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Bitcoin Doesn’t Care About Your College Degree

The federal reserve is a system that you can’t audit. The federal reserve is an opaque financial system. Jimmy Song, a blogger, podcaster and programmer, runs two-day seminars around the globe to teach coders how to use bitcoin. With bitcoin you can actually audit this stuff, which is what I am teaching my students.

Song’s 16-hour course Programming Blockchain is both a seminar and a hands-on workshop. The same course was taught by Song as part of an entire semester at University of Texas at Austin. “When I was teaching that one semester, I had some pretty brilliant…grad students in electrical engineering, computer science, and business,” he says. His seminar students are paid out of pocket to learn, but they weren’t as motivated and driven. The UT-Austin students “cared very much about their grades and…getting the right credential.”

Rigel Walshe, a native of New Zealand, attended Song’s 2018 seminar in Australia when he was changing his career. He was an ex-cop and became curious about bitcoin through Silk Road. The “dark web”, ecommerce site which allowed users to buy drug, as well as other goods, before it closed in 2014. Silk Road users bought black market products with bitcoin. This website played a crucial role in the early days of the bitcoin network’s growth.

Walshe explains that Silk Road operated for two years under American law enforcement agency’s noses. There was no way they could stop it. I don’t believe most people realize how huge of an issue that is.

Walshe is a software developer for the online cryptocurrency exchange Swan Bitcoin. He describes it as his “dream job.”

Song also teaches and writes. Song has contributed to Bitcoin Core, an open-source project to research, test and upgrade the software people use around the globe in order to connect to this global decentralized monetary system.

No matter where you live or your degree, anyone can submit and review new code. The rules that govern bitcoin’s operation are transparent because it is open-source software.

Song and Walshe say this is the core of what they love most about bitcoin. They emphasize radical transparency and demonstrated skills over credentialism. Walshe asserts that anyone can create any kind of thing. All the code, and the necessary information is available online for no cost. [and]Anybody can view it and be a part of the discussion from any place in the world.

There are reasonsJimmy Song was my guest at the 2021 Oslo Freedom Forum in October. This conference brought together the Bitcoin community and the human rights community in Miami for two days. He recently published a book. We are thankful for Bitcoin. The creation, corruption, and redemption of money.This is his story about traditional education and how he believes bitcoin can complement Christian theology.

John Osterhoudt produced and wrote the script. Lex Villena added graphics.