Three months ago, the flywheel started turning. Now it’s spinning on its own.
Phase 1 was about the shift from teaching students directly to enabling educators to teach in their own communities. Read the full Phase 1 report.
My First Bitcoin’s Phase 2 Impact Report covers the network’s ignition: 89 communities across 41 countries, 196 educators leading cohorts, and a second Unconference that pulled people from 28 countries into one room in Prague.
Over the past three months, My First Bitcoin has reached an important milestone. The network is no longer growing simply because the core team is doing more work - it is growing because educators around the world are empowering others to teach Bitcoin independently.
This report introduces the Education Flywheel - the idea that students become educators, educators build communities, and those communities create the next generation of educators. For the first time, we’re seeing that cycle sustain itself.
Inside the report, you’ll meet educators from Kenya, Curaçao, Finland, and Indonesia, revisit the Prague Unconference that brought together participants from 28 countries, explore the latest infrastructure projects powering the network, review our financial transparency, and get a behind-the-scenes look at the first two episodes of our documentary series.
Ultimately, this report is about one question: What happens when you stop trying to build an organization - and start building people who can build without you? We believe the answer is beginning to unfold.
The network has ignited.
What the Report Covers
- The Education Flywheel - how Bitcoin students become Bitcoiners, Bitcoiners become educators, and educators build communities, with the current network-wide count at every stage.
- The Flywheel in One Person - Susan Achieng’s 80-day path from Diploma graduate to Community Leader with Sats4Safari in Kenya.
- Three Educator Highlights - Runy Calmera (Curaçao), Katherine Nieminen (Finland), and Dimas Alfaruq (Indonesia).
- Education Network Status - 89 communities in 41 countries, 14 joined this year, 35 more onboarding, and 31,048 graduates all-time.
- The Second Unconference: Prague - 98 attendees from 28 countries, co-hosted with AmityAge, 21 ideas pitched live from the floor.
- Next Unconferences - Surabaya, Indonesia in August and Medellín, Colombia in September.
- Key Projects - what shipped this phase and what’s coming next.
- Finances and Transparency - how funds are used, where they come from, and the funding gap ahead.
- The Documentary - Episode 1 premiered in Prague; Episode 2 in post-production.
The Education Flywheel
Education that Empowers means every educator we empower brings new students into the network, and every one of those students is a potential future educator. That is the flywheel: students become Bitcoiners, Bitcoiners become educators, educators build communities, and those communities create the next generation.
Right now, network-wide, that flywheel holds 699 Bitcoin Students, 894 Bitcoiners, 165 Bitcoin Educators, 63 Certified Educators, and 196 Community Leaders, reaching 31,048 learners all-time. The wheel keeps turning, and at every turn, it accelerates.
From Student to Community Leader in 80 Days
Susan Achieng of Sats4Safari in Kenya graduated the Diploma with The Core, Cohort 10, on April 4th, the same day she attended the Unconference in Kenya. By May 26th she’d finished the Educator Training Program as a Certified Bitcoin Educator. By June 12th she’d graduated her own first cohort of five. By June 23rd, Sats4Safari was approved into the Education Network as a Light Node.
Teaching them reminded me that education is a two-way journey; we all grow together. — Susan Achieng, Community Leader
Three Educators, Three Continents
Runy Calmera of BTC Curaçao finished educator training on April 15th and had graduated his second cohort by May 29th, six weeks later. “I’m already teaching the MFB Diploma for Curaçao, cohort 2,” he said at the Prague Unconference.
Katherine Nieminen, certified in April, co-founded Bitcoin Bloom Collective in Finland and is now teaching the same Diploma she graduated from to women across three continents. “My aim is to turn uncertainty into clarity, and clarity into a stronger sense of confidence, independence, and possibility.”
Dimas Alfaruq translated the curriculum into Bahasa Indonesia for Bitcoin Indonesia, a Full Node in the Education Network since 2024. That single translation is now 17 cohorts, 20 of them run by the community itself, and 430 graduates. “The Bitcoin diploma curriculum is so magical,” he said, “we just took it everywhere.”
Education Network Status
The network now spans 89 communities across 41 countries, with 14 new communities joining this year alone, including Bitcoin Serbia, Bitcoin Ekiti (Nigeria), Bitcoin Aves (Ghana), and Mi Tierra Digital (Colombia). Another 35 communities are in onboarding. 196 educators are leading cohorts right now, 25 run by network communities and 18 by My First Bitcoin directly, and the network has reached 31,048 graduates all-time.
The Second Unconference: Prague
On June 10th, My First Bitcoin and Education Network partner AmityAge co-hosted the second Unconference at Opero Coworking in Prague. 98 attendees came from 28 countries, and 21 ideas were pitched live from the floor. As with Nairobi, there was no fixed agenda beyond a few anchor moments; the people in the room decided what got discussed. Documentary Episode 2 was filmed at the event.
Next Stop: Indonesia. Then Medellín.
The Unconference series continues in Surabaya, Indonesia on August 22nd, as Southeast Asia comes into focus as a growing center of grassroots Bitcoin education, and in Medellín, Colombia on September 12th, bringing Latin American educators together face to face for the first time. Documentary Episodes 3 and 4 will be recorded at these events respectively.
Key Projects: We Keep Building the Infrastructure
This phase shipped a new brand and identity, a rebuilt website on My First Bitcoin’s own open-source stack, an updated Educator Training Program (63 educators certified this year), the premiere of Documentary Episode 1, a public Impact Dashboard, a new donation page, and the Prague Unconference itself.
Next up: the Publishing System, a single source of truth for every course, guide, and translation; a reputation system moving from governance-by-voting to verifiable, metrics-based scoring; the Education and Community App, where students find classes and educators run communities (beta coming); the first Bitcoin Diploma certifications; Documentary Episodes 2 through 4; and the 26.10 Program Release, bringing every course together in the October edition.
Finances and Transparency
As a donation-driven nonprofit, transparency about funding isn’t optional. As of this snapshot, 2026 is 52% funded against a $1.05M plan, with $545K secured and 100% of received funds committed to the mission. That leaves 4.6 months of runway, and the organization is currently $44K under pace at the halfway point of the year.
Funding sources: StartSmall ($500K, 92% received), Paystand ($25K, 5% received), Grassroots donors ($19K, 4% received), and ticket sales ($1K). On the spending side, 88% ($918K) goes directly into programs, with 12% ($128K) covering admin. My First Bitcoin needs sustainable funding to secure the rest of 2026, and every donor and supporter makes that possible.
The Documentary
Documentary Episode 1 premiered in Prague, following the educators building the movement from the ground up in Nairobi. Produced by My First Bitcoin and directed by Kyle Huber, it’s the first of a four-part series, with one episode recorded at each Unconference. Episode 2, filmed in Prague, captures the network’s public debut through the educators, funders, and partners who gathered there. Details on where it premieres are coming soon.
