After four years of building, My First Bitcoin is announcing its next chapter: a transition from teaching Bitcoin education locally to empowering communities worldwide with tools and support. Founded in 2021 as a pioneering independent education project in El Salvador, the organization has taught more than 27,000 students in person — the vast majority in El Salvador — and is now ready to move from being teachers in one country to providing resources to educators everywhere.
A new direction
The shift marks a move from doing the teaching to teaching the teachers. The organization will move forward globally as My First Bitcoin, retiring the local name Mi Primer Bitcoin, with a restructured team and new leadership reflecting its global mission. A central pillar is the Node Network, a self-governing network of independent educators and community builders that already consists of over 70 projects from 38 countries. My First Bitcoin will also double down on building and improving curricula for all audiences, and on creating spaces — Unconferences for the public and General Assemblies for the Node Network — where educators connect and share best practices.
Stepping back in El Salvador
As part of the shift, My First Bitcoin will close its physical office in El Salvador and move to a fully remote, globally distributed structure. Its weekly and monthly meetups in San Salvador will now be owned and run by a collective of local projects, supported by an open-source blueprint anyone can replicate. As of spring 2025, the organization is also no longer operating within El Salvador’s public schools, ending a collaboration with the Ministry of Education after dozens of cohorts and hundreds of teachers trained.
Raising the potential impact
Founder John Dennehy framed the ambition behind the scale-up.
“Our ambition was always to change the world, but we had to start with a single student, then a single city, then a single nation and now we are ready to raise the potential impact from 6 million people to 8 billion.”
Rather than trying to do it all itself, the organization will focus on helping others start and succeed in their own communities — then linking everyone together. The goal, in its words, is to make My First Bitcoin not just a program, but a movement.
Originally published at myfirstbitcoin.org
