Open-source Bitcoin education aims to spread global financial literacy

Mi Primer Bitcoin, a pioneering Bitcoin education initiative in El Salvador, released the latest edition of its program emphasizing open-source resources and community-led education.

The El Salvador-based Bitcoin education initiative Mi Primer Bitcoin recently announced the launch of its updated Bitcoin Diploma program, with a new open-source approach. 

Mi Primer Bitcoin began as a local education initiative in 2021 and coincided with El Salvador becoming the first country to adopt Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender.

This new update of the program was developed in collaboration with Bitcoin educators and enthusiasts from around the world to provide a comprehensive curriculum covering various aspects of Bitcoin, from its history to its technical workings and everyday applications.

Most notably, the update made the program open-source in nature, meaning all materials, including the Student Workbook, are freely available on GitHub. According to the announcement, this is in the hope of encouraging collaboration and translation efforts worldwide.

John Dennehy, founder and executive director of Mi Primer Bitcoin, emphasized the transformative potential of Bitcoin education. He highlighted how financial literacy in the Bitcoin era fosters creativity, innovation, and long-term planning.

Related: Why the Bitcoin halving matters for the future of decentralized finance

In a comment to Cointelegraph, Dennehy said that this curriculum update marks a “significant step” in the project’s mission to “empower the world through Bitcoin education.”

“We always strive to improve the content with each new edition, but alongside that, we have also built out much better infrastructure to allow people to best use this in their local context — for example, translations had been ad hoc, now there is an organized infrastructure for communication and best practice guidelines.”

He said the previous diploma was translated into nine languages over the course of a year, with 26 translations already underway for this one.

The previous diploma has been taught to more than 25,000 students in El Salvador since the inception of the project and has led to several graduation ceremonies.

In September 2023,Mi Primer Bitcoin partnered with the Ministry of Education of El Salvador to include Bitcoin in the public school curriculum by 2024. 

Since its inception, Mi Primer Bitcoin has expanded its reach beyond El Salvador, collaborating with educational institutions and governments internationally.

Last fall, Bitcoin Cuba also announced its upcoming collaboration with the program to bring Bitcoin education to local communities.