FINALLY - yay! I got to interview one of my Bitcoin inspirations who is educating 10,000's of young minds around the WORLD with the Bitcoin Diploma - John Dennehy - Founder of Mi Primer Bitcoin.
We dive into the inspiring journey of John Dennehy, founder of Mi Primer Bitcoin, a Bitcoin education nonprofit. John shares his experiences as a father and how it has deepened his understanding of his mission to provide open-source Bitcoin education. He discusses the challenges and triumphs of teaching 40,000 students in El Salvador and the importance of decentralization and independence in education.
John explains the significance of Bitcoin as a tool for personal empowerment and sovereignty, emphasizing the importance of teaching people how to think independently. He also discusses the global expansion of Bitcoin education through the Independent Bitcoin Educators Node Network, highlighting the importance of community-led and decentralized education.
The conversation shifts to the recent developments in El Salvador, including the controversial IMF agreement and its implications for Bitcoin as legal tender. John shares his insights on the potential motivations behind the government's decisions and the broader impact on Bitcoin's role in promoting freedom and decentralization.
Throughout the episode, John emphasizes the need for transparency, independence, and community-driven initiatives in the Bitcoin space, urging listeners to learn about Bitcoin and embrace the responsibility and empowerment it offers.
https://myfirstbitcoin.io/
https://x.com/MyFirstBitcoin_
https://x.com/jdennehy_writes
https://geyser.fund/
🔥 LISTEN TO EPISODE HERE
https://serve.podhome.fm/episodepage/djvalerieblove/203
(00:00:32) Introduction and Guest Welcome
(00:01:01) Fatherhood and Personal Growth
(00:02:07) Impact of Parenthood on Mission
(00:03:25) Overview of Mi Premier Bitcoin
(00:05:34) Success and Challenges in Bitcoin Education
(00:09:35) Open Source Education and Global Impact
(00:14:01) Decentralized Education Network
(00:17:31) Empowering Local Educators
(00:24:31) Funding and Independence from Governments
(00:28:42) IMF and Global Power Dynamics
(00:36:31) El Salvador's Bitcoin Journey
(00:46:29) Challenges and Future of El Salvador's Bitcoin Policy
(00:51:46) Tether and Stablecoins Discussion
(00:59:34) Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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[00:00:32]
Unknown:
Hey. Aloha, love tribe. Welcome to part two of the doubleheader of thankful Thursday here, and I am so grateful I have somebody who I've gotten to meet this wonderful human in many different conferences all over the world, and he's somebody who has been inspiring me as, an activist, an educator, a woman, a mom, a person who wants to make the world a better place, and, of course, first and foremost, a Bitcoiner. This is John Dennehy, the founder of Me Premiere Bitcoin. Welcome, brother.
[00:01:01] Unknown:
Welcome. I'm a father, not a mom, but yes. Well yeah.
[00:01:06] Unknown:
But hey. So how's that going, dude? Like, I remember it's like you've been on this you know, it's this gradual journey of fatherhood and parenthood, and you go from zero to one. It's like, woah. Right? Like, what's how's it been going? Oh, man.
[00:01:24] Unknown:
Wonderfully exhausting.
[00:01:25] Unknown:
Yeah. I know. It's like you live in this, like, liminal world, you know, where you're sort of in between asleep and awake stage. And it's it's such a it's a weird experience, you know? And it's like you wouldn't trade it for anything on planet Earth, you know? But it's also like, wow. I didn't realize that I could really be stretched this far out. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, it it has taught me so much. Right? Like, if you
[00:01:56] Unknown:
not not that I ever before I had a kid, I thought that I understood life in the world and, like, my own limitations. But, I definitely understand them at a different level now.
[00:02:07] Unknown:
Right? And so how has it changed your perspective, obviously, with your mission using, you know, doing open source education and the your first diploma and your premier of Bitcoin? How has it changed your perspective with your mission now being a father? You know? Yeah.
[00:02:25] Unknown:
It it has made me it's done, like, two contrary things. Right? It's made me understand the value of what we're doing at a much deeper level because it's much more tangible now. Right? Now it's not just for someone.
[00:02:43] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:02:44] Unknown:
It's for this person. Yeah. Right? Simultaneous that it's it's you know, we have a finite amount of time and energy and and now I have less of that to work on this thing, which I now realize is more important. So just Yeah. It it forces you to really prioritize and and just cut away all of the fat. Right? It's is this how how important is this? Like, where is this on my priority list? And if it's not super high on that priority list, then sorry.
[00:03:21] Unknown:
Yeah. It's not happening. Well, how about let's give the audience a little overview. I mean, I'm sure most everybody, you know, in my audience knows who you are. But just in case we've got some new folks, you know, I'd love for people to understand who you are, how you got to form me Premiere Bitcoin, and what does me Premiere Bitcoin do?
[00:03:39] Unknown:
Yeah. So I'm John Dennehy, from New York originally. I I moved here I moved to El Salvador, which is where I currently am in August of twenty twenty one. Mhmm. So if we if we remember, Bitcoin became legal tender here in El Salvador in September of twenty twenty one. So, it was it was already announced, but it hadn't been implemented yet. So I'm I moved here in that in that interim period because it just you know, as somebody who who cared about the future direction of the world and cared about Bitcoin, I just recognized that El Salvador would be really important.
Like, that it would punch above its weight. Right? Like, that there would be this small country, but because it was the first one to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, it would set a lot of precedents. And I wanted to make sure that there were positive precedents. So I came here and I founded My First Bitcoin, which is a Bitcoin education nonprofit. And we we believe that introductory Bitcoin education is the most powerful tool to put humanity on a better path toward a better future, toward a future which we have agency over our own lives, we get to define our own destiny. Like, it's it's a gateway drug to freedom, basically. It's a gateway drug to sovereignty. Like, once you learn that you can control your money, you learn that you can control control your power and have influence over your own future. And that has tremendous second order effects. Right?
And and what better place to do it what better place to get that started than the first thing in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender? So that that's, we've been, I think, very successful since then. We've taught here in El Salvador. We've taught 40,000 students in person.
[00:05:41] Unknown:
And In person, 40,000 people. Yeah. Okay. Everybody who's listening, I want you guys to just get that in your head. Okay? We're not talking about doing a webinar and everybody got to hit their Zoom button and watch. 40,000 people in person, hands on, with human beings in front of you, helping you understand what Bitcoin is. Like, I just want you guys to get your head around this. This is why John is one of my you know, they always say don't have heroes. Well, John's one of my heroes. So I don't I don't live by everybody's, you know, quote, but you're one of my heroes, John. Like, this is incredible. And I know, obviously and I know you're about to say, well, it wasn't just me. It was my team. And I know it was because you've got, like, the best volunteers and the best educators and the best people who have have aligned their their time, treasure, and talent to move this mission forward. And so I understand, you know, it has been a monumental group effort, but just think about that, you guys. 40,000 people in the last three years in person.
Okay? That that's just I just I can't it's 11:11 here too where I'm at, so that must mean we need to make a wish. Yay. But, like, I just I love you so much. I mean, that's huge, John. I just I just wanna say thank you and okay. Keep going. I just wanted to make sure that everybody got the magnitude of what that number means.
[00:07:02] Unknown:
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, you said you said a lot of things. Thank you for anticipating that. Yeah. We do we do have a great team, and that's what it's all about. Right? Like, it's not one person with a good idea that is outside the bounds of of what's traditional and accepted. The status quo is is is kind of just a a crazy person. Right? But but a team could could really do a lot of A team of crazy people are so much better than just one crazy person. Yeah. That's what I'm trying to say. And it's a lot less lonely too.
[00:07:42] Unknown:
It's so much more fun.
[00:07:44] Unknown:
Yeah. It's so much fun. A lot of benefits. But in fact, I I I I really do you know, occasionally, I'll I'll have to take a walk around and be like, wow. 40,000. But it's actually more impressive than that because that 40,000 is just in person in El Salvador. Yeah. We've also because it's open source, everything that we do is open source. It's a core value that we have. Can you tell people understand in case they are listening and don't know what open source means? Right. So, actually, open source is a is a software term and it just means that, you it means that the software is able to be used by anybody without permission.
The the term for for books, which is what we create is is Creative Commons. But open source is just like a more well known term. It's it's the same thing that all the materials that we create, anybody in the world is free to use them however they like. There are no restrictions, no charge, no no need to ask for permission. And that has led to some really incredible things. Actually, I think I think one of the most amazing things about the project is that we have grown by giving away our power and our authority. Yeah. Right? Like, in the traditional world, in the fiat world, we think of always trying to consolidate our power, our position, our authority, and we've taken the opposite approach. Yep. Everything that we do, we try to push out away from us rather than hold on to it.
And that has led to some really wonderful things. So here in El Salvador, because it's open source, the Ministry of Education has adopted their their version of, one of our flagship products, which is the Bitcoin diploma. It's a got it right here. It's a ten week it's a ten week program, basically, from zero to one. It's, financial education for the Bitcoin era. So it's financial literacy and first financial literacy then Bitcoin education. And they have taught we've trained we've helped to train 500 public school teachers, and I don't know how many they've taught at this time. So that's many thousands more that is not included in that 40,000. 40 thousand is direct. Yeah. In direct, we actually don't know the numbers, but it's probably about a 10 x.
[00:10:05] Unknown:
10 x. Okay. Okay. And and Everybody just again, pause. 10 x. That's 400,000 people using free and open source education that is this monumentally new thing. I think it's new because like you said, we're living in the walled garden mentality of IP, and you gotta license everything, whether it's music, whether it's a book, whether it's this course, blah blah blah. You know? And so everybody who's listening, what I want you guys to really get and this is why Bitcoin is so important. This is why Nostra is so important. This is why understanding what open source education and open source development is so important. It's like if you're on a mission to create freedom go up, love go up, peace go up, prosperity go up, unity and community go up, it's not gonna happen when you're dealing with these walled gardens.
You know? And and so you, John, are just exemplifying that, You know? And, obviously, you're taking this all over the world. It's not just in El Salvador. And so, I can't say enough how important this is, and it's really inspired me with what I do and what I teach to be, like, everything's value for value. Take it. Just pay what you think it's worth. And, you know, if you wanna adapt it and do something, great. Fine. You know? Like, this is my little seed of how I've created something, but that's, like, obviously, how the, you know, the code works in Bitcoin and whatnot. So, yeah, so so I just it's so important what you're doing. I'm just I'm so glad I finally get to do an interview with you, dude. It's been like I know we talked about it 20 times, and I'm like, yay. It's happening.
Okay. So keep going. So keep talking about, like, how this is spreading outside of El Salvador.
[00:11:45] Unknown:
Yeah. So I we're coming up on two years. It was March of twenty twenty three. We we, created the infrastructure for what we call an independent Bitcoin educators node network. Mhmm. And these are people that are teaching Bitcoin in their own communities using very often or maybe even exclusively, at least in part using materials that that we've created here, in El Salvador. And and it's a again, you don't need to be part of the network to use these materials as open source. The idea is just that we're stronger together. Right? We're more than the sum of our parts. And we collaborate with each other and we strengthen each other.
And it's it's created a community. So there are some core values that everybody has to agree to to join the network, and that is that the education must be independent, impartial, community led, Bitcoin only, quality, and focus on empowerment. Yeah. And then at this point, the network is self governing and decentralized. Again, we've pushed it out. We don't control it anymore. We we we got it started, but now we're just another node in the network. And at this point, the actually behind me, I don't know if you could see on the map, Probably can't see well and I gotta update it too. It's probably about two months behind. But all the all the colored countries are are countries that were active in there in The US map or states where we're active. So the node network has about 60 nodes in 34, 30 five countries at this point. Wow. So we're adding like, just this month, I think we're gonna add four new countries.
So every month is a block. We we we learn a lot from Bitcoin. We try to take what Bitcoin has taught us in the digital realm and apply it to the physical realm. So all of these 60 plus projects are all teaching about Bitcoin in their own communities and in their own way. Right? They might they might tweak some things to make it, more relevant to their local context. But the numbers of students from this network are not included in that 40,000. Right? Also not included are online students because we've also over the past year, we've built an LMS, a learning management system, to move to try to facilitate, online education for all the stuff that we do. And we're we're still early on that trajectory.
I I anticipate that this year, 2025, where where is gonna be when it's really gonna start to to pick up,
[00:14:31] Unknown:
you know, these online classrooms that we're creating. Totally. Well, you know, it's so cool you just mentioned that because and I don't and since this is not private, but, you know, so I've been working on some online education stuff just for my personal growth stuff, my 11 x love code. And I wanted to build it over on Noster, you know, because ideally, I want, you know, of course, I want it to be value for value, but I also want the the students to be able to zap each other when they're doing something really cool. Right? It's kinda like, oh, look. You did, like, a five day login, or you did your streak, or you accomplished your homework, or whatever it is, you know, but just teaching people who aren't necessarily in in my world in, you know, this this particular business is, you know, how to use Bitcoin, you know, to, like, have some fun instead of just going, yay. Like, you know, and so so it's kind of a cool thing. But there's somebody, Austin, who's created a a website called Plebdevs, and he's building it over using Noster. And so it's like an LMS with community, with the courses, with the video and stuff. So it could be so he's putting together a grant for OpenSats, and, yeah, I hope he gets it. And, and I'm hoping that, like, all of us who've got our own unique content, because he's teaching people about how to be a Bitcoin developer.
And, you know, so it's like me premier Bitcoin might be a great, you know, plug in for that particular tool. You know? And so I know, obviously, we've got plan b. We've got me. We've got all of us doing our educational things. So I think it's fun to think about, like, how can we disrupt the LMS world, which is literally it's a a $214,000,000,000 a year industry with a CAGR of 24%. Online education is massive. It's gonna be 1,200,000,000,000 by 2030, especially when you gamify stuff. So especially when people have got companies that they're like, oh, I gotta do remote training for my workers. Well, it's like, well, why not do it on Nostr? Why not teach people about Bitcoin at the same time? You know what I mean? And so it's, like, such a cool I think it's like peanut butter and chocolate, I always say.
You know? I'm like, let's let's let's do that sly roundabout way of teaching everybody about Bitcoin. So so, anyway so, okay. So all the good online stuff in the notes. So I was watching a quick inter you know, it was just like a quick three minute thing this morning about, like, the treasure academy, you know, and and they were talking about how they're doing a lot of stuff over in Africa. And you need to have local educators who understand storytelling through the lens of what it's like for the user because you can't like, somebody here in Colorado is gonna have a different way of learning Bitcoin than they are in, you know, Lithuania or Nigeria or Thailand. And so it's very important to, like how how do you help make sure that and, again, I know it's open source. Like, do you and and, obviously, when people become part of the node network, like, what's been the transformation that the teachers and the educators have been able to experience and feel more empowered, you know, because they're part of the node network versus just like, I'm gonna go do a meetup on Tuesday and teach Bitcoin.
[00:17:32] Unknown:
Yeah. So we try to it's a good question. We try to kind of strike a middle ground, because we live in a centralized world. And there is so we are so used to that. It has been a really enlightening journey to to really try to build this decentralized network because there's a lot of people maybe without even realizing it are just so used to living in a centralized world. Like, there's a, a bit of a shock sometimes. Right? It's like, like, they'll they'll say that they support it and be like, okay. Great. So now we're in. What do we do? And it's like, well, that's kind of up to you. Right? Yeah.
[00:18:13] Unknown:
You're it's just like, wait. Hold on. You're not gonna tell me step by step what my life is supposed to be, and I get to plug my umbilical cord into you, and you're gonna tell me how to live? Uh-oh. What? What's that what does that mean?
[00:18:25] Unknown:
Yeah. So so we wanna we wanna create these frameworks and this infrastructure that connects people. Yeah. So it's not just a bunch of silos. Right? So it's not just a bunch of, you know, that this meet up in place x and this class and place y, like, that that these are connected, that they're part of the same movement. Yet simultaneously, we don't want to just direct it all to one central place. Right? So it's it's this it's this constant, we're constantly trying to find the that space in between, where we could create the the frameworks without dictating to individuals.
And I think that, you know, it's tough. Right? We're learning as we go. But, yeah, it's been it's been surprising that and and as you said, there's there's kind of, like, this emerging, set of different global networks that do similar things. But I think one of the things that differentiates the network that we're trying to build is is how much we care about decentralization. Like, how much we push people out. So there was there was a early on, then many of the projects so it's a split. Some projects are are well established and Bitcoin education is is kind of like one component of what they do, but they do lots of other things. So a good example could be Bitcoin and Gassy in South Africa. They put ton of stuff. They're already super well established.
Bitcoin education is one of the things that they do. So we work with them. They're part of the node network, and and hopefully, we could make the lift a little bit easier on that one specific thing. But then there are other projects, so it doesn't really apply to a project like that. But then there are other projects who are more education, like, kind of education only and are just starting out. And many of them early on wanted to use the name and brand in, you know, my first Bitcoin, me my Bitcoin, whatever it is in their local language, with the location.
And and, you know, we kinda we we thought about that. We actually took a step back and we thought long and hard about that. And one of the few like, we don't we try not to dictate a lot of things, but that was one of the one of the stronger opinions that we had or not even opinion. Like, we just said don't do this. Come up with your own name. We don't want everything to point back to my first Bitcoin and we've run Bitcoin. We don't want we consciously are avoiding these centralizing efforts. Not not efforts, but there's gravity that that we're just so used to things moving to this central point, that you often have to like, if left to its own devices, that's what naturally happens. Not because that's the way of the world, because that's the world that we've all grown up in. This is a learned behavior.
So, yeah, that that that's one of that's one example of how we have made a conscious effort to avoid centralization.
[00:21:50] Unknown:
And and how are you guys funded? Like, how are you guys getting all like, I'm obviously, I've got this up on the screen here with the geyser. If you guys wanna donate, you can donate to me at Premier Bitcoin and go to my first bitcoin dot I o. How are you guys you know, are you getting grants? Like, if you're working with the, you know, the schools and you're teaching these 500 school teachers, like, how are you funded, you know, in that realm in in addition to expansion?
[00:22:14] Unknown:
Yeah. It's a good question. So it's actually it's it's the community for the most part that funds us. So fit historically, and this is all on our website under the finances tab, 57% of all of our funding has come from you, has come from the community. So that's grassroots, that's Geyser, that's people that, you know, also on that same page or on Geyser are the two primary ways that that that that money comes in. And then the second biggest category is grants. And that category is growing. You know, in the first year or two, we didn't get any grants. And now, we currently receive a grant from, HRF, so the Human Rights Foundation, Block, as well as, OpenSets.
[00:23:05] Unknown:
These are Amazing. That we're getting. Okay. Look at right here. So explain this. So and this is is gonna be a perfect dovetail into our next part of the conversation. Explain why you take no money from any government, please.
[00:23:18] Unknown:
Well, we've never taken money from from a government. We never will. And the reason why we do that and, also, that's why we we have had corporate sponsors, although that is trending down. Last year, it made up 1% of all of our funding was from corporate sponsors. Mhmm. And who knows? It might actually be zero this year. We'll see. But,
[00:23:49] Unknown:
Oops. I lost to John. He will bounce back here guys soon. Seems like we've had two disconnects today with Andre and John. Yeah. I think this is interesting. I'll wait till he jumps back on, guys. But, like, obviously, when you take money from corporate sponsors or governments, then you have a little bit more strings attached to what and how you operate as a nonprofit. I ran a nonprofit started a nonprofit years ago. Let's get you back on. Yay. You're there. Yeah.
[00:24:21] Unknown:
Okay. Yeah. Cool. Sponsorship. Yeah.
[00:24:24] Unknown:
No. But, yeah, go ahead. So we were talking about why why it's you choose not to take money from a government.
[00:24:31] Unknown:
Yeah. It's to be independent. Right? Because on a long enough timeline, Bitcoin education will be captured by whoever funds it. That is I I strongly believe that. Yeah. So that is why we want to be funded either no strings attached grants or by you, by the community. If we're gonna be captured, and I don't think it's a question of if, but by who, then we want to be captured by the community. That's who we want to be held accountable by. That's who we want to work for, not for that that's how we align our interests. Right? Because if we if we took money from a government, there would be a lot more self censorship.
Yeah. There would be we would be worried about upset in that relationship more than would be healthy for what we're doing. And and, you know, that's that's a really good segue into I think what is the next point. But but I wanna underline why that independence is so important, very quickly. And that is Bitcoin is our best tool to show people that they could have agency in their own lives. Yeah. And the and that is corrupted if you don't teach people how to think, but if you teach people what to think. Right? We come from a world where education teaches you what to think, not how to think. Right. And if our incentives are misaligned and primarily through through funding, that's, like, the primary attack vector for this. Yeah.
Then we would frankly be incentivized to tell people what to think rather than how to think and to think independently to make their own choices. So so it it it's not something that you would notice. It it's subtle, but super impactful on a long timeline.
[00:26:34] Unknown:
It is. And it and I love that you guys are doing this because, obviously, what we're seeing, you know, up here in The States is this dismantling of the USAID and God knows what, you know, is gonna get revealed there. And we keep seeing things, you know, every hour, some new like, oh, did you know that cats get stressed out? And if you don't take them to the spa, they're gonna shed more. I'm like, what? Who fucking cares? You know? Like, why would my taxpayer $1 go to a study like that? So so just silly nonsense stuff, and then, obviously, all the other just the programming that comes along with any government funding. And so there it comes in a very dark and malicious way. You know? And, unfortunately, people don't see it, and they think like, oh, it's all this good equal stuff and whatever. It's kind of like you're not getting neutral information.
You know? And when we don't have access to neutral information, especially if we're somebody who is tired, we're overworked, we're overwhelmed, we're exhausted, we're feeling broke, we're feeling lonely, we're feeling disconnected. You know? And it's like once we get some, little tidbits of information that sort of validate this, that, or the other, like, we're much more easily manipulatable. Yeah. No? And so right now, unfortunately, as we all know, most people are, like, living like this with their nose just above water. They're treading water. They're hoping they're gonna get to the next paycheck. They're hoping that, you know, oh, gosh. I hope I can get a birthday present for my kid this week, You know? Instead of, like, oh, well, I guess I'm not gonna have lunch five days a week at the office because I wanna go get my kid his Lego set. You know? And so most people are struggling to survive in all of the countries. I don't think, you know, there's you know, obviously, there's certain countries we have a lot more privilege and opportunity than, you know, developing countries, but, but it's hard out there. And I think the fiat system has created that, that drowning mechanism for everybody, and it just keeps us just enough so that we can kinda get by, but we're not gonna rebel because we're too tired to rebel. So let's talk about El Salvador with our with our next part here in the IMF. And, you know, let's talk about the you know, your experience and, obviously, you know, you were posting pictures of getting arrested previously in your in your past life about, you know, being a protester. Can you talk about that? And then let's talk about how that ties into what's going on today and what the solutions are that we might be looking at to help everybody.
[00:29:11] Unknown:
Yeah. So I I became interested in Bitcoin. My Bitcoin journey, I could date it to 02/2001, '2 thousand '2. Right? Like, pre pre Pre Bitcoin. Oh, wow. Okay. Cool. And that is when I kind of I mean, it's a it's a longer story, but, like, September I'm from New York. September eleventh kind of shook me awake. I was 19 years old. Yeah. Shook me awake, made me take a step back and and look at the world and and try to, you know, determine what what was wrong with it in order to see how we could do better and prevent things like that from happening again. And the one of the first things that I identified, and it's something that has really shaped my life ever since, is the concentration of power and that a small, opaque, elite could dictate the terms of the world for the rest of us, and there is no better representation of that than the IMF.
Right? So the IMF from from a pretty early age was was something that I saw as a symbol of what was wrong with the status quo with the existing order. So I I went on the spring meetings two thousand two for the IMF. I went to Washington DC to to, you know, throw my body against the machine. And and, you know, I could there's a picture. I mean, it was actually in the papers the next day. I just saw I got the the picture. I mean, I got arrested. And and yeah. Somebody snapped a picture, like, while they were rounded me up while they were, like, putting the cuffs on me. So and and and that's that's, like, something to be for me, it it I always think back to to the start of the journey. Right? And and the IMF is just as bad now as it was then. It's not like they've gotten better. Right?
But that that was what helped me understand the value of Bitcoin when I did hear about it for the first time. It it it helped me connect the dots that Bitcoin was I I spent a lot of time when I was, you know, nineteen, twenty, twenty one, whatever, in those ages pushing against what I thought was wrong with the world. I like to say it, trying to slow the bad. And Bitcoin
[00:32:14] Unknown:
helped me realize that we could try to speed the good instead of trying to Dude. Okay. Hold on. Slow the bad and speed the good. You know I'm gonna be quoting this. So I love it. Wow. And then, of course, as Bitcoiners, we love, you know, thinking about time preference. So that's really interesting. So okay. Keep going. I'm so excited.
[00:32:40] Unknown:
Yeah. So the IMF, in in in many ways, represents to me what's the problem, and Bitcoin in many ways represents the solution.
[00:32:56] Unknown:
Let's try so, again, like, for folks who may not understand what the IMF's role is and how they operate, and we look at, you know, you know, Alex Gladstein and John Perkins and all the folks who we, you know, admire and have are doing great work, in addition to you. Of course, like, can you help people understand, like, what the IMF does in a in a nutshell, and then why is this not a great thing? Why is this the problem, not the solution?
[00:33:22] Unknown:
Yeah. So the IMF or the International Monetary Fund is a international lending institution. We could think of it as the bank for nation states. Right? If a if a nation state wants to get a loan, then that's primarily who they go to. I mean, China will also, in development and that's that's Not has this whole other set of of things wrong with that. But but the IMF is mostly represents the interests of The United States and the West. So it's effectively controlled by whoever funds it. You know, same with education, same with everything, really. Mhmm. Yeah. That's why And that's why you don't take money from governments cause you don't wanna be controlled by the purse strings of whoever happens to be in office that day. Yeah. Yeah. So I think many people think of the IMF as just that as a lender to nation states. If that were true, that would be fine. Right? Like, sure. Let's have a bank for for nation states.
That is not the primary purpose of the IMF. The primary purpose, that that is the means to the end. But what the end is is control. What the end is is power. What the end is is dictated to nation states around the world how they should exist, how they should behave, what laws they should have, how they have to fit into the world order. Right? So, the loans that the IMF gives have very long and often hidden strings attached. Never design it's not about, you know, it's not a business, like, where they, you know, they're loaning out money and they get a return, you know, there's some interest and they're making money and it's a business, like, how we think of banks. That is not how the IMF works. Right.
They use that money. And, again, part of it is is there's not really other options. If a nation state needs a few billion dollars for infrastructure projects, like, there's not a lot of options for that. And IMF knows that. Right? So they get to set the terms. And literally, they set the terms. This is not something and this is something that I think a lot of people misunderstand with what's happening with El Salvador now. This is not something that two parties two equal parties sit down at the table, and if there's a disagreement, then they're gonna hash it out. That is not how the IMF works. The IMF controls and dictates everything. Once you enter into an agreement with them,
[00:36:13] Unknown:
you are, in a very real sense, you are no longer sovereign. Yeah. You're in the you're you're in a, like, a loan shark agreement with the mafia. Basically. Yeah. You don't do what
[00:36:23] Unknown:
they say. With the mafia.
[00:36:26] Unknown:
Yeah. It it it's a mess. Okay. So so, like, pulling this up. Right? And so the judge the, you know, the IMF is the judge, the jury, the executioner, executioner of what you you've written here. And and something here that really struck out to me when I saw this a bit ago, in addition to today when you were posting, you know, for the public sector, engagement in Bitcoin related economic activities and transactions and purchase Bitcoin will be confined. That's a nice word. What does that mean? You know, and so that's another one of those ambiguous confined to what, according to whom, how long, when, what, etcetera. And so I know a lot of people who are, you know, again so for those of you guys listening, you know, president Bukele, everybody was so excited because he made Bitcoin legal tender a couple years ago, and it was just like, yeah. El Salvador's gonna be this, you know you know, fuck the IMF. Let's get out of these things, and we're gonna be sovereign. And once and for all, we're gonna be like the little guy wins. Yay. And then just recently, there was a a deal that was made, and people are like, what? And so, of course, some of us are just like, Maybe he's gonna take the IMF money and just go buy some more Bitcoin or go do some mining. Isn't this great? Yeah. Go go president Bukele.
And so there's a lot of misunderstanding about the magnitude of that deal and what the implications could be. And I think, you know, so for those of us who are, of course, hopeful and I know you were in El Salvador, so you're like a someone who's like, I wanna see El Salvador win, not just because you live there, but because you're, you know, like a a freedom warrior. Like, tell us, like, what's going on with you and the organization? And, obviously, you know a bunch of people. Like, what what happened? Like, what why did he change? Does anybody know? Is he talking about it? Is it is it public knowledge? Like, I'm just curious because I haven't seen that yet.
[00:38:23] Unknown:
Yeah. So to answer the a question that you asked, like, who gets to determine, you know, whether it's confined? It's the IMF. It is not you. It is not me. It is not El Salvador. None of us even have a seat at the table. This is not a discussion. The IMF decides. So vague terminology like that is especially dangerous. Yeah. And that is something that I think a lot of people don't understand. This isn't something like you could argue your way out of it. Like, this isn't up to anybody but the IMF whether the terms are are being abided by, which is which is a lot of their power. Right? If it was how it seems a lot of people seem to think of it where it's like the two parties are an equal footing, then it's like, okay. Well, maybe the IMF isn't that bad, you know, you know, that is not how the IMF operates though. The two parties are not an equal footing.
And then, you know, you asked, like, why? Like, what what what changed or are they talking about it? And we don't know because they aren't talking about it. Right? We could make guesses and assumptions. I mean, almost certainly it's to just speed up infrastructure development, to build more roads and bridges and to do it faster. Also probably to service some old debt, but but there there's a it's basically all the all the typical reasons why a country would would take a loan from the IMF are are very likely why El Salvador is doing that. But the government has done a very poor job in communicating its motivations. In fact, so as part of a draft agreement with the IMF, that that was negotiated and announced in December.
So the the way that the IMF works is step one is that the two parties, so the country and the IMF will come up with a draft agreement. And in order for the agreement to go into effect and become official to move out of draft and and move toward final agreement. Mhmm. And, the nation state will have to, oblige a number of conditions. Right? So it's not the conditions that the nation state doesn't meet the conditions during the terms of the loan. They have to meet it before the loan even begins. So there El Salvador is now in that process of conforming to the draft agreement.
And as part of that, last Wednesday, so eight days ago, the president sent a revision of the Bitcoin law that was passed in 02/2021, which made Bitcoin legal tender and made some pretty significant changes to that, to the point that Bitcoin is no longer legal tender. The government is is literally so this this isn't this language isn't in, in the new, in the law revision, but this is the language of the draft agreement. They are the government is explicitly prohibited from accepting Bitcoin.
[00:41:50] Unknown:
Yeah. That that was a weird one to me. And and because I get the, like, okay. You're not, you know, okay. Let's take it out of legal tender status, which whatever. Let people be voluntary. Fine. We're not gonna push this. But, like, you can't accept Bitcoin as a payment, you know? And so now you're gonna force people if they do have Bitcoin, they have to it's just it's just I don't get that. That just seems I mean, I get it from the IMS lens, of course, but it's just one of those. I don't know. It just it's it is. It's disappointing. And I'm just sort of like, are we playing five, six, seven, eight, nine, d chess or something that I'm not seeing over here as little Val the pleb?
You know? Like, is there gonna be some some some grand play that we didn't or a move that we didn't predict as, you know, citizens or or people who really care and wanna make a difference? Like, do you predict that that's gonna happen, or do you think this is gonna be another clamping down of the IMF just being like, nope. Sorry. You got too far away from the the this little narrative that we want you to be living there, little El Salvador. Fuck off. Like, we're gonna we're clamping down on you. Yeah.
[00:43:03] Unknown:
So there's one of two scenarios which seem plausible to me. And and and, effectively, I'm gonna say, yes, El Salvador is playing chess, and, no, El Salvador is not playing chess. And, actually, the preferred one for us as Bitcoiners is that they're not playing chess. Because if they are playing chess, I think it's actually bad for Bitcoin. Because if they are playing chess and they knew this was gonna be the outcome all along, then that means this was just a card to play, a distraction. So when they did need to make a deal, then they had something to give up rather than something that they cared about more.
What I think probably happened is this is just an l for them. Right? And it's just spin to to say that they're playing chess. A country doesn't agree to the terms of an IMF loan and give up some of their sovereignty because they want to. Right? Because they're in control of the situation.
[00:44:09] Unknown:
If they're in control of the situation, you don't arrive at this point. Right. You're not you don't need the IMF. You're like, I don't need you. I'm I'm good.
[00:44:16] Unknown:
And and, again, the way that the IMF is structured is so that once you enter their arena, they make the rules. Right? They make the rules and they interpret them and they enforce them and they like, there is no playing chess. Right? Like, once you enter the arena, that's it. It's game over. The IMF won. They're getting what they want. It's like Hotel California.
[00:44:42] Unknown:
You can check-in, but you can never leave. You know? It it's really it's a bummer. You know? And I just I don't know. I my my hope in my heart is that there is some weird little card that they're gonna play at some point. I just I don't I don't know. You know? And, obviously, we've got a lot of really very big name people as you know who they are, and I'm not gonna say who they are. It's kind of like, well, what's going on, dudes? Give us some some intel. Like, why is this happening? And, you know, like, we're all, like, cheerleaders. Like, yay. El Salvador is the first country, and then now it's going backwards. So, like Yeah. Something we could have done to help as Bitcoiners? Is there just something that we're completely missing?
[00:45:30] Unknown:
And and I wanna I wanna push back on the or or not push back, but I wanna, give one more scenario that that El Salvador is playing chess. I would still be upset about that. They're playing chess and it's to the benefit of Bitcoin. Right? I would still be upset about that because what that says is that we are changing from small, opaque, elite group a that is making decisions for the rest of us to small, elite, opaque group b that is making decisions for the rest of us. If they're doing something and they can't tell us what it is, but we just have to trust them because they know better Right. Then we have not fixed anything. All we're doing is changing who is in charge, but keeping the apparatus intact.
So there is no way new boss,
[00:46:31] Unknown:
same as the old boss. Right?
[00:46:33] Unknown:
Right. Who. Is that what we're rooting for? To have a different person control us, a different person dictate the terms of our life and our future? No. That's not what the problem is. It's not the the problem isn't who is at the top. The problem is that there is a top. Yeah.
[00:46:49] Unknown:
And and and well, and what I see too in the last, like, forty eight hours, and maybe it's a little longer. I don't know. But just this, oh, hey. We'll take your prisoners. No. Fuck that. Like, sorry. Even even maybe Bill Gates. You can put Bill Gates in there. I'll put our prisoners. Thanks. But, like, can you imagine if Ross Ulbricht had to go to an El Salvador prison? Like, what would have happened to his mother and visitation? And that that to me no. That's I get it. Let's go save some money and offshore some some stuff. No. You don't physically offshore your your prison population. And, as somebody who sat and you obviously got arrested, I don't know if you had to go sit in a jail cell and get bailed out. I did once and I I did a little rant on it a few nights ago.
It's not the place you wanna be. You know? It's not a place you wanna be and you don't wanna be in a a place where you don't have family or anybody to be able to come support you and visit you. It's very, very un American to do that. And again, as much as I'm I'm like, let's go penny pinch and save some money. Yay. Let's be efficient. Yay. That's not the way to do this particular thing. So,
[00:48:02] Unknown:
Yeah. I don't know if you believe in coincidences, but the at around the same time that El Salvador was repealing Bitcoin as legal tender, so the other so so there were two legal tenders, The US Dollar and Bitcoin. K. At the same time that they were appealing Bitcoin as legal tender,
[00:48:24] Unknown:
they were also accepting Tether. Oh, right. Yes. Let's go into Tether's talk. Let's talk about that. That was one thing I'm clueless about. Let's talk about Tether. Which is,
[00:48:33] Unknown:
you know, is is a way to one of the things that it does is it spreads the US dollar around the world. Mhmm. And also, El Salvador is talking about taking US Prisoners. So El Salvador went from seemingly a place that stood in opposition to the US empire
[00:49:00] Unknown:
to its best friend. Totally. Oh, and let's have Heather have our our our headquarters of Tether here and headquarters of Rumble or whatever they're doing. Like, I I'm still, like, I'm starting I don't understand stablecoins that much because I haven't had to use them. I haven't had a use case. But when people try to explain them to me, I'm like, okay. I guess I can see why a stablecoin could be an interesting unit of account for you to have instead of holding your, you know, Argentinian peso or whatever it is, you know, that's like going up and down every fourteen seconds. And so so that makes sense to me, but, again, it it is. It's propping up the dollar. You know? And and and it's centralized, and it's not audited.
And is it gonna be something that, you know, this centralized, you know, authority with the CEO can go, oops. You don't get to go spend your tether today because you use too many carbon credits or whatever the nonsense is that we have with our CBDC conversations. And so is that something that is It's CBDC
[00:50:02] Unknown:
with better marketing.
[00:50:03] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, that's kinda what I I'm I'm everyone's so excited about it, and I'm I'm like, my spidey senses are off over here. And, again, I'm I'm still I'm I'm a noob. I'm a pleb. I'm always learning, and I just I don't feel like I I I feel like there's some slick marketing going on. And maybe I'm am I wrong? Am I am I being, you know, too too too con what do you call it? Conspiracy girl? Is or is my or my spidey senses on?
[00:50:34] Unknown:
Yeah. So so there's, you know, to to maybe try to be devil's advocate, mostly against myself here. There are good things about Tether. There are good things about stablecoins, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the bad things. And the bad things for me are that I got into this in the first place to replace The US empire, to replace the dollar empire, and Tether extends it. Tether strengthens it. Yeah. Tether gives a way for that to reach into places that it's not already. So, on the on the micro level, like, for an individual, I think it's it's it's mostly good. Right? It's mostly an individual that uses it mostly sees benefits, you know, if if they're in Argentina rather than using the peso, for example.
But on the macro long term level, If the problem is if if The US empire, and US dollar empire is part of the problem, then Tether is also part of the problem.
[00:51:46] Unknown:
Yeah. And I still like, I don't even understand, like, how the the amount of money they make each quarter. Where does that where are they getting that? They're all the spreads, whatever. I don't get that. Like, how the heck are they making that much money?
[00:52:01] Unknown:
Well, it's it's mostly from the interest rates. Right? So they have they have a ton of money. They have, like, a hundred $40,000,000,000, and they buy they buy treasuries with that. And the treasuries, especially in the last couple of years, the the interest rate has been very high. Right? Like, say, 5% or something. So if you have a hundred billion dollars and you're getting 5% interest on that, just on interest, you're making $5,000,000,000 a year. Right? That's insane. Not nothing else. You don't do anything with that. It's just interest. And, you know, there's there's I think there are probably other ways that they make money as well. But just just to hold your money, they're making billions and billions of dollars.
[00:52:45] Unknown:
It's insane. I just again, I'm you know, for all of us who are still learning and who are new and wanna be cautious and not be like, oh, this is so great. Look at the shiny object over here. You know? Because it's easy, especially when you get rah rah rah and you get these rich people who've got mega budgets to go tell you how great their thing is. You know? And and and why it's a tool for freedom. You know? And then all of a sudden, we see this thing happen with this beautiful country, and then all of a sudden, things are getting kinda rug pulled to some degree. You know? And so I just I'm very I'm very cautious, and it's like, I don't wanna be the I'm Yep. You know me. Look at me. I'm fucking sparkly. I want everything to be pretty and beautiful and work, but I don't believe that that's the way that things unfortunately operate. You know?
[00:53:31] Unknown:
Yeah. So, like, if if you look at Bitfinex and Tether, which are, you know, they have the same parent company. Bitfinex makes a good chunk of their money from trading shitcoins. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And then Tether makes a good chunk of their money from propping up the US dollar system. These are two things that I think I would think that the average Bitcoiner would oppose each of them individually. Yeah. But yet, we kind of give it a pass because they've thrown a bunch of money at other things that we like. Yeah. Well, and and and I think that's like that I was I forget who I was speaking to yesterday, but,
[00:54:11] Unknown:
you know, in in a typical narcissistic abusive relationship, k, you have somebody who, you know, will love you and adore you and give you all the things you want and prop you up, and then they will, like, smack you around and call you names. And then they'll, you know, put a little wound solve on and make it better, and then that you guys won't talk about it for a while, and everything's gonna be okay. And then they're gonna love you a little bit and do all the good stuff, but then they're gonna fuck you again and hurt you. And if you don't do what they want, there's, like, a power struggle there. And I was looking at what's been going on with our you know, in The United States here with Trump, you know, it's like, oh, look. You you freed Ross. Yay. And oops. Let you're gonna go fucking take over Gaza. What? And, you know, just like, what the fuck are you talking about? You know? And so, like, you know and it's like, yay. You're auditing things and, Leigh, let's get transparency. Okay. Cool. And then who knows what else is going on? You know? But it's just this, like it's literally, like, the job of of an abusive narcissistic person is to destabilize you.
You know? And so I look at the way that things are happening in this world, you know, on a macro and a micro level, you know, globally and certainly, you know, inner with each countries, it's like we're navigating that. You know? And so it's like when people don't know what the fuck is gonna happen in the next fifteen minutes, you know, it's like, oh my god. I gotta see what's going on Twitter. You know? Instead of, like, going and being productive and doing the thing you're supposed to go do. You know? And so, unfortunately, I think we're dealing with that, that that archetype, you know, in in our in our power structure. So it's it's very I don't know. I guess it's always, like, DYOR and buyer beware. Like, don't trust these things, guys, and don't get too, you know, enamored by the hype.
And and do some research, and don't don't be afraid to reach out to people and just like, am I crazy? Is this really the thing? And that's why John, when all this stuff started going on last week, I was like, it's time. I need you on the show. We gotta talk about this thing. What's going on in El Salvador? You know? And, I mean, obviously, I've always wanna talk about me premier Bitcoin and what you do, but I know that you're obviously, with your post and everything, like, you have a lot different, you have a different perspective that I really honor and trust. And I will always do my research on you, John. But,
[00:56:32] Unknown:
And and and to to draw to an earlier point, and then I I actually have to start to Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I know. We gotta wrap. But, but this is the benefit of not taking money from sources that will influence that will influence you. Right? Like, imagine we were taking money from the government. Would I be saying these things?
[00:56:55] Unknown:
I would not. Nope. I would not.
[00:56:59] Unknown:
And, you know, like, to be I I I don't wanna be too anti El Salvador. This is a great country. There's a lot of hope, great people, a lot of good progress, but this is a loss. This is an l, and we need to admit that. We need to accept that. That's how we're gonna move on. We're gonna learn from this and do better, not we're gonna double down and just pretend like
[00:57:20] Unknown:
everything's perfect. Right. La la la la la.
[00:57:23] Unknown:
Long. Right? Like, that doesn't help. If we were funded by the government, I probably wouldn't say that.
[00:57:32] Unknown:
Totally. And and I think that's what's so important again about the ethos of what you guys do at Mi Premier and, you know, the ethos of many Bitcoiners and the ethos of all of us. Like, I don't have sponsors for my show. I do everything just because I love it and it's my passion and I wanna, like, learn and meet people and get your stories out there, you know. And it's like if I had a a, you know, the strings attached, I would I would also have some tape attached to my lips, and I'm not interested in that. You know? And so I think you know? And again and I love, like, El Salvador is incredible. Like, I got to go there twice, and it was like, wow.
People here really have a sense of hope, you know? And I call it hope in action and people are doing things and it's not just a bunch of, you know, philosophy around it. And so you're gonna have lots and lots of hiccups and bumps in the roads when you're having a revolution. It's not gonna be like, oh, look. Here's our magic fairy dust. Everything's great.
[00:58:28] Unknown:
Yeah. There's gonna be bumps in the road. There's gonna be setbacks. Like, that's fine. Yeah. But we're not gonna learn from it
[00:58:36] Unknown:
if we pretend like it's didn't happen. Right. It's like, no. No. Yeah. Exactly. And so I think the more open, honest dialogues that all of us can have, you know, whether we're here in The States or down there in El Salvador, it's like, that's why open source is cool because you can say, cool. This is what we learned from. This is what happened. You know? Anytime I do an event, it's like, here's what happened. Here's what went well. Here's what didn't. What can we do better next time? It's just it's it's progression one zero one. Right? And so, hopefully, that, you know, this this beautiful revolution of freedom called Bitcoin can continue to have that mindset and feel there's no egos here.
Like, it's not about nobody has the right answer of, like, how to change a country and turn it into a Bitcoin standard. So I hope and pray that president Bukele and his team and all of the teams around the world, you know, we've obviously got Maya and Suriname and, you know, these people who are trying to make changes. It's like, okay. Let's use my mistakes as an example for your thing moving forward. You know? Alright. So I and I know it's time. So let's tell everybody. Everybody can go to, my first bitcoin dot I o. You guys can go support, make donations. You can learn. Make sure you follow John and, my first bitcoin on x, and under with, Jay Dennehy writes. I'll have all this stuff in the show notes for you guys. So any last words of wisdom for anybody who's out there who maybe is, you know, scared to learn about Bitcoin? Is that to give them a little, like because you said introductory Bitcoin education is the most important thing.
[01:00:08] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, I don't think anybody should. I I mean, I guess there's a fear of the unknown. Right? Which is why a lot of people, maybe are reluctant to accept Bitcoin. You know, the devil you know sort of sort of thing. But there's no downside to learning about Bitcoin. There's only upside. There is zero downside to that. It's it can change your life in ways that go far beyond the money that you spend. It's a different way to view power. And, again, this is what I firmly believe the real revolution is, which is, you know, I kind of touched on earlier about, like, the playing chess comment. This revolution is not about changing who is in power.
It is about changing our relationship to power. Mhmm. And Bitcoin is our best tool to understand that and to get started on that journey.
[01:01:09] Unknown:
Love it. Thank you so much. It's so true. I know a lot of people were so we are programmed in this old power paradigm, and we don't realize, like, wow, we can be the ones in power. And it's a tear it's it can be pretty intimidating sometimes when piece people say, oh, be your own bank. And they're like, I wanna call customer service. I want them to be my bank. And if I lose my password, like so it is a big leap for people, especially when you're talking about finances. We're not just talking about, oops, I lost a Google document. It's It's like, no. It's your it's ability to survive. And so so there's a different thing there. But once you start connecting the dots of why, like, you don't want someone else in control of that, you start to realize, like, oh, wow. This is way better. It does take a few minutes of proof of work to to make it solid and safe, but it's worth it in the long run so that you don't have the fluctuations of a government or an institute or policies making changes, and then all of a sudden you're getting a sixty one zero two and they confiscated your life savings.
[01:02:07] Unknown:
Yeah. I would argue that the, you know, that responsibility aspect is a feature, not a bug. Right? Yeah. Because we also are used to living in a world where we don't have to hold ourselves accountable. Yeah. Or we don't have to take responsibility. Yep. And in Bitcoin, you do. Right? Yeah. Like, you make a mistake, you should feel some pain for it. Yeah. And I don't I don't mean that as, like, a masochist or something. Right? No. No. No. It's just kinda like
[01:02:39] Unknown:
yeah. It's radical self responsibility. It's like at Burning Man. You don't get to just show up and there's a bunch of vendors. Like, you bring everything in. You're responsible for your survival, you know. And so there's a lot of parallels with Burning Man and Bitcoin in my opinion.
[01:02:53] Unknown:
Mistakes are opportunities to learn. Yeah. Right? But we have to we have to be willing to one admit when we make a mistake. Yeah. And not insulate ourselves from the from the consequences or or or push that off onto somebody else. Like, oh, I don't understand what's happening, but
[01:03:16] Unknown:
somebody else does. So, you know, everything's probably okay. Yeah. They'll fix it for me or somebody else. Yeah. And it's it's it's it it's a mindset shift for sure. Like, as you go and and what I always share with folks, it's like, you don't have to eat the whole burrito in one bite. Do tiny little bites, you know, one bite at a time. Make sure you've chewed it and swallowed it before you take the next bite so you don't choke, you know? And so it's just very important, I think, for folks to, like, don't get overwhelmed. The Bitcoin community, obviously, what you, John, and all of your amazing team, Reyna and everybody, like, you guys have completely made it so approachable and easy for people to come in and learn and and in a just a step by step methodical way too, which I think is super important because you go to different places and you're just like, who am I supposed to watch? What do I do? What do I do first? What do I do next? How do I know that this is legit and it's not just some company trying to scam me with their coin? You know? Like, you've made this completely neutral, and and it's just it's the bomb. And so I love you, and I love what made premier Bitcoin has done. I can't wait to see you somewhere. Where are you do you got it? What are you gonna be doing? Any traveling? Any conferences?
[01:04:27] Unknown:
Yeah. Just as, I guess, my my closing thoughts. I'm late to another meeting already. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Go shit. No. It was in April. It's a big month for us. So April 10 is the next independent Bitcoin educators on conference. Cool. That will be in Nashville at Bitcoin Park. It's during their grassroots week. Cool. Yeah. So come to Bitcoin Park for the whole week and this will be one of the days. It's awesome. And then April 23, back here in El Salvador, we're gonna have a graduation, a Bitcoin diploma graduation in the morning, which are, like, really inspiring events. And then in the evening,
[01:05:02] Unknown:
have a charity dinner and an auction to fundraise so we could keep keep doing this work. Awesome, dude. Well, anything you've, you know, tag me on anything so I can repost and help if you guys need fundraising things and, you know, my small but mighty audience is is, you know, noble and wants to help. Yeah. Yay. Awesome, brother. Thanks for tuning in, and sorry I made you late for your next meeting. God bless everyone who's tuned in. And, again, go check out MyFirstBitcoin.io, and we'll catch you guys on the other side. Alright. Thanks, John. You're the best.
Hey. Aloha, love tribe. Welcome to part two of the doubleheader of thankful Thursday here, and I am so grateful I have somebody who I've gotten to meet this wonderful human in many different conferences all over the world, and he's somebody who has been inspiring me as, an activist, an educator, a woman, a mom, a person who wants to make the world a better place, and, of course, first and foremost, a Bitcoiner. This is John Dennehy, the founder of Me Premiere Bitcoin. Welcome, brother.
[00:01:01] Unknown:
Welcome. I'm a father, not a mom, but yes. Well yeah.
[00:01:06] Unknown:
But hey. So how's that going, dude? Like, I remember it's like you've been on this you know, it's this gradual journey of fatherhood and parenthood, and you go from zero to one. It's like, woah. Right? Like, what's how's it been going? Oh, man.
[00:01:24] Unknown:
Wonderfully exhausting.
[00:01:25] Unknown:
Yeah. I know. It's like you live in this, like, liminal world, you know, where you're sort of in between asleep and awake stage. And it's it's such a it's a weird experience, you know? And it's like you wouldn't trade it for anything on planet Earth, you know? But it's also like, wow. I didn't realize that I could really be stretched this far out. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, it it has taught me so much. Right? Like, if you
[00:01:56] Unknown:
not not that I ever before I had a kid, I thought that I understood life in the world and, like, my own limitations. But, I definitely understand them at a different level now.
[00:02:07] Unknown:
Right? And so how has it changed your perspective, obviously, with your mission using, you know, doing open source education and the your first diploma and your premier of Bitcoin? How has it changed your perspective with your mission now being a father? You know? Yeah.
[00:02:25] Unknown:
It it has made me it's done, like, two contrary things. Right? It's made me understand the value of what we're doing at a much deeper level because it's much more tangible now. Right? Now it's not just for someone.
[00:02:43] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:02:44] Unknown:
It's for this person. Yeah. Right? Simultaneous that it's it's you know, we have a finite amount of time and energy and and now I have less of that to work on this thing, which I now realize is more important. So just Yeah. It it forces you to really prioritize and and just cut away all of the fat. Right? It's is this how how important is this? Like, where is this on my priority list? And if it's not super high on that priority list, then sorry.
[00:03:21] Unknown:
Yeah. It's not happening. Well, how about let's give the audience a little overview. I mean, I'm sure most everybody, you know, in my audience knows who you are. But just in case we've got some new folks, you know, I'd love for people to understand who you are, how you got to form me Premiere Bitcoin, and what does me Premiere Bitcoin do?
[00:03:39] Unknown:
Yeah. So I'm John Dennehy, from New York originally. I I moved here I moved to El Salvador, which is where I currently am in August of twenty twenty one. Mhmm. So if we if we remember, Bitcoin became legal tender here in El Salvador in September of twenty twenty one. So, it was it was already announced, but it hadn't been implemented yet. So I'm I moved here in that in that interim period because it just you know, as somebody who who cared about the future direction of the world and cared about Bitcoin, I just recognized that El Salvador would be really important.
Like, that it would punch above its weight. Right? Like, that there would be this small country, but because it was the first one to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, it would set a lot of precedents. And I wanted to make sure that there were positive precedents. So I came here and I founded My First Bitcoin, which is a Bitcoin education nonprofit. And we we believe that introductory Bitcoin education is the most powerful tool to put humanity on a better path toward a better future, toward a future which we have agency over our own lives, we get to define our own destiny. Like, it's it's a gateway drug to freedom, basically. It's a gateway drug to sovereignty. Like, once you learn that you can control your money, you learn that you can control control your power and have influence over your own future. And that has tremendous second order effects. Right?
And and what better place to do it what better place to get that started than the first thing in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender? So that that's, we've been, I think, very successful since then. We've taught here in El Salvador. We've taught 40,000 students in person.
[00:05:41] Unknown:
And In person, 40,000 people. Yeah. Okay. Everybody who's listening, I want you guys to just get that in your head. Okay? We're not talking about doing a webinar and everybody got to hit their Zoom button and watch. 40,000 people in person, hands on, with human beings in front of you, helping you understand what Bitcoin is. Like, I just want you guys to get your head around this. This is why John is one of my you know, they always say don't have heroes. Well, John's one of my heroes. So I don't I don't live by everybody's, you know, quote, but you're one of my heroes, John. Like, this is incredible. And I know, obviously and I know you're about to say, well, it wasn't just me. It was my team. And I know it was because you've got, like, the best volunteers and the best educators and the best people who have have aligned their their time, treasure, and talent to move this mission forward. And so I understand, you know, it has been a monumental group effort, but just think about that, you guys. 40,000 people in the last three years in person.
Okay? That that's just I just I can't it's 11:11 here too where I'm at, so that must mean we need to make a wish. Yay. But, like, I just I love you so much. I mean, that's huge, John. I just I just wanna say thank you and okay. Keep going. I just wanted to make sure that everybody got the magnitude of what that number means.
[00:07:02] Unknown:
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, you said you said a lot of things. Thank you for anticipating that. Yeah. We do we do have a great team, and that's what it's all about. Right? Like, it's not one person with a good idea that is outside the bounds of of what's traditional and accepted. The status quo is is is kind of just a a crazy person. Right? But but a team could could really do a lot of A team of crazy people are so much better than just one crazy person. Yeah. That's what I'm trying to say. And it's a lot less lonely too.
[00:07:42] Unknown:
It's so much more fun.
[00:07:44] Unknown:
Yeah. It's so much fun. A lot of benefits. But in fact, I I I I really do you know, occasionally, I'll I'll have to take a walk around and be like, wow. 40,000. But it's actually more impressive than that because that 40,000 is just in person in El Salvador. Yeah. We've also because it's open source, everything that we do is open source. It's a core value that we have. Can you tell people understand in case they are listening and don't know what open source means? Right. So, actually, open source is a is a software term and it just means that, you it means that the software is able to be used by anybody without permission.
The the term for for books, which is what we create is is Creative Commons. But open source is just like a more well known term. It's it's the same thing that all the materials that we create, anybody in the world is free to use them however they like. There are no restrictions, no charge, no no need to ask for permission. And that has led to some really incredible things. Actually, I think I think one of the most amazing things about the project is that we have grown by giving away our power and our authority. Yeah. Right? Like, in the traditional world, in the fiat world, we think of always trying to consolidate our power, our position, our authority, and we've taken the opposite approach. Yep. Everything that we do, we try to push out away from us rather than hold on to it.
And that has led to some really wonderful things. So here in El Salvador, because it's open source, the Ministry of Education has adopted their their version of, one of our flagship products, which is the Bitcoin diploma. It's a got it right here. It's a ten week it's a ten week program, basically, from zero to one. It's, financial education for the Bitcoin era. So it's financial literacy and first financial literacy then Bitcoin education. And they have taught we've trained we've helped to train 500 public school teachers, and I don't know how many they've taught at this time. So that's many thousands more that is not included in that 40,000. 40 thousand is direct. Yeah. In direct, we actually don't know the numbers, but it's probably about a 10 x.
[00:10:05] Unknown:
10 x. Okay. Okay. And and Everybody just again, pause. 10 x. That's 400,000 people using free and open source education that is this monumentally new thing. I think it's new because like you said, we're living in the walled garden mentality of IP, and you gotta license everything, whether it's music, whether it's a book, whether it's this course, blah blah blah. You know? And so everybody who's listening, what I want you guys to really get and this is why Bitcoin is so important. This is why Nostra is so important. This is why understanding what open source education and open source development is so important. It's like if you're on a mission to create freedom go up, love go up, peace go up, prosperity go up, unity and community go up, it's not gonna happen when you're dealing with these walled gardens.
You know? And and so you, John, are just exemplifying that, You know? And, obviously, you're taking this all over the world. It's not just in El Salvador. And so, I can't say enough how important this is, and it's really inspired me with what I do and what I teach to be, like, everything's value for value. Take it. Just pay what you think it's worth. And, you know, if you wanna adapt it and do something, great. Fine. You know? Like, this is my little seed of how I've created something, but that's, like, obviously, how the, you know, the code works in Bitcoin and whatnot. So, yeah, so so I just it's so important what you're doing. I'm just I'm so glad I finally get to do an interview with you, dude. It's been like I know we talked about it 20 times, and I'm like, yay. It's happening.
Okay. So keep going. So keep talking about, like, how this is spreading outside of El Salvador.
[00:11:45] Unknown:
Yeah. So I we're coming up on two years. It was March of twenty twenty three. We we, created the infrastructure for what we call an independent Bitcoin educators node network. Mhmm. And these are people that are teaching Bitcoin in their own communities using very often or maybe even exclusively, at least in part using materials that that we've created here, in El Salvador. And and it's a again, you don't need to be part of the network to use these materials as open source. The idea is just that we're stronger together. Right? We're more than the sum of our parts. And we collaborate with each other and we strengthen each other.
And it's it's created a community. So there are some core values that everybody has to agree to to join the network, and that is that the education must be independent, impartial, community led, Bitcoin only, quality, and focus on empowerment. Yeah. And then at this point, the network is self governing and decentralized. Again, we've pushed it out. We don't control it anymore. We we we got it started, but now we're just another node in the network. And at this point, the actually behind me, I don't know if you could see on the map, Probably can't see well and I gotta update it too. It's probably about two months behind. But all the all the colored countries are are countries that were active in there in The US map or states where we're active. So the node network has about 60 nodes in 34, 30 five countries at this point. Wow. So we're adding like, just this month, I think we're gonna add four new countries.
So every month is a block. We we we learn a lot from Bitcoin. We try to take what Bitcoin has taught us in the digital realm and apply it to the physical realm. So all of these 60 plus projects are all teaching about Bitcoin in their own communities and in their own way. Right? They might they might tweak some things to make it, more relevant to their local context. But the numbers of students from this network are not included in that 40,000. Right? Also not included are online students because we've also over the past year, we've built an LMS, a learning management system, to move to try to facilitate, online education for all the stuff that we do. And we're we're still early on that trajectory.
I I anticipate that this year, 2025, where where is gonna be when it's really gonna start to to pick up,
[00:14:31] Unknown:
you know, these online classrooms that we're creating. Totally. Well, you know, it's so cool you just mentioned that because and I don't and since this is not private, but, you know, so I've been working on some online education stuff just for my personal growth stuff, my 11 x love code. And I wanted to build it over on Noster, you know, because ideally, I want, you know, of course, I want it to be value for value, but I also want the the students to be able to zap each other when they're doing something really cool. Right? It's kinda like, oh, look. You did, like, a five day login, or you did your streak, or you accomplished your homework, or whatever it is, you know, but just teaching people who aren't necessarily in in my world in, you know, this this particular business is, you know, how to use Bitcoin, you know, to, like, have some fun instead of just going, yay. Like, you know, and so so it's kind of a cool thing. But there's somebody, Austin, who's created a a website called Plebdevs, and he's building it over using Noster. And so it's like an LMS with community, with the courses, with the video and stuff. So it could be so he's putting together a grant for OpenSats, and, yeah, I hope he gets it. And, and I'm hoping that, like, all of us who've got our own unique content, because he's teaching people about how to be a Bitcoin developer.
And, you know, so it's like me premier Bitcoin might be a great, you know, plug in for that particular tool. You know? And so I know, obviously, we've got plan b. We've got me. We've got all of us doing our educational things. So I think it's fun to think about, like, how can we disrupt the LMS world, which is literally it's a a $214,000,000,000 a year industry with a CAGR of 24%. Online education is massive. It's gonna be 1,200,000,000,000 by 2030, especially when you gamify stuff. So especially when people have got companies that they're like, oh, I gotta do remote training for my workers. Well, it's like, well, why not do it on Nostr? Why not teach people about Bitcoin at the same time? You know what I mean? And so it's, like, such a cool I think it's like peanut butter and chocolate, I always say.
You know? I'm like, let's let's let's do that sly roundabout way of teaching everybody about Bitcoin. So so, anyway so, okay. So all the good online stuff in the notes. So I was watching a quick inter you know, it was just like a quick three minute thing this morning about, like, the treasure academy, you know, and and they were talking about how they're doing a lot of stuff over in Africa. And you need to have local educators who understand storytelling through the lens of what it's like for the user because you can't like, somebody here in Colorado is gonna have a different way of learning Bitcoin than they are in, you know, Lithuania or Nigeria or Thailand. And so it's very important to, like how how do you help make sure that and, again, I know it's open source. Like, do you and and, obviously, when people become part of the node network, like, what's been the transformation that the teachers and the educators have been able to experience and feel more empowered, you know, because they're part of the node network versus just like, I'm gonna go do a meetup on Tuesday and teach Bitcoin.
[00:17:32] Unknown:
Yeah. So we try to it's a good question. We try to kind of strike a middle ground, because we live in a centralized world. And there is so we are so used to that. It has been a really enlightening journey to to really try to build this decentralized network because there's a lot of people maybe without even realizing it are just so used to living in a centralized world. Like, there's a, a bit of a shock sometimes. Right? It's like, like, they'll they'll say that they support it and be like, okay. Great. So now we're in. What do we do? And it's like, well, that's kind of up to you. Right? Yeah.
[00:18:13] Unknown:
You're it's just like, wait. Hold on. You're not gonna tell me step by step what my life is supposed to be, and I get to plug my umbilical cord into you, and you're gonna tell me how to live? Uh-oh. What? What's that what does that mean?
[00:18:25] Unknown:
Yeah. So so we wanna we wanna create these frameworks and this infrastructure that connects people. Yeah. So it's not just a bunch of silos. Right? So it's not just a bunch of, you know, that this meet up in place x and this class and place y, like, that that these are connected, that they're part of the same movement. Yet simultaneously, we don't want to just direct it all to one central place. Right? So it's it's this it's this constant, we're constantly trying to find the that space in between, where we could create the the frameworks without dictating to individuals.
And I think that, you know, it's tough. Right? We're learning as we go. But, yeah, it's been it's been surprising that and and as you said, there's there's kind of, like, this emerging, set of different global networks that do similar things. But I think one of the things that differentiates the network that we're trying to build is is how much we care about decentralization. Like, how much we push people out. So there was there was a early on, then many of the projects so it's a split. Some projects are are well established and Bitcoin education is is kind of like one component of what they do, but they do lots of other things. So a good example could be Bitcoin and Gassy in South Africa. They put ton of stuff. They're already super well established.
Bitcoin education is one of the things that they do. So we work with them. They're part of the node network, and and hopefully, we could make the lift a little bit easier on that one specific thing. But then there are other projects, so it doesn't really apply to a project like that. But then there are other projects who are more education, like, kind of education only and are just starting out. And many of them early on wanted to use the name and brand in, you know, my first Bitcoin, me my Bitcoin, whatever it is in their local language, with the location.
And and, you know, we kinda we we thought about that. We actually took a step back and we thought long and hard about that. And one of the few like, we don't we try not to dictate a lot of things, but that was one of the one of the stronger opinions that we had or not even opinion. Like, we just said don't do this. Come up with your own name. We don't want everything to point back to my first Bitcoin and we've run Bitcoin. We don't want we consciously are avoiding these centralizing efforts. Not not efforts, but there's gravity that that we're just so used to things moving to this central point, that you often have to like, if left to its own devices, that's what naturally happens. Not because that's the way of the world, because that's the world that we've all grown up in. This is a learned behavior.
So, yeah, that that that's one of that's one example of how we have made a conscious effort to avoid centralization.
[00:21:50] Unknown:
And and how are you guys funded? Like, how are you guys getting all like, I'm obviously, I've got this up on the screen here with the geyser. If you guys wanna donate, you can donate to me at Premier Bitcoin and go to my first bitcoin dot I o. How are you guys you know, are you getting grants? Like, if you're working with the, you know, the schools and you're teaching these 500 school teachers, like, how are you funded, you know, in that realm in in addition to expansion?
[00:22:14] Unknown:
Yeah. It's a good question. So it's actually it's it's the community for the most part that funds us. So fit historically, and this is all on our website under the finances tab, 57% of all of our funding has come from you, has come from the community. So that's grassroots, that's Geyser, that's people that, you know, also on that same page or on Geyser are the two primary ways that that that that money comes in. And then the second biggest category is grants. And that category is growing. You know, in the first year or two, we didn't get any grants. And now, we currently receive a grant from, HRF, so the Human Rights Foundation, Block, as well as, OpenSets.
[00:23:05] Unknown:
These are Amazing. That we're getting. Okay. Look at right here. So explain this. So and this is is gonna be a perfect dovetail into our next part of the conversation. Explain why you take no money from any government, please.
[00:23:18] Unknown:
Well, we've never taken money from from a government. We never will. And the reason why we do that and, also, that's why we we have had corporate sponsors, although that is trending down. Last year, it made up 1% of all of our funding was from corporate sponsors. Mhmm. And who knows? It might actually be zero this year. We'll see. But,
[00:23:49] Unknown:
Oops. I lost to John. He will bounce back here guys soon. Seems like we've had two disconnects today with Andre and John. Yeah. I think this is interesting. I'll wait till he jumps back on, guys. But, like, obviously, when you take money from corporate sponsors or governments, then you have a little bit more strings attached to what and how you operate as a nonprofit. I ran a nonprofit started a nonprofit years ago. Let's get you back on. Yay. You're there. Yeah.
[00:24:21] Unknown:
Okay. Yeah. Cool. Sponsorship. Yeah.
[00:24:24] Unknown:
No. But, yeah, go ahead. So we were talking about why why it's you choose not to take money from a government.
[00:24:31] Unknown:
Yeah. It's to be independent. Right? Because on a long enough timeline, Bitcoin education will be captured by whoever funds it. That is I I strongly believe that. Yeah. So that is why we want to be funded either no strings attached grants or by you, by the community. If we're gonna be captured, and I don't think it's a question of if, but by who, then we want to be captured by the community. That's who we want to be held accountable by. That's who we want to work for, not for that that's how we align our interests. Right? Because if we if we took money from a government, there would be a lot more self censorship.
Yeah. There would be we would be worried about upset in that relationship more than would be healthy for what we're doing. And and, you know, that's that's a really good segue into I think what is the next point. But but I wanna underline why that independence is so important, very quickly. And that is Bitcoin is our best tool to show people that they could have agency in their own lives. Yeah. And the and that is corrupted if you don't teach people how to think, but if you teach people what to think. Right? We come from a world where education teaches you what to think, not how to think. Right. And if our incentives are misaligned and primarily through through funding, that's, like, the primary attack vector for this. Yeah.
Then we would frankly be incentivized to tell people what to think rather than how to think and to think independently to make their own choices. So so it it it's not something that you would notice. It it's subtle, but super impactful on a long timeline.
[00:26:34] Unknown:
It is. And it and I love that you guys are doing this because, obviously, what we're seeing, you know, up here in The States is this dismantling of the USAID and God knows what, you know, is gonna get revealed there. And we keep seeing things, you know, every hour, some new like, oh, did you know that cats get stressed out? And if you don't take them to the spa, they're gonna shed more. I'm like, what? Who fucking cares? You know? Like, why would my taxpayer $1 go to a study like that? So so just silly nonsense stuff, and then, obviously, all the other just the programming that comes along with any government funding. And so there it comes in a very dark and malicious way. You know? And, unfortunately, people don't see it, and they think like, oh, it's all this good equal stuff and whatever. It's kind of like you're not getting neutral information.
You know? And when we don't have access to neutral information, especially if we're somebody who is tired, we're overworked, we're overwhelmed, we're exhausted, we're feeling broke, we're feeling lonely, we're feeling disconnected. You know? And it's like once we get some, little tidbits of information that sort of validate this, that, or the other, like, we're much more easily manipulatable. Yeah. No? And so right now, unfortunately, as we all know, most people are, like, living like this with their nose just above water. They're treading water. They're hoping they're gonna get to the next paycheck. They're hoping that, you know, oh, gosh. I hope I can get a birthday present for my kid this week, You know? Instead of, like, oh, well, I guess I'm not gonna have lunch five days a week at the office because I wanna go get my kid his Lego set. You know? And so most people are struggling to survive in all of the countries. I don't think, you know, there's you know, obviously, there's certain countries we have a lot more privilege and opportunity than, you know, developing countries, but, but it's hard out there. And I think the fiat system has created that, that drowning mechanism for everybody, and it just keeps us just enough so that we can kinda get by, but we're not gonna rebel because we're too tired to rebel. So let's talk about El Salvador with our with our next part here in the IMF. And, you know, let's talk about the you know, your experience and, obviously, you know, you were posting pictures of getting arrested previously in your in your past life about, you know, being a protester. Can you talk about that? And then let's talk about how that ties into what's going on today and what the solutions are that we might be looking at to help everybody.
[00:29:11] Unknown:
Yeah. So I I became interested in Bitcoin. My Bitcoin journey, I could date it to 02/2001, '2 thousand '2. Right? Like, pre pre Pre Bitcoin. Oh, wow. Okay. Cool. And that is when I kind of I mean, it's a it's a longer story, but, like, September I'm from New York. September eleventh kind of shook me awake. I was 19 years old. Yeah. Shook me awake, made me take a step back and and look at the world and and try to, you know, determine what what was wrong with it in order to see how we could do better and prevent things like that from happening again. And the one of the first things that I identified, and it's something that has really shaped my life ever since, is the concentration of power and that a small, opaque, elite could dictate the terms of the world for the rest of us, and there is no better representation of that than the IMF.
Right? So the IMF from from a pretty early age was was something that I saw as a symbol of what was wrong with the status quo with the existing order. So I I went on the spring meetings two thousand two for the IMF. I went to Washington DC to to, you know, throw my body against the machine. And and, you know, I could there's a picture. I mean, it was actually in the papers the next day. I just saw I got the the picture. I mean, I got arrested. And and yeah. Somebody snapped a picture, like, while they were rounded me up while they were, like, putting the cuffs on me. So and and and that's that's, like, something to be for me, it it I always think back to to the start of the journey. Right? And and the IMF is just as bad now as it was then. It's not like they've gotten better. Right?
But that that was what helped me understand the value of Bitcoin when I did hear about it for the first time. It it it helped me connect the dots that Bitcoin was I I spent a lot of time when I was, you know, nineteen, twenty, twenty one, whatever, in those ages pushing against what I thought was wrong with the world. I like to say it, trying to slow the bad. And Bitcoin
[00:32:14] Unknown:
helped me realize that we could try to speed the good instead of trying to Dude. Okay. Hold on. Slow the bad and speed the good. You know I'm gonna be quoting this. So I love it. Wow. And then, of course, as Bitcoiners, we love, you know, thinking about time preference. So that's really interesting. So okay. Keep going. I'm so excited.
[00:32:40] Unknown:
Yeah. So the IMF, in in in many ways, represents to me what's the problem, and Bitcoin in many ways represents the solution.
[00:32:56] Unknown:
Let's try so, again, like, for folks who may not understand what the IMF's role is and how they operate, and we look at, you know, you know, Alex Gladstein and John Perkins and all the folks who we, you know, admire and have are doing great work, in addition to you. Of course, like, can you help people understand, like, what the IMF does in a in a nutshell, and then why is this not a great thing? Why is this the problem, not the solution?
[00:33:22] Unknown:
Yeah. So the IMF or the International Monetary Fund is a international lending institution. We could think of it as the bank for nation states. Right? If a if a nation state wants to get a loan, then that's primarily who they go to. I mean, China will also, in development and that's that's Not has this whole other set of of things wrong with that. But but the IMF is mostly represents the interests of The United States and the West. So it's effectively controlled by whoever funds it. You know, same with education, same with everything, really. Mhmm. Yeah. That's why And that's why you don't take money from governments cause you don't wanna be controlled by the purse strings of whoever happens to be in office that day. Yeah. Yeah. So I think many people think of the IMF as just that as a lender to nation states. If that were true, that would be fine. Right? Like, sure. Let's have a bank for for nation states.
That is not the primary purpose of the IMF. The primary purpose, that that is the means to the end. But what the end is is control. What the end is is power. What the end is is dictated to nation states around the world how they should exist, how they should behave, what laws they should have, how they have to fit into the world order. Right? So, the loans that the IMF gives have very long and often hidden strings attached. Never design it's not about, you know, it's not a business, like, where they, you know, they're loaning out money and they get a return, you know, there's some interest and they're making money and it's a business, like, how we think of banks. That is not how the IMF works. Right.
They use that money. And, again, part of it is is there's not really other options. If a nation state needs a few billion dollars for infrastructure projects, like, there's not a lot of options for that. And IMF knows that. Right? So they get to set the terms. And literally, they set the terms. This is not something and this is something that I think a lot of people misunderstand with what's happening with El Salvador now. This is not something that two parties two equal parties sit down at the table, and if there's a disagreement, then they're gonna hash it out. That is not how the IMF works. The IMF controls and dictates everything. Once you enter into an agreement with them,
[00:36:13] Unknown:
you are, in a very real sense, you are no longer sovereign. Yeah. You're in the you're you're in a, like, a loan shark agreement with the mafia. Basically. Yeah. You don't do what
[00:36:23] Unknown:
they say. With the mafia.
[00:36:26] Unknown:
Yeah. It it it's a mess. Okay. So so, like, pulling this up. Right? And so the judge the, you know, the IMF is the judge, the jury, the executioner, executioner of what you you've written here. And and something here that really struck out to me when I saw this a bit ago, in addition to today when you were posting, you know, for the public sector, engagement in Bitcoin related economic activities and transactions and purchase Bitcoin will be confined. That's a nice word. What does that mean? You know, and so that's another one of those ambiguous confined to what, according to whom, how long, when, what, etcetera. And so I know a lot of people who are, you know, again so for those of you guys listening, you know, president Bukele, everybody was so excited because he made Bitcoin legal tender a couple years ago, and it was just like, yeah. El Salvador's gonna be this, you know you know, fuck the IMF. Let's get out of these things, and we're gonna be sovereign. And once and for all, we're gonna be like the little guy wins. Yay. And then just recently, there was a a deal that was made, and people are like, what? And so, of course, some of us are just like, Maybe he's gonna take the IMF money and just go buy some more Bitcoin or go do some mining. Isn't this great? Yeah. Go go president Bukele.
And so there's a lot of misunderstanding about the magnitude of that deal and what the implications could be. And I think, you know, so for those of us who are, of course, hopeful and I know you were in El Salvador, so you're like a someone who's like, I wanna see El Salvador win, not just because you live there, but because you're, you know, like a a freedom warrior. Like, tell us, like, what's going on with you and the organization? And, obviously, you know a bunch of people. Like, what what happened? Like, what why did he change? Does anybody know? Is he talking about it? Is it is it public knowledge? Like, I'm just curious because I haven't seen that yet.
[00:38:23] Unknown:
Yeah. So to answer the a question that you asked, like, who gets to determine, you know, whether it's confined? It's the IMF. It is not you. It is not me. It is not El Salvador. None of us even have a seat at the table. This is not a discussion. The IMF decides. So vague terminology like that is especially dangerous. Yeah. And that is something that I think a lot of people don't understand. This isn't something like you could argue your way out of it. Like, this isn't up to anybody but the IMF whether the terms are are being abided by, which is which is a lot of their power. Right? If it was how it seems a lot of people seem to think of it where it's like the two parties are an equal footing, then it's like, okay. Well, maybe the IMF isn't that bad, you know, you know, that is not how the IMF operates though. The two parties are not an equal footing.
And then, you know, you asked, like, why? Like, what what what changed or are they talking about it? And we don't know because they aren't talking about it. Right? We could make guesses and assumptions. I mean, almost certainly it's to just speed up infrastructure development, to build more roads and bridges and to do it faster. Also probably to service some old debt, but but there there's a it's basically all the all the typical reasons why a country would would take a loan from the IMF are are very likely why El Salvador is doing that. But the government has done a very poor job in communicating its motivations. In fact, so as part of a draft agreement with the IMF, that that was negotiated and announced in December.
So the the way that the IMF works is step one is that the two parties, so the country and the IMF will come up with a draft agreement. And in order for the agreement to go into effect and become official to move out of draft and and move toward final agreement. Mhmm. And, the nation state will have to, oblige a number of conditions. Right? So it's not the conditions that the nation state doesn't meet the conditions during the terms of the loan. They have to meet it before the loan even begins. So there El Salvador is now in that process of conforming to the draft agreement.
And as part of that, last Wednesday, so eight days ago, the president sent a revision of the Bitcoin law that was passed in 02/2021, which made Bitcoin legal tender and made some pretty significant changes to that, to the point that Bitcoin is no longer legal tender. The government is is literally so this this isn't this language isn't in, in the new, in the law revision, but this is the language of the draft agreement. They are the government is explicitly prohibited from accepting Bitcoin.
[00:41:50] Unknown:
Yeah. That that was a weird one to me. And and because I get the, like, okay. You're not, you know, okay. Let's take it out of legal tender status, which whatever. Let people be voluntary. Fine. We're not gonna push this. But, like, you can't accept Bitcoin as a payment, you know? And so now you're gonna force people if they do have Bitcoin, they have to it's just it's just I don't get that. That just seems I mean, I get it from the IMS lens, of course, but it's just one of those. I don't know. It just it's it is. It's disappointing. And I'm just sort of like, are we playing five, six, seven, eight, nine, d chess or something that I'm not seeing over here as little Val the pleb?
You know? Like, is there gonna be some some some grand play that we didn't or a move that we didn't predict as, you know, citizens or or people who really care and wanna make a difference? Like, do you predict that that's gonna happen, or do you think this is gonna be another clamping down of the IMF just being like, nope. Sorry. You got too far away from the the this little narrative that we want you to be living there, little El Salvador. Fuck off. Like, we're gonna we're clamping down on you. Yeah.
[00:43:03] Unknown:
So there's one of two scenarios which seem plausible to me. And and and, effectively, I'm gonna say, yes, El Salvador is playing chess, and, no, El Salvador is not playing chess. And, actually, the preferred one for us as Bitcoiners is that they're not playing chess. Because if they are playing chess, I think it's actually bad for Bitcoin. Because if they are playing chess and they knew this was gonna be the outcome all along, then that means this was just a card to play, a distraction. So when they did need to make a deal, then they had something to give up rather than something that they cared about more.
What I think probably happened is this is just an l for them. Right? And it's just spin to to say that they're playing chess. A country doesn't agree to the terms of an IMF loan and give up some of their sovereignty because they want to. Right? Because they're in control of the situation.
[00:44:09] Unknown:
If they're in control of the situation, you don't arrive at this point. Right. You're not you don't need the IMF. You're like, I don't need you. I'm I'm good.
[00:44:16] Unknown:
And and, again, the way that the IMF is structured is so that once you enter their arena, they make the rules. Right? They make the rules and they interpret them and they enforce them and they like, there is no playing chess. Right? Like, once you enter the arena, that's it. It's game over. The IMF won. They're getting what they want. It's like Hotel California.
[00:44:42] Unknown:
You can check-in, but you can never leave. You know? It it's really it's a bummer. You know? And I just I don't know. I my my hope in my heart is that there is some weird little card that they're gonna play at some point. I just I don't I don't know. You know? And, obviously, we've got a lot of really very big name people as you know who they are, and I'm not gonna say who they are. It's kind of like, well, what's going on, dudes? Give us some some intel. Like, why is this happening? And, you know, like, we're all, like, cheerleaders. Like, yay. El Salvador is the first country, and then now it's going backwards. So, like Yeah. Something we could have done to help as Bitcoiners? Is there just something that we're completely missing?
[00:45:30] Unknown:
And and I wanna I wanna push back on the or or not push back, but I wanna, give one more scenario that that El Salvador is playing chess. I would still be upset about that. They're playing chess and it's to the benefit of Bitcoin. Right? I would still be upset about that because what that says is that we are changing from small, opaque, elite group a that is making decisions for the rest of us to small, elite, opaque group b that is making decisions for the rest of us. If they're doing something and they can't tell us what it is, but we just have to trust them because they know better Right. Then we have not fixed anything. All we're doing is changing who is in charge, but keeping the apparatus intact.
So there is no way new boss,
[00:46:31] Unknown:
same as the old boss. Right?
[00:46:33] Unknown:
Right. Who. Is that what we're rooting for? To have a different person control us, a different person dictate the terms of our life and our future? No. That's not what the problem is. It's not the the problem isn't who is at the top. The problem is that there is a top. Yeah.
[00:46:49] Unknown:
And and and well, and what I see too in the last, like, forty eight hours, and maybe it's a little longer. I don't know. But just this, oh, hey. We'll take your prisoners. No. Fuck that. Like, sorry. Even even maybe Bill Gates. You can put Bill Gates in there. I'll put our prisoners. Thanks. But, like, can you imagine if Ross Ulbricht had to go to an El Salvador prison? Like, what would have happened to his mother and visitation? And that that to me no. That's I get it. Let's go save some money and offshore some some stuff. No. You don't physically offshore your your prison population. And, as somebody who sat and you obviously got arrested, I don't know if you had to go sit in a jail cell and get bailed out. I did once and I I did a little rant on it a few nights ago.
It's not the place you wanna be. You know? It's not a place you wanna be and you don't wanna be in a a place where you don't have family or anybody to be able to come support you and visit you. It's very, very un American to do that. And again, as much as I'm I'm like, let's go penny pinch and save some money. Yay. Let's be efficient. Yay. That's not the way to do this particular thing. So,
[00:48:02] Unknown:
Yeah. I don't know if you believe in coincidences, but the at around the same time that El Salvador was repealing Bitcoin as legal tender, so the other so so there were two legal tenders, The US Dollar and Bitcoin. K. At the same time that they were appealing Bitcoin as legal tender,
[00:48:24] Unknown:
they were also accepting Tether. Oh, right. Yes. Let's go into Tether's talk. Let's talk about that. That was one thing I'm clueless about. Let's talk about Tether. Which is,
[00:48:33] Unknown:
you know, is is a way to one of the things that it does is it spreads the US dollar around the world. Mhmm. And also, El Salvador is talking about taking US Prisoners. So El Salvador went from seemingly a place that stood in opposition to the US empire
[00:49:00] Unknown:
to its best friend. Totally. Oh, and let's have Heather have our our our headquarters of Tether here and headquarters of Rumble or whatever they're doing. Like, I I'm still, like, I'm starting I don't understand stablecoins that much because I haven't had to use them. I haven't had a use case. But when people try to explain them to me, I'm like, okay. I guess I can see why a stablecoin could be an interesting unit of account for you to have instead of holding your, you know, Argentinian peso or whatever it is, you know, that's like going up and down every fourteen seconds. And so so that makes sense to me, but, again, it it is. It's propping up the dollar. You know? And and and it's centralized, and it's not audited.
And is it gonna be something that, you know, this centralized, you know, authority with the CEO can go, oops. You don't get to go spend your tether today because you use too many carbon credits or whatever the nonsense is that we have with our CBDC conversations. And so is that something that is It's CBDC
[00:50:02] Unknown:
with better marketing.
[00:50:03] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, that's kinda what I I'm I'm everyone's so excited about it, and I'm I'm like, my spidey senses are off over here. And, again, I'm I'm still I'm I'm a noob. I'm a pleb. I'm always learning, and I just I don't feel like I I I feel like there's some slick marketing going on. And maybe I'm am I wrong? Am I am I being, you know, too too too con what do you call it? Conspiracy girl? Is or is my or my spidey senses on?
[00:50:34] Unknown:
Yeah. So so there's, you know, to to maybe try to be devil's advocate, mostly against myself here. There are good things about Tether. There are good things about stablecoins, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the bad things. And the bad things for me are that I got into this in the first place to replace The US empire, to replace the dollar empire, and Tether extends it. Tether strengthens it. Yeah. Tether gives a way for that to reach into places that it's not already. So, on the on the micro level, like, for an individual, I think it's it's it's mostly good. Right? It's mostly an individual that uses it mostly sees benefits, you know, if if they're in Argentina rather than using the peso, for example.
But on the macro long term level, If the problem is if if The US empire, and US dollar empire is part of the problem, then Tether is also part of the problem.
[00:51:46] Unknown:
Yeah. And I still like, I don't even understand, like, how the the amount of money they make each quarter. Where does that where are they getting that? They're all the spreads, whatever. I don't get that. Like, how the heck are they making that much money?
[00:52:01] Unknown:
Well, it's it's mostly from the interest rates. Right? So they have they have a ton of money. They have, like, a hundred $40,000,000,000, and they buy they buy treasuries with that. And the treasuries, especially in the last couple of years, the the interest rate has been very high. Right? Like, say, 5% or something. So if you have a hundred billion dollars and you're getting 5% interest on that, just on interest, you're making $5,000,000,000 a year. Right? That's insane. Not nothing else. You don't do anything with that. It's just interest. And, you know, there's there's I think there are probably other ways that they make money as well. But just just to hold your money, they're making billions and billions of dollars.
[00:52:45] Unknown:
It's insane. I just again, I'm you know, for all of us who are still learning and who are new and wanna be cautious and not be like, oh, this is so great. Look at the shiny object over here. You know? Because it's easy, especially when you get rah rah rah and you get these rich people who've got mega budgets to go tell you how great their thing is. You know? And and and why it's a tool for freedom. You know? And then all of a sudden, we see this thing happen with this beautiful country, and then all of a sudden, things are getting kinda rug pulled to some degree. You know? And so I just I'm very I'm very cautious, and it's like, I don't wanna be the I'm Yep. You know me. Look at me. I'm fucking sparkly. I want everything to be pretty and beautiful and work, but I don't believe that that's the way that things unfortunately operate. You know?
[00:53:31] Unknown:
Yeah. So, like, if if you look at Bitfinex and Tether, which are, you know, they have the same parent company. Bitfinex makes a good chunk of their money from trading shitcoins. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And then Tether makes a good chunk of their money from propping up the US dollar system. These are two things that I think I would think that the average Bitcoiner would oppose each of them individually. Yeah. But yet, we kind of give it a pass because they've thrown a bunch of money at other things that we like. Yeah. Well, and and and I think that's like that I was I forget who I was speaking to yesterday, but,
[00:54:11] Unknown:
you know, in in a typical narcissistic abusive relationship, k, you have somebody who, you know, will love you and adore you and give you all the things you want and prop you up, and then they will, like, smack you around and call you names. And then they'll, you know, put a little wound solve on and make it better, and then that you guys won't talk about it for a while, and everything's gonna be okay. And then they're gonna love you a little bit and do all the good stuff, but then they're gonna fuck you again and hurt you. And if you don't do what they want, there's, like, a power struggle there. And I was looking at what's been going on with our you know, in The United States here with Trump, you know, it's like, oh, look. You you freed Ross. Yay. And oops. Let you're gonna go fucking take over Gaza. What? And, you know, just like, what the fuck are you talking about? You know? And so, like, you know and it's like, yay. You're auditing things and, Leigh, let's get transparency. Okay. Cool. And then who knows what else is going on? You know? But it's just this, like it's literally, like, the job of of an abusive narcissistic person is to destabilize you.
You know? And so I look at the way that things are happening in this world, you know, on a macro and a micro level, you know, globally and certainly, you know, inner with each countries, it's like we're navigating that. You know? And so it's like when people don't know what the fuck is gonna happen in the next fifteen minutes, you know, it's like, oh my god. I gotta see what's going on Twitter. You know? Instead of, like, going and being productive and doing the thing you're supposed to go do. You know? And so, unfortunately, I think we're dealing with that, that that archetype, you know, in in our in our power structure. So it's it's very I don't know. I guess it's always, like, DYOR and buyer beware. Like, don't trust these things, guys, and don't get too, you know, enamored by the hype.
And and do some research, and don't don't be afraid to reach out to people and just like, am I crazy? Is this really the thing? And that's why John, when all this stuff started going on last week, I was like, it's time. I need you on the show. We gotta talk about this thing. What's going on in El Salvador? You know? And, I mean, obviously, I've always wanna talk about me premier Bitcoin and what you do, but I know that you're obviously, with your post and everything, like, you have a lot different, you have a different perspective that I really honor and trust. And I will always do my research on you, John. But,
[00:56:32] Unknown:
And and and to to draw to an earlier point, and then I I actually have to start to Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I know. We gotta wrap. But, but this is the benefit of not taking money from sources that will influence that will influence you. Right? Like, imagine we were taking money from the government. Would I be saying these things?
[00:56:55] Unknown:
I would not. Nope. I would not.
[00:56:59] Unknown:
And, you know, like, to be I I I don't wanna be too anti El Salvador. This is a great country. There's a lot of hope, great people, a lot of good progress, but this is a loss. This is an l, and we need to admit that. We need to accept that. That's how we're gonna move on. We're gonna learn from this and do better, not we're gonna double down and just pretend like
[00:57:20] Unknown:
everything's perfect. Right. La la la la la.
[00:57:23] Unknown:
Long. Right? Like, that doesn't help. If we were funded by the government, I probably wouldn't say that.
[00:57:32] Unknown:
Totally. And and I think that's what's so important again about the ethos of what you guys do at Mi Premier and, you know, the ethos of many Bitcoiners and the ethos of all of us. Like, I don't have sponsors for my show. I do everything just because I love it and it's my passion and I wanna, like, learn and meet people and get your stories out there, you know. And it's like if I had a a, you know, the strings attached, I would I would also have some tape attached to my lips, and I'm not interested in that. You know? And so I think you know? And again and I love, like, El Salvador is incredible. Like, I got to go there twice, and it was like, wow.
People here really have a sense of hope, you know? And I call it hope in action and people are doing things and it's not just a bunch of, you know, philosophy around it. And so you're gonna have lots and lots of hiccups and bumps in the roads when you're having a revolution. It's not gonna be like, oh, look. Here's our magic fairy dust. Everything's great.
[00:58:28] Unknown:
Yeah. There's gonna be bumps in the road. There's gonna be setbacks. Like, that's fine. Yeah. But we're not gonna learn from it
[00:58:36] Unknown:
if we pretend like it's didn't happen. Right. It's like, no. No. Yeah. Exactly. And so I think the more open, honest dialogues that all of us can have, you know, whether we're here in The States or down there in El Salvador, it's like, that's why open source is cool because you can say, cool. This is what we learned from. This is what happened. You know? Anytime I do an event, it's like, here's what happened. Here's what went well. Here's what didn't. What can we do better next time? It's just it's it's progression one zero one. Right? And so, hopefully, that, you know, this this beautiful revolution of freedom called Bitcoin can continue to have that mindset and feel there's no egos here.
Like, it's not about nobody has the right answer of, like, how to change a country and turn it into a Bitcoin standard. So I hope and pray that president Bukele and his team and all of the teams around the world, you know, we've obviously got Maya and Suriname and, you know, these people who are trying to make changes. It's like, okay. Let's use my mistakes as an example for your thing moving forward. You know? Alright. So I and I know it's time. So let's tell everybody. Everybody can go to, my first bitcoin dot I o. You guys can go support, make donations. You can learn. Make sure you follow John and, my first bitcoin on x, and under with, Jay Dennehy writes. I'll have all this stuff in the show notes for you guys. So any last words of wisdom for anybody who's out there who maybe is, you know, scared to learn about Bitcoin? Is that to give them a little, like because you said introductory Bitcoin education is the most important thing.
[01:00:08] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, I don't think anybody should. I I mean, I guess there's a fear of the unknown. Right? Which is why a lot of people, maybe are reluctant to accept Bitcoin. You know, the devil you know sort of sort of thing. But there's no downside to learning about Bitcoin. There's only upside. There is zero downside to that. It's it can change your life in ways that go far beyond the money that you spend. It's a different way to view power. And, again, this is what I firmly believe the real revolution is, which is, you know, I kind of touched on earlier about, like, the playing chess comment. This revolution is not about changing who is in power.
It is about changing our relationship to power. Mhmm. And Bitcoin is our best tool to understand that and to get started on that journey.
[01:01:09] Unknown:
Love it. Thank you so much. It's so true. I know a lot of people were so we are programmed in this old power paradigm, and we don't realize, like, wow, we can be the ones in power. And it's a tear it's it can be pretty intimidating sometimes when piece people say, oh, be your own bank. And they're like, I wanna call customer service. I want them to be my bank. And if I lose my password, like so it is a big leap for people, especially when you're talking about finances. We're not just talking about, oops, I lost a Google document. It's It's like, no. It's your it's ability to survive. And so so there's a different thing there. But once you start connecting the dots of why, like, you don't want someone else in control of that, you start to realize, like, oh, wow. This is way better. It does take a few minutes of proof of work to to make it solid and safe, but it's worth it in the long run so that you don't have the fluctuations of a government or an institute or policies making changes, and then all of a sudden you're getting a sixty one zero two and they confiscated your life savings.
[01:02:07] Unknown:
Yeah. I would argue that the, you know, that responsibility aspect is a feature, not a bug. Right? Yeah. Because we also are used to living in a world where we don't have to hold ourselves accountable. Yeah. Or we don't have to take responsibility. Yep. And in Bitcoin, you do. Right? Yeah. Like, you make a mistake, you should feel some pain for it. Yeah. And I don't I don't mean that as, like, a masochist or something. Right? No. No. No. It's just kinda like
[01:02:39] Unknown:
yeah. It's radical self responsibility. It's like at Burning Man. You don't get to just show up and there's a bunch of vendors. Like, you bring everything in. You're responsible for your survival, you know. And so there's a lot of parallels with Burning Man and Bitcoin in my opinion.
[01:02:53] Unknown:
Mistakes are opportunities to learn. Yeah. Right? But we have to we have to be willing to one admit when we make a mistake. Yeah. And not insulate ourselves from the from the consequences or or or push that off onto somebody else. Like, oh, I don't understand what's happening, but
[01:03:16] Unknown:
somebody else does. So, you know, everything's probably okay. Yeah. They'll fix it for me or somebody else. Yeah. And it's it's it's it it's a mindset shift for sure. Like, as you go and and what I always share with folks, it's like, you don't have to eat the whole burrito in one bite. Do tiny little bites, you know, one bite at a time. Make sure you've chewed it and swallowed it before you take the next bite so you don't choke, you know? And so it's just very important, I think, for folks to, like, don't get overwhelmed. The Bitcoin community, obviously, what you, John, and all of your amazing team, Reyna and everybody, like, you guys have completely made it so approachable and easy for people to come in and learn and and in a just a step by step methodical way too, which I think is super important because you go to different places and you're just like, who am I supposed to watch? What do I do? What do I do first? What do I do next? How do I know that this is legit and it's not just some company trying to scam me with their coin? You know? Like, you've made this completely neutral, and and it's just it's the bomb. And so I love you, and I love what made premier Bitcoin has done. I can't wait to see you somewhere. Where are you do you got it? What are you gonna be doing? Any traveling? Any conferences?
[01:04:27] Unknown:
Yeah. Just as, I guess, my my closing thoughts. I'm late to another meeting already. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Go shit. No. It was in April. It's a big month for us. So April 10 is the next independent Bitcoin educators on conference. Cool. That will be in Nashville at Bitcoin Park. It's during their grassroots week. Cool. Yeah. So come to Bitcoin Park for the whole week and this will be one of the days. It's awesome. And then April 23, back here in El Salvador, we're gonna have a graduation, a Bitcoin diploma graduation in the morning, which are, like, really inspiring events. And then in the evening,
[01:05:02] Unknown:
have a charity dinner and an auction to fundraise so we could keep keep doing this work. Awesome, dude. Well, anything you've, you know, tag me on anything so I can repost and help if you guys need fundraising things and, you know, my small but mighty audience is is, you know, noble and wants to help. Yeah. Yay. Awesome, brother. Thanks for tuning in, and sorry I made you late for your next meeting. God bless everyone who's tuned in. And, again, go check out MyFirstBitcoin.io, and we'll catch you guys on the other side. Alright. Thanks, John. You're the best.
Introduction and Guest Welcome
Fatherhood and Personal Growth
Impact of Parenthood on Mission
Overview of Mi Premier Bitcoin
Success and Challenges in Bitcoin Education
Open Source Education and Global Impact
Decentralized Education Network
Empowering Local Educators
Funding and Independence from Governments
IMF and Global Power Dynamics
El Salvador's Bitcoin Journey
Challenges and Future of El Salvador's Bitcoin Policy
Tether and Stablecoins Discussion
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
