The Network Effect of Bitcoin Education | Bitcoin 2026

Good morning, Bitcoiners. >> On I'll leave these guys sitting on November 10th of 2022. Something happened that many of us remember. FDX collapsed. It also happened to be the same day that I attended my first Bitcoin conference. And that morning, I woke up, I saw the news, and I was a little bit shocked. I was wondering how the conference was going to go. But as soon as I got there, I had this big shushire grin on my face because nobody cared. I might have heard the words FTX three times. It was in passing. And that day, something magical happened for me. My conviction was forever sealed because I saw what was going on in the community. But if I would have been home, what would happen? I don't know. If I hadn't been around all of you, where would I be? And a special thing that's going on with the people that we have here is they are creating those communities. They are educating people. They're helping them to understand what Bitcoin really is. And that's why I'm excited to be here today and I'll have an opportunity to share this with all of you. To my right, I have Larry Straker. Larry spent 40 years working in technology, 20 years at university level educating people before he retired to go all in on Bitcoin education, splitting his time between the Albany New York meetup and the Bitcoin East Lleser circular economy where he teaches on topics like Bitcoin 101. To his right is is Zach Wishler. Zach does uh self-custody over at Kasa. He spent uh he created the Denver Bit Dubs growing from 1 to 60 members. He created the nonprofit hub the space and recently released a book called the Bitcoin towel 81 versus on Bitcoin and to philosophy. To his right is Gabriel Kerman. Gabriel is a Argentinian economist who is focused on Bitcoin as a social and economic development tool. He created the Bitcoin side chain Root. He also founded the Lobby Corneta, a Bitcoin education vehicle that goes around teaching people. He also created the IFBB or the Institute for Bitcoin uh Bitcoin philosophy and economics and Bitcoin for humanity. He most recently released the uh the book Bitcoin Circular Economics. And finally, Jimmy Kro. Jimmy built the Bitcoin learning center in Northern Thailand. 500 members, the largest Bitcoin community in Asia. He works with Bitcoin communities across 11 countries to help them build stronger relationships with universities and local governments and hosts Bitcoin marathons and ultras introduce people to Bitcoin who otherwise wouldn't step in a classroom. Lastly, I'm I'm Matt Mosuch. I'm a executive communication speaker coach helping Bitcoiners to bring their message to stages like this. So, I I really wanted to give each of these people an opportunity because Bitcoin education, we've all done it. We've all had our successes. We've had our frustrations. But it's meaningful work. And I want to give each of these men an opportunity to say really what what what drives you to do what you do. Larry, let's begin with you. >> Well, I I think that I'll start with a personal story is that personally I've got three grown children who are ages mid to upper 20s. And to see the financial reality that they're growing up in compared to what I was doing when I was 20. I had an opportunity to be able to buy a house in my late 20s. That is not the case for my kids. But that's sort of first world problems, right? What you're going to start to hear from everybody up here is stuff much different. So when I'm down at BTC Isla and East Metas and I'm dealing with merchants where the money is not, we don't have the world reserve currency like the luxury we have in the US. So they're working for very modest wages. Many of them don't have bank accounts. There might be running a taco stand on the street corner. And so for them, having better money is super important. And then you get into other things that Jimmy and others are going to talk about beyond circular economies where you get into Bitcoin is truly money and freedom and sovereignty. And in an oppressed nation, you're going to hear more about that. So that is where the sort of mission is. And so what drives me is that I think the goal is the fix the money, fix the world motto is more of a mission statement for me. So I think we have to fix the money and what does that look like? It is getting Bitcoin to a Bitcoin standard, hyper Bitcoinization, using money as a medium of exchange. And then basically what we're having to do that is it's education, right? So all of us, I challenge everybody to be able to go out and educate and not just educate but inspire others to grow this network of educators. That's how we get this critical mass and get Bitcoin out there uh in in a bigger way. >> Good morning everyone. Uh thank you for making it to the first panel of the day. Uh here's the uh the committed Bitcoiners. Um so I think you know really the to to summarize the same the same thing the fundamental drive is the belief that I have that fixing money fix the world. And with that, I have some experience uh before I was a bitcoiner being a financial planner. And I saw that in real time over the years and how that um how the inflationary effects uh kind of keep people on the hamster wheel and uh somewhat perpetuate this cycle of uh work, work, work, work. And uh you know, a big part of that is understanding that you know, money is actually just a tool. And the real thing that we want to uh the real thing that this purposeful is is this time on earth and the relationships that we have and our families and our communities. Uh that's exactly why we started the space uh in Denver. So we were uh as Matt put uh Denver bit devs of one all the way to I think we had like 60 60 plus people at one of our largest meetups. And uh it's amazing that when you actually take that approach and you make Bitcoin about the people uh it's a lot stickier and people get it a lot quicker u because it's not about making money. It's about giving yourself a better life for you and your family and your community. So I think that why if we latch on to that we can we can really uh we can really take this much further than uh just the rate of return and the compound annual growth rate that we all love. So >> I I completely agree. I think this probably this panel and the work that Larry and Jim are doing and all the other circular economies uh do every day is is what makes Bitcoin different from fiat, right? If if if we just care about the the speculative aspect of it, then then we're just the same as fiat with a different technology. Uh but I grew up in Argentina. I I've seen firsthand the problems and the poverty that fiat creates. Um and you feel a sense of responsibility when when you know how people can transform these communities. Um all the work that we are doing if we can accelerate the adoption of SATs across those uh in global south and those who need it the most it will transform the world in 100 years right we're distributing STS someone was asking me well Bitcoin is too much concentrated well this is why we are helping Bitcoin circular economies to make sure that those who need it the most uh get as many STS as possible so uh for the last um many years we've been thinking with different friends and partners how we can uh make this available through education through technology. This is the reason why we created Rooto to make sure that uh those micro finance solutions can be built on top of Bitcoin infrastructure to make sure that these people that might not be uh as technical savvy as we could be uh are protected and are secure and and Bitcoin infrastructure is the only one that can provide that. That is the same passion that made us create LaConeta. this uh fleet of educational minivans that you'll see one here in the in the cover. There are 13 around the world. Um and it's just a decentralized project where we say let's take Bitcoin education to every corner of the world. And when we discovered the Bitcoin circular economy is an incredible work that you guys are doing and it's not getting too much coverage. Many Bitcoiners probably here in this conference don't even know they exist and and I'm certain that they are the most important projects in in the world right now. around the ecosystem. So I said how we can help give them more visibility, make sure that these heroes uh inspire others because I really believe that Bitcoin circular economists are kind of an oddity now but this is how the world would look like in a couple of decades. So we decided to write this book with their stories and it's like the the hope that these stories gave me and the purpose in life is just uh priceless because you see as Larry was saying that it can very quickly change when when you fix the money the immediate react reduction in time preference and how so many non-monetary things change in these communities they start caring about each other. uh they don't want to migrate anymore. They want to take care of their nature. Uh so it's it's super inspiring and and I think it's very important to invite all of you not only to learn more about this project but also to visit them to spend sats because uh these heroes are spending so much time educating the local merchants to adopt Bitcoin. And when you go there and you buy with SATs uh is is the best uh way to support them that you can uh have. So, let's all go and visit the cigar economies that we are building. >> Um, thank you Matt for the last few weeks really getting to know the work that we're all doing and you took a lot of time to spend with each of us and I really admire that of you. So, thank you very much. Means a lot. Uh, yeah, my name is Jimmy Kro. We built one of the most active Bitcoin hubs in the world. Certainly the most active one in Asia. We have 500 members. So, a meetup would look like our building only holds 100 people. So we would have Burmese people on Thursday, 507 75 people, 100 people on Saturday that are Thai, and then about 100 people that are international on Sunday. So it's totally awesome. Uh we reach about 3,000 people each day with our Bitcoin education. We have a full staff of seven people. Uh I'm the co-founder uh of Bitcoin Mai. Yeah. So like when I think when I think about uh what's driving me, we live on the border region. I live 85 miles from Burma. I live 100 miles from Lao and 100 miles from China and a lot of these Burmese students come to us regularly and the stories are heartbreaking. They escaped a war right now. There's a war. There's a civil war. It started in 2021 and they come to they come to Thailand or other regions with their money and they can't go to the exchange that you're familiar with at the airport because they don't want it. Imagine the loss of dignity. They're also losing 20 to 25% of the value of their currency every single year. Imagine that. They were just telling us this month at the university cuz we we work with universities. We work with local government and she was one of the students was saying that right now her village is set on fire. So when we when when I was telling the guys backstage we were just getting to know each other better. I was saying if we if we were to put on like a translation device and take a hundred random Laashian and Thai uh Burmese people and put them in that big Nakamoto room, they would think that we're like Neanderthal. They think we're caveman because to them it's money and they need to be able to get their money from one place to the other and they can't. In fact, if they try to speak up about this, their family gets punished. So, you know, this inspires me. I don't think it necessarily is my driver. I think it's my driver is that I know we have the solution, you know, the causation and the problem. And I believe since we know the solution and I have the capacity to help a region, to help Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, Lao, Southern China, Thailand, then I believe that's a life worth living. That's the very best use of my time. So, I wake up every morning ready to help millions of people. >> But, um, well said, Jimmy, and and thank you for what you said. It it's really been a pleasure to get to to know these men and and the reason being is 17 months ago I I became a dad and I was aware I was aware that it was going to be the hardest best thing I've ever done but I didn't understand it until I lived it. And these men they they live the the the themes the the ideas that we hear in the Bitcoin space and they see them firsthand. So, I'd love to throw it back to you guys just to talk about those real moments that you're see going on, the the the hope, the inspiration that you're able to push through to people and the surprises that you're seeing. Jimmy, I'm going to pass it right back to you. I know you got some Sure. So, like in Burma, if you want to get money from the bank, the line might be 500 people long, but then you could only get $300. It's all you could get out of your account. But something else happens at number 225. They cut you off and say, "Sorry, the bank can't give you any more money today." Like this is a devastating thing. So, you know, we I we see such such crazy things, you know, like um in our region. It's almost hard to like keep keep it all together when you hear these stories. And so, like I am surprised. I'm so surprised by many things. I've lived there for 5 years now. Um the strength of the the native Thai Bitcoiners is remarkable. They they work so hard uh at at consistently educating the people. Uh they they don't give up even regardless of of the circumstances. I I'm surprised by by, you know, corporate social responsibility where they donate to things and and and Bitcoin education gets like no next to zero. I'm surprised by the massive opportunity in in Southeast Asia for anyone to go and do like it's less than a tenth of a percent of what we see in America. So you could go to Brunai, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and show up in Vietnam and if you work remotely, you could save 300% more stats and have a tremendous impact just because you're American, just because you showed up and you're giving these people hope. So it it's it's I'm so surprised by many things and I'm and I'm I'm mostly grateful for the opportunity to get to talk about it and let you guys know what's really going on out there. So I I'll follow on on the surprises. I I'll share two quick stories of things that surprised me when learning about circular economies. One is in Lago Bitcoin in Guatemala. Uh they had a huge problem with pollution of the lake because people were just throwing cooking oil to to the ground and on the rainy season all the oil was going to the uh to the lake. So Elasar who's leading the community there decided to start filtering the oil. He transformed a diesel engine into uh generating electricity and started mining bitcoin with it. So many of the problems that we see in the current world are very much related to inflation and the problems of fiat without us realizing because as soon as he could align the economic incentives with the ecological incentives like the whole community gathered together started collecting oil to produce energy and then mine bitcoin. And then the other example that just blew my mind uh was learning that in Peru, Motin Peru, which is uh one of the most important circular economies in in Latin America, uh was teaching lightning technology in Kichua. So you have these women that don't speak English, of course, but don't even speak Spanish, which is the the local language in Peru. So they were using lining in in an English denominated wallet without even understanding what the buttons said. They just knew what buttons to touch and and I said how do you teach them how to use lining ketua? Well, we just bought stuff from there. So it goes from practice and then they are interested in learning the theory behind it. So, uh, it's incredible to see the creativity that these educators have just to take in this incredible technology to the people that need it the most. You know, uh, Larry and Zach, I got a specific question I want to dive into with you. So, Larry, really quickly though, I wanted to see we talked a lot about this specifically with you, but but really understanding people's why. Would you spend a moment and just talk to us about what we what we've been talking about and the conversations you're having, really how you're able to meet people where they are? >> Yeah. Um, so one of the big things that I believe in is that um, when you're educating people and there's a difference between educating normies of people that aren't curious enough about Bitcoin yet and people that are actually involved and maybe interested in reading a book, taking a course, but there's different wise and we have to avoid resistance early on and navigate their why. We talk about freedom money. We talk about all the things that we're going through up here, but that's our why. Fix the money, fix the world world. That's ROI. So, I'll give you four quick examples. When I'm talking to people that are in my age group that are Gen Xers, boomers, their why they should care is why should I invest a portion of my portfolio into this new asset you're describing to me, right? So, I for those we immediately talk about it's the best performing asset in the last decade. The compound annual growth rate is X. And we don't start with freedom money. we want to get there and we'll ultimately take them there, but we initially start there and it's facts and they can't push back and then maybe they ask a couple questions. The next level down is perhaps my kids or anybody that are Gen Z or millennials that are in their 20s, 30s. For them, it's not investing out of a portfolio they've built over decades. It's, hey, Dad, how do I save? How do I use Bitcoin as a savings technology? And we talk about that. We can talk about interest rates. We can talk about inflation. we can take them down the freedom money route a little quicker. Then we go to our BTC Islam merchants and when I'm onboarding a merchant, their why is why should I accept this as a form of payment and what does this mean for me? And it's well, you don't pay a 3% credit card fee. It's digital. It's instant. Uh and oh, by the way, we're going to drive Bitcoiners to your to your store or to your place of business and help bring you more business and help market it. And then the final one which gets back to the other one is when you are dealing with people like Jimmy's talking about and people in an oppressed nation. Now the why is this is truly freedom money. This is money that you can save and sort of discreetly put away and maybe that's your escape route. Maybe that's how you opt out. It could also be a domestic violence victim that it's the only way for them to be able to put money away and get out of a situation. So, I think the the moral of the story is that when you're educating people and orange building them, think about meeting them where they're at. What is their why? And lead with that and make your way to freedom money later. Well said, Larry. Zach, I wanted to ask you specific because on our call you were really passionate about this topic about how today there's a thousand ways to get Bitcoin exposure and how education really needs to shift not just about what people are thinking of as Bitcoin but what Bitcoin really is and I'd love to just give you an opportunity to talk about that there because I think it's a really important topic as we're moving into this new world. Yeah, I think uh you know coming from the trady background kind of came into Bitcoin for the the peer-to-peer permissionless money uh and so seeing it kind of come full circle right back to custodial wrath DTS and all these uh proxy um exposure vehicles is is made me question like you know where where do we where are we missing it and and and as Larry said like I I Part of it is just I mean we're actually quite fortunate uh in America to have all these financial institutions and regulation and the ability to structure financial products you can put in your IRA and uh but all that said it it isn't it isn't quite Bitcoin it doesn't quite solve the same problem. So it may help you with the inflation resistance but it doesn't give you the peer-to-peer permissionless money aspect. Uh and and a little uh anecdote and how I why I care so much about that is in 2020 my bank account was frozen. Uh and I was actually already learning about bitcoins to talk about the right place at the right time. Uh and from there I I mean I like had to pay rent and I was like how do I it was during co and I was like how do I you know how do I do this? How could Chase Bank do this? Um, and it was it was quite a a process to to get this uh unlocked. And I swore that if I'm, you know, dedicating my finite life every day to work for these infinite fiat tokens, and then I'm going to just so willingly put that out there for someone else to take from me. I don't truly have sovereignty over the most valuable thing in my life, which is my time, right? That's the the true finite asset that you can never get more of. Uh and so you know over the years I've seen the you know the same mistakes happen and you know name an exchange that's collapsed there's dozens over the last few cycles probably way more than dozens just not aware of them all and uh you know you find that you you learn these kind of lessons over time and you know we don't have forever and it's so heartbreaking to see people go through these you know preventable lessons from the exchange collapses or um you know buying products that they don't quite understand or the risks that are involved. And guys, Bitcoin has enough risks. There's a so many unknowns. Um, just like our world today. I mean, who knows what's happening with AI and like all, you know, the the world is changing faster than it ever has. And so, you know, adding risks on top of risks uh a and somewhat of a a a cloudiness over what you're actually buying is sort of antithetical to Bitcoin because the whole point uh in the very first part of the white paper is peer-to-peer permissionless cash. And you know, when you're not holding Bitcoin in a wallet, you can't send it peer-to-peer and it's definitely not permissionless. And so when we really focus on the root principles of why Bitcoin was created, I think that's where you really start to unlock uh a lot of what Jimmy's saying. And to me, that's, you know, again, we're so fortunate in America to have these property rights that we have. But we also have to take a step back and realize America's not um you know, it's just a small part of the the global the global economy. Uh and when you look at the global population, it's even much smaller than that. Uh and so what is so amazing about Bitcoin is it's the same rules, the same values worldwide for doesn't matter where you live, doesn't matter your race, religion, your your your net worth, um your experience, it offers that uh promise and value to all who hold it on their own. So it's um yeah, I mean I think it's it it's important to just really go back to the basics and study why was Bitcoin created. It's not a stock, although we're so fortunate to have that easy way to get access to it if you really need it. Uh where the real value comes from is using Bitcoin how it was intended. >> Well said. And and we got time for one more question here, one more example, one more story. And this this panel is about the network effect. And sometimes as Bitcoiners, Bitcoin educators, what can be tricky is what what is really the impact of the one person, two people, three people that I can have an influence on. What I've heard in talking to these these men is that they've seen that impact happen where they're they're seeing people educating people and that's where it really happens. Larry, I think you had a really good story on our on our call where you saw something like that happen. Can you share this with the crowd for us? >> Yeah. Real quickly is that the uh we just recently did a Bitcoin 101 retreat on the island down in BTC. Isla and Isla Mahes. When we got done, we had a group chat and I immediately got a video of one of my students onboarding a friend back home and they said, "You lit a fire under us. We went home. We made a plan the whole way home and here I am setting up my friend with a wallet. I sent them their first SATS. They're now a Bitcoiner." That's that is the ultimate inspiration you can have. So, I would just challenge everybody is that in addition to educating, try to inspire others to become educators. That absolutely warmed my heart and that's the the perfect way to wrap up that weekend. Hey, well, the this is just the tip of the iceberg of what these men have to offer. Please come find them. Come talk to us. There's so much great work that they're doing and I'm just, you know, inspired myself to be sitting here with them. So, thank you all for being in attendance. It's been lovely. Make it a great day. Thank you, M. Every year, this community comes together to celebrate, to debate, to build what comes next. And every year, the stage gets bigger. Sound money center stage. So where do you go to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? You come home. Nashville, July 2027.