Vision for 2025 For @My First Bitcoin This year is going to be massive for bitcoin adoption. Institutions and governments are coming in a big way. We need to be a counterweight to that. We need to entrench the importance of grassroots bitcoin education in 2025, because 2026 may be too late. This is our year to show that, one, this is happening in El Salvador & around the world, two, it is growing, three (to our allies), it is extremely valuable and worth defending and supporting, three (to our adversaries), you can’t stop us. This year we transform from a project into a movement. The way we will primary do that is much of the same—proof of work. We need to keep SHOWING & building. In addition, we need to do a better job TELLING. And the later will manifest itself in several ways in addition to what we already do there, including a newsletter, media coverage, an updated website with the various boards and their notes, and writing our own history. We also need to continue to build out global infrastructure for the movement. Our end goal is to make ourselves irrelevant—to live in a world where empowered individuals are the norm. An early step toward that is within the Node Network, and empowering others there rather than doing the work for them. This is one of the key ways we can transform from a project into a movement. Another step on that journey is to build alliances and coalitions with others. One way to do this officially is via the Advisory Board and other governance layers such as the Board of Directors and the Assembly. Including people from ‘outside’ the project, but who are still ‘inside’ the movement will accelerate and entrench this. We will scale, not by consolidating power & authority, but by giving it away. We need to open-source everything. This SHOWS that we are serious when we say the world can be different and we want to provide an example. The transparency that comes with this will hold us accountable and improve communication. It shows that this is about something bigger than us and transforms a project into a global movement. When adopted by others it entrenches the idea across borders and around the world and makes the movement more powerful and harder to stop.

the IMF is the enemy I'm disapiunted many bitcoiners in El Salvador seem to think 'victory' means getting better terms in a dying world. the goal needs to be to build a better one

Can I pay for 'premium' for @primal with #bitcoin? I wanna support the service ... but with sats I didn't see that option

this is last week's news but it's worth repeating since it seems some bitconers have forgotten and have been cheering on getting 'better terms' from a dying, dysfunctional world rather than building a new one the IMF is the enemy

good morning from Bitcoin Country! it's good to be home :) #ElSalvador

see you at 3:30 today! @Africa Bitcoin Conference @My First Bitcoin #abc24

'we need to own the protocol layer. we need it to be permissionless' @jack at @Africa Bitcoin Conference talking about Nostr THIS is what's it's about--empowering individuals to define their own destiny, to write their own stories, to be in control of their own lives

good morning from Nairobi Day One of the African Bitcoin Conference today!

I'll always remember the day Bitcoin crossed $100k I was on a plane in Kenya, on the way to a Safari. My son fell asleep in my arms, as we flew over the savannah And I started to cry Ever since I could remember I wanted to go on a Safari, but the cost was always too high I'm in Africa to speak at a conference & to meet activists and educators using @My First Bitcoin materials and after some last minute visas my partner and our son joined me. To be speeding toward a lifelong dream, my son asleep in my arms, while also here to push forward a revolution that will reimagine the world was overwhelming...in the most incredible way I talk a lot about changing the world ...but I am everywhere I want to be

Lazer eyes until fiat dies don't lose focus now

Good morning from Nairobi! Here for @The Core - Bitcoin Education Bitcoin Diploma graduation on the 7th & then @Africa Bitcoin Conference on the 9th 😎

I'll be traveling to Kenya next week to represent @My First Bitcoin at the African Bitcoin Conference this is the region where our open-source, empowerment-focused Bitcoin education materials have been growing fastest over the last few months and I'm so excited to meet with activists & educators from around the continent see you in Nairobi!

last week I paced around on stage at @Adopting Bitcoin, talking about how @My First Bitcoin was working toward creating a proof-of-concept for a better world for the next generation meanwhile, my son paced around in front of me 🧡life highlight 🧡

I watched the sun rise over San Salvador Volcano today I'm so excited. #BitcoinWeek is here! Huge gratitude to @Adopting Bitcoin. They are are the OG conference in El Salvador and a cornerstone of turning El Salvador into #BitcoinCountry. So many builders that have moved to El Salvador have tested the waters with this annual conference They are also an anchor event that others can build around. For example, this is a HUGE week for @My First Bitcoin We are community-funded with significant budget restrictions, add in visa restrictions and much of our staff do not get the opportunity to travel. But this week the world comes to us and we are taking advantage to show off our proof-of-work TODAY: we have a Bitcoin Diploma graduation with 150 students where YOU can verify their knowledge; in the evening we have a bitcoin board game night (and also classes in a nearby cafe) TOMORROW: we are hosting a Bitcoin Educators Unconference FRIDAY: @Adopting Bitcoin begins, where we will have 9 different people from the team presenting & teaching, some of them various times This is Bitcoin Week in Bitcoin Country LFG!

Bitcoin doesn't have a president and neither do I (this is always true and doesn't change with election results)

this system can not be reformed, it must be replaced and it won't replace itself, we need to build something better everything else is a distraction

THE PROBLEM WITH VOTING Or, How to cede your power in one easy step ---- There is tremendous energy wasted on electoral politics. At best it is a distraction, at worst it serves to suffocate any alternative. To clarify, this isn’t an attack on voting per se, it’s an attack on what large scale political elections in the United States have become. We are beaten over the head our entire life with the notion that change begins at the ballot box. That’s false. The reality of change is that it’s uncomfortable. Voting will never yield substantive change because it is designed to prohibit the very discomfort which is a necessary prerequisite to substantive change. In the civil rights movement blacks that sat at segregated lunch counters did not wait for an election to create change — and that’s exactly why they were successful. When we look back, we think of those sit-ins as righteous and assume they were popular. They weren’t. Forcing change never will be. Lunch counter sit-ins were effective because they disrupted business as usual and forced people to look at what many would have preferred to avoid. Change happens when the discomfort of its success is less than the discomfort of the present. That means that the push to create a better future will almost always be unpopular in the present. The great tragedy of voting is that it tricks us into believing we can have progress and comfort. ‘Voting is the most important thing you can do,’ they say. Another lie. That attitude encourages us to neglect our real power, which is our everyday life. When we are told that voting is most important, by default that means all else is less so. It sends an unconscious message that we can neglect other avenues of change and minimizes their appeal. Voting takes away the burden of responsibility. You did your part, it tells you, you voted for someone to make decisions on your behalf. It allows us to see injustice in the world and think it’s not our role to change it; or worse it allows us to become blind to it completely. We have arrived at the present because of voting. If we want to stay on this path, then voting will keep us here. If we want to make a substantive divergence, then voting will never take us there. When you vote you are doing so twice, once for the candidate on your ballot and again for the system that placed them there. We tend to think of elections in negative terms. We vote against people and causes as much as we vote for them. We are always trying to avoid pain and bad consequences. But it cannot just be about slowing the bad, it has to be about speeding the good. Our power is not which politician you vote for, it’s what you do every day. It’s how you treat people, it’s where you spend your money, it’s what you do for work, it’s what you eat; it’s who you are. The root of the problem is the concentration of power. Voting for president represents an entrenchment of that imbalance. The system encourages behavior that makes it more likely for certain traits to emerge. For example, the candidate that raises the most money is overwhelmingly likely to win and the candidate with the most money most often is the one that large monied interests prefer. At each rung up the ladder of political power these systemic biases that favor certain behaviors over others become stronger. Still, there are always exceptions and it is possible to elect a candidate that doesn’t fit this broad mold, but once in office they would be an island and have to choose between acquiescing to the dominant system in which they exist or being ineffective. Voting isn’t necessarily bad. We can delegate others to take charge in areas they understand better than us. We should listen to expert advice. In the ideal, the experts would inform rather than dictate and we would be capable of using that information to make our best individual choices. This would require critical thinking skills, the ability to recognize our own shortfalls where we most need to default to experts and empathy for others to avoid a tragedy of the commons. In our current state we are not capable of this — but strengthening the status quo by voting makes us even less so. Political parties act as tribes which make us less able to recognize our shortfalls, less open to admit mistakes and has tarnished the neutrality of experts. It also makes us less capable of critical thought as we don’t use that muscle much in a system which tells us to let others decide on our behalf. Power will always exist, but it doesn’t have to be so concentrated. Our present system is top-down, it could be bottom-up. This is an ideal and one that won’t come tomorrow. But the longer we hold onto the notion that a better world will ever come from the ballot box the farther away that future becomes. The goal isn’t to burn down this system, it’s to make it irrelevant.

I will not be voting for US president next month this is why: https://john-dennehy.medium.com/the-problem-with-voting-5460bd1f1fac

Independent Bitcoin education is the gateway drug to a better society

'We need to create a robust, decentralized, global network of Bitcoin educators and defend their independence at all costs' It was an honor to represent @My First Bitcoin at the 2024 Grassroots Summit in Nashville, organized by @HRF at @Bitcoin Park