, but this review and disbursement had been due months ago

Lots of possible reasons, though this does clarify one pending question: Chivo has not yet been sold (the original deadline had been July 31, 2025). It's unlikely that alone would cause a delay though

Presuming this is only a delay, it will also mean that the original 40 month period will be extended along with it's conditions

Good morning from El Salvador!

The final 32minutes

This is an incredibly special and valuable book

Will a bidding war break out?

Will someone get it for a steal?

👀👀👀👀

https://scarce.city/auctions/history-of-bitcoin-first-edition

Huge gratitude to Smashtoshi and all of the 128 artists who contributed to the Bitcoin History art book

It is truly a masterpiece

And not only have they put in tremendous effort to document the history of bitcoin, they are also focused on preserving the future by making independent bitcoin education the beneficiary of the auction

They are the heroes we need

Just three hours left to bid!

https://scarce.city/auctions/history-of-bitcoin-first-edition

The Bitcoin History book auction, which ends in 6 hours and benefits independent bitcoin education, is incredibly important

Why?

Education is always captured by whoever funds it, this is a big part of why education as a whole is broken and teaches us what to think, rather than how to think (and why financial literacy is so low around the world)

At

we are creating a proof-of-concept for a new way forward by rejecting all government and corporate money. We are funded by the community which currently manifests itself mostly via grants and individual donations but we need to continue to expand that and auctions such as this are showing us the way

We need more auctions that benefit independent bitcoin education. We need more initiatives that shave off a percent of profit and funnel it into something the community both controls and benefits from (such as a bitcoin ETF fees to

)

Introductory bitcoin education needs to create different funding models to create the right incentives. It's still early enough that we can entrench new norms--otherwise we risk falling into the same trap that fiat education has and thus blunting some of the revolutionary potential of bitcoin

There's 6 hours left on this auction. Let's blow this up. Tell your friends, place a bid, share this

Let's fucking go!

https://scarce.city/auctions/history-of-bitcoin-first-edition

17 hours left, current bid 15,000,000 sats

30 hours left, current bid is 14,000,000 sats

throwback to a barefoot panel I did last month at

(it was about the connection between sound money & sound health, we all just happened to be barefoot)

more barefoot panels at conferences!

In two days an incredible auction ends

I have seen this book and its hard to overstate how special it is. Let me highlight one cool aspect--the book itself is covered in orange bull leather. BULL, not cow. The entire project is full of these incredible details

The limited edition books will be extremely special and will retail for $4,600, but the real gem is the 1 of 1 first edition. That orange bull leather will be inside a case made out fossil oak wood that was already 3,000 years old when Jesus was born. Auctions are tough to predict, esp if art, but to say this is priceless would be an understandment. I'd expect it go for well over a bitcoin, but who knows, maybe someone gets a deal or maybe theres a bidding war (and independent bitcoin education gets a windfall). In any event, check out the page linked in the first comment to learn more

2 days left, current bid is 7,250,000 sats

4 days left, current bid is 6,500,000 sats

The obstacle is the way

I got to see this book in person, and wow

And it's not just a stunning art book about the history of Bitcoin, proceeds from the sale will also go toward protecting its future via independent Bitcoin education