Bitcoiners - Live From Bitcoin Beach

Forget The US! This is how Latinos Are Building Wealth with Bitcoin from Home | Dulce Villarreal

• Mike Peterson

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Live from Bitcoin Beach in El Zonte, El Salvador, in this episode, I talk with Dulce Villarreal, a leading voice in the Bitcoin community across Latin America. Dulce is the founder of Liberia Satoshi and co-creator of Bitcoin for Open Source (B4OS), two grassroots projects focused on expanding Bitcoin education in Spanish for both beginners and experienced developers.
We dig into why it’s so important to make high-quality, technical education accessible to Spanish speakers, especially when most of it is still in English. Dulce shares how her courses help people learn everything from non-custodial wallets to command-line tools, eventually preparing some of them to contribute to real-world Open source development projects in Bitcoin.
Whether you're new to Bitcoin, interested in education initiatives, or just curious about how people in Latin America are getting involved in the ecosystem, this is a story worth watching.

- Mike


Support and follow Bitcoin Beach:
https://twitter.com/Bitcoinbeach
https://www.instagram.com/bitcoinbeach_sv/
https://www.tiktok.com/@livefrombitcoinbeach
Web: https://www.bitcoinbeach.com/

Learn and connect:
Web: https://bitcoinforopensource.com
Follow Librería de Satoshi: @libdesatoshi

X: @Dulce_xyz
LinkedIn: Dulce Villarreal

Browse through this quick guide to learn more about the episode:

00:00 – What is Liberia Satoshi and why does it matter?
01:45 – How did Dulce Villarreal get into Bitcoin?
08:10 – What challenges do Spanish speakers face in learning Bitcoin?
11:35 – What kind of Bitcoin courses does Liberia Satoshi offer?
18:30 – How do students go from beginner to Bitcoin developer?
24:00 – How does Bitcoin for Open Source help developers grow?
30:55 – How do students earn Bitcoin grants?
34:15 – What role do women play in the Bitcoin community?
40:10 – How is El Salvador inspiring the Bitcoin community?
47:00 – Where to find Dulce Villarreal and her work

Live From Bitcoin Beach

Dulce Villareal:

But basically, we were targeting senior developers in in the community with the goal of build a portfolio in open source that is going to help you to apply for new jobs, to build a career. Because when you are a developer, and if you are working in closed source, you cannot show your work to the companies. They don't know how you amazing you are. As a developer, we have to shift the paradigm of closed source to open source. I believe our people, if they want to be in their communities, they should be in their communities. If they want to work in New York or London, they should be wherever they want to be, but the freedom should be to choose where you want to stay and where you want to live. And in Liberty Satoshi and Bitcoin for open source, we are working to create opportunities where people are You.

Mike Peterson:

I'll say we finally got you in the studio. Are we doing English or Spanish today?

Dulce Villareal:

Spanglish in English, yeah, it's an honor to be here with you. Mike, oh

Mike Peterson:

no. It's an honor for me to have have you here. I'm excited to kind of, I know a lot of people already know you in the space, but, but for those who don't to kind of introduce you and your work and so I know you guys are very focused on education, but I would, I don't really know your backstory on how you arrived to that so, yeah, we love to hear how you kind of, I think you were working in the tech sector in the Bay Area, so how you came into bitcoin and how these educational initiatives started? Oh,

Dulce Villareal:

yeah, I'm born and raised in Mexico City. I used to do economics. I was working as a data scientist in banking, FinTech, and then I went to a hackathon learn about Bitcoin.

Mike Peterson:

When was that? 2020,

Dulce Villareal:

2015, 2016, and I got invited to the first Latin American Bitcoin Conference in Mexico City. I met Antonopoulos, like Sergio Lerner, and just Bitcoin blew my mind. I was like, What is this? And as an economist like I think at least for me, it was easy to understand the value of Bitcoin, the scarcity, how it works, and money is a way that humans communicate value. And I was like, Yeah, Bitcoin is value, but how this magic works? Then I just went to the rabbit hole. And few years later, my story is I didn't speak English, I didn't know how to program. Like programming is web development is different from data science. And in the first opportunity, I take my carry on, and I moved to America to learn English. And yeah, I learned English programming. I got a job in Silicon Valley as a developer advocate. My first job was with rootstock or RSK. I think sometimes we think as a Latinas, we have weakness because we speak Spanish and we learn English, right? But actually also can be a strength, because if you speak bold language, you you can navigate two words Latin America is very important, and I got hired as a developer advocate in San Francisco for rootstock, for rootstock,

Mike Peterson:

but in San Francisco, they're based mostly in Argentina,

Dulce Villareal:

exactly the headquarters in Argentina. They have people in Singapore, but they need somebody to run Americas. And I was like running developer advocacy for rootstock in Latin America and the Americas North America, and it was a big challenge, because you have to learn programming, do public speaking in English. It's like, my life was like, turn like, you just kind of 180 but it was super cool. Hey

Mike Peterson:

guys, just a brief interruption. We'll get back to the exciting show here. But I just want to really ask a favor that you guys could make sure that you're subscribed if you're watching this on YouTube, if you are listening to this on a podcast, please take the take a second and review this. You know. You don't even have to write a lengthy review or anything at all, just click the number of stars that you want to give us. It really helps us in the algorithms to make sure people are finding out about what's happening here. All right, back to the show. My

Dulce Villareal:

background is more like product management, but I couldn't get a job as a pm or product manager, but I got a job as. A Developer Advocate, I got to offer. I took the more close to Bitcoin, and it was a great experience. And then I got invited to the chain code study groups that you were awesome. For those who don't know what is chain code is an institution where bitcoin core developers can get a grant or work full time in Bitcoin in New York City, but they have Bitcoin initiatives, like a study groups. But then I realized, like we were only two or three people who were from LATAM, and then we did this initiative to do this, this study groups in Spanish, and I couldn't come here to El Salvador to do some education, but I invite people, and it turns out only one person could go to the Spanish speaking study groups because they're reading the lectures were in English. And I was like frustrated and sad because I thought, oh, it's the same that happened to me when I read the white paper. It took me, I don't know how many days it was in English. I feel like I was translating word by word, and that's how it warns Liberia Satoshi, or Satoshi library, because I realized still is hard to learn English, to learn English and programming and understand Bitcoin and learn Bitcoin, was very hard.

Mike Peterson:

And most educational information that's out there is, is in English. There's, yeah, a ton of it in English. But when you get into other languages, it gets more challenging,

Dulce Villareal:

totally. And I feel like, oh, I believe, like, if you have privilege, like I have now, like speaking another language and have a job in Silicon Valley and be able to teach others, is a privilege. It's a responsibility. And then I was in the position where, without knowing I was worse I was I feel like I was one of the most educated Latin Americans in this space. And then I say, I have to share that if you have something that you believe is going to change the world, like we believe, Bitcoin is a tool for change the world, I think we need to share that. It's like dread from opens said, is Bitcoin love? You have Bitcoin love. You have to share that love, right?

Mike Peterson:

No, definitely, so. So this idea was kind of born out of that. And how did you go from this just being a dream to actually putting it into place and and now, what kind of resources do you guys have that you provide to people? Yeah,

Dulce Villareal:

I want to say Bitcoin beach, and you and chimbaira are part of responsible, of inspiring me. And the reason is like they told me, somebody invited me to come to to Bitcoin Beach, to authentic to teach Bitcoin. I was like, I cannot leave my job. In that moment, I thought that, and it's like, no, I have to go to the office. I cannot just move there. And then I went to a conference that I recommend to go, is the Human Rights Foundation conference. And I saw an activist, and he changed my my heart, because I think finally I realized the most important thing we have in this life is time, and what we are going to do with the limited time we have in this place. It's a beautiful place. It is our mother earth, what we are going to do with the most valuable asset that is time. And then I realized, like, oh, I cannot keep making money for rich people in Silicon Valley. I have to share these. And basically, I quit my job in Silicon Valley as a product manager, and in 2019 I think 2020 21 I quit my job and I start the website. I don't consider myself as a senior developer. The opposite I consider like a official, efficient hobby, junior developer. Start the website, I launch it, and suddenly we have, like, 100 application. I was like, Oh, my God, I know ready, but I did it. We start classes. We start this, the lining seminar. The idea of not starting with Bitcoin is, I knew our people want to learn. That's true. People want to learn to know, but I couldn't handle one. It was a solo company, solo initiative, one person giving to 1000s. I wasn't already then.

Mike Peterson:

So just sorry to interrupt you, but just so I understand. So initially, the idea was to do classes, classes. Okay, it wasn't to translate existing. Material. It was just Yeah, you were going to lead classes, yeah,

Dulce Villareal:

classes and not translate. I think translation is a diff. It's a beautiful art, but you have to be you have to work a lot on translating material, because it's not just translating you. You have to do a cultural translation, right? And then what I did is we started in English, like readings were in English, but the classes and the Socratic seminars, Socratic seminars, we talk about it, I create, I write questions, and people discuss these questions. And we started with 8100 people, and then in the end, we were like 30. And it was great. It was like three. It's normally how Liberia Satoshi works. Still works like that. It's like two to three months classes, two or three times per week. It's like more like a university class. Yeah. And our time to translate

Mike Peterson:

are the students from all over Latin America. Yes, okay, yeah.

Dulce Villareal:

We have people from 26 countries, because there is Latinos everywhere, yeah, and Spanish speaking, also Spanish people. I remember we have a guy from Spain living in Thailand that also is part of the Bob space in Thailand, and they are amazing. And we have a guy from Italy who say, Oh, there is not nothing in Italian. It's like, then I speak some Spanish, can I join? I was like, Yeah, join. That was actually very funny, like receiving people from all over the world, people taking classes at why I one I am?

Mike Peterson:

Oh yeah, because you're in Europe. But yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dulce Villareal:

People were so motivating. And that was so beautiful. As today we have more than 1000 people who took classes in Bitcoin initiatives in Liberia Satoshi from 26 countries. How it works is, I realized I couldn't handle so many people in the applications. Then we start doing scholarship. Put the price, because I live in San Francisco, some busy capital were joining for free. I was like, No, you should donate. And then we I changed it from the solo operation with volunteers, people teaching office hours from my own pocket, giving people money. Sometimes we make money to pay teachers, and sometimes I have to put money on my pocket, like, you know, the story how it works. And we start giving classes lining Bitcoin. And today we have students that I do. I feel like I do nothing. They do the effort to study very, very hard, because the material is hard. It's harder than sometimes Shane code and the heroes are they, they get their jobs, they start their startups like we have people working in Bitcoin. We have people who already started their startups. Like Max is one of the stories that I want to tell you. He Sorry,

Mike Peterson:

just, just real quick, just so I for my own understanding. So when, when people graduate from this course, what, what are I mean, obviously, if it's several months, this isn't just basic bitcoin is, are you guys teaching them how to develop on Bitcoin, or what? What is, what is the Yeah, give me an understanding of what, what they're capable of doing when

Dulce Villareal:

they graduate. Today, we did at least five different initiatives. The The first one is wallets. Is like, we teach you how to use wallets, and this class allowed us to test new teachers or new new like, we call them educators, leader leaders, or is more like facilitators? Kind of we have that class where everyone is free, everybody can join, and allowed us to train new teachers. The second one is mastering Bitcoin master in lining, learning between the common line. Now we did the program for senior developers that we can talk later. But now we are doing a new we have a new adjustment that is going to be several courses. And when you finish the course, you will have a certification. What we teach is bitcoin core philosophy in the way that you understand how Bitcoin cores works, the decentralization, the monetary policy, kind of more into the deep technical details, mining, how we have a class, we have a guy from Venezuela who work in mining in Venezuela, and then we saw, we check how much energy you need. Like the return the investment. And for example, in Bitcoin from the common line, you basically are doing Bitcoin transactions from the common line. We have a guy from Spain who teach

Mike Peterson:

so for somebody very much not technical, explain, what does that mean, doing Bitcoin transactions from the common line? Yeah,

Dulce Villareal:

yeah, that's a good thing. I want to say also that you can start from the zero, starting from the zero level, or like a beginner, and you can move little by little to the next class. We teach people how to use the terminal, like if you are a journalist, a marketer, I don't know, like a surfer, coach, like you can run your node, and we teach you how to use the terminal, okay, or how to move to from Windows to Linux. There is office hours. We have people who dedicate their Sundays or Saturdays. They get paid a little bit just few SATs, and we teach them basically as today, we use a wallet that is a user interface that is beautiful, it's easy, but also, Bitcoin is a protocol of information, and you can talk with your Bitcoin node using the terminal, okay? Then you can say, for example, get info, and you get the information of this transaction, then basically we teach you, or the teachers teach you, how to talk with your node by giving them commands, and in that way, kind of you get how it works easily, because it's basically you are talking with your notes. And this is for example, you can learn that in more expensive classes with other curriculums, or very similar what Jimmy song teach. But if you live in El sante, probably you cannot pay that these courses, even myself, if I remember I wanted to go, I didn't have the money. Like sometimes we don't have the money. That's the reality. But in our classes, anyone can take the classes, we basically give 99% of scholarships. It's like, basically one or two people pay like you. We saw somebody living in America who went to jail or to stand for or is working in Google, these people should pay, yeah, but the rest of the people, basically everybody, get a scholarship, and as today, this year, we are going to do everything for free, but we are going to Keep the proof of work and the application system

Mike Peterson:

that's so is there different? I'm still trying to understand, is there different, so you have multiple different classes that you can take. Okay,

Dulce Villareal:

yeah, we have the wallets classes and,

Mike Peterson:

sorry, sorry if these, these are very basic questions, but, but I think it'll be good, because I think a lot of people in the audience are not very technical, similar to me. So when they graduate from the wallet class, is it that they just know how to use a wallet, or they would be able to, like, build a wallet? Oh,

Dulce Villareal:

we start from scratch, from zero, from zero to hero, kind of as a commercial you take the first class is wallet is one month, two classes per week, but and when you graduate from that, you only know how to use several wallets. Okay? And the goal of the each class or each course has a goal. The goal of the wallet class is that you, as a bitcoiner, know what wallet recommend, or what wallet to use in a specific use case, like it's not the same being in a place with internet that in a place without internet, there is not the same to use a self custody wallet that are custody wallet, and when you use that, yeah, and it depends of each use case. Then when you finish this class is, you know which wallets exist and which wallet recommend. That's the goal. Okay. Building wallets is like, like a pro, like a ninja, like a hero. Then we teach you the in the next class, that is the, let's say is the beginning class, we teach you the basic of the Bitcoin protocol. Because, yeah, we know bitcoin is valuable. Is a centralized there is a scarcity. We get that Bitcoin has value because it's basically incorruptible, but we don't know how it works. It's like it's basically magic. No, in Spanish, we say mathematic and mathematic together. But then we explained you the math magic by on, by by teaching you how to how to understand. On cryptography, cryptography, signatures, mining, all in a way that you can understand and say, Oh, this is how Bitcoin works, and we were using in the last three years, mastering Bitcoin nowadays, we change it and we, we took some chapters for the beginning and then we adapt learning Bitcoin from the command line for the next steps. Then basically you can take one course, then the next one, then the next one, until you take the last one. That is just for developers, but I want to believe that we give you the tools that if you want to learn programming, you can do it on the side. Okay, I can give you an example. We have clay from Venezuela. When he started three years ago, he was another developer. He was an analyst, and today he is a developer. He is contributing to fedimin as a contributed as enacted, contributed to fedimin and then, yeah, it took him three years, but he did. He did everything. He started learning programming by himself while taking all classes in Liberia, Liberia Satoshi. Until today, he went to the senior developer residency. He was one of the only two developers that was not senior, but was, in fact, junior to made it. But in Bitcoin, greet and perseverency is the most important thing as a developer, because if you have greed, you have half the way, because you are not going to quit. Yeah. Then, for example, the case of clay from Venezuela is from zero. He got a job in an exchange, and one day somebody went on vacation. That's another developer from this developer went on vacation. And say, who can run the nose, and nobody could, but he knew. And he say, hey, I can run the nose. I know how to do it, because he learned that in in our classes, open, close channel, etc. And he raised his hand, then start being in charge of the notes. Keep calling, taking classes, and now he's full time developer, wow. And I think he's, he probably is going to get a grant sooner or later, or get a job full time as a Bitcoin developer in one of the cutting edge technology of Bitcoin technologies. Fedimint is cutting edge technology. And we Latinos. We need people encoding edge technology in Bitcoin, and it's totally possible, but it's, it's hard, yeah, it is hard.

Mike Peterson:

No, that's, that's exciting. And you guys are seeing people kind of start from the basics, and yeah,

Dulce Villareal:

and it's all them, yeah, I feel like I just show the way and they say, Oh, this is the way. And they do it. I cannot tell I cannot code with people, but I can tell them that they are really good, because from the bottom of my heart, I can tell you we have amazing people in Latin America, beautiful talent, good people. That is kind of show them the way and tell them you can do it. This is all the knowledge. Keep doing, keep doing the work, day and night, day and night. And I think then, as today, we have people working in theater, in plan B. We have people in exchanges. We have people with grants, and we we need to keep helping each other as Latinos, to keep growing together as a community.

Mike Peterson:

Yeah, no, I feel like even the difference between, like two years ago and now, especially in Latin America, you've seen this surge. I think part of it's just what's happened in El Salvador. And you know, there's a lot of efforts here, but I think I've just seen this kind of region kind of gravitate towards the opportunities that are there. Just as a

Dulce Villareal:

parenthesis, I haven't been in El Salvador in the last two years, and I'm super excited and seeing all How is changing. Then Mike, keep doing what you're doing. The work that Bitcoin beach and everyone is doing here is so beautiful. It's so inspiring. And I feel like coming back here and see what is possible. Give me so much energy also to keep doing what I'm doing. Thank you so much for your work.

Mike Peterson:

Hey, it's, it's a privilege to be a small part of it. I, I You were at the plan B conference, right? Yeah. How cool was that to have the the Spanish track there

Dulce Villareal:

was, it was gorgeous. Yeah. I. I never feel so proud, because it was not only in Spanish. We have a lot of Salvadorian and I think that matters. I mean, I'm Mexican, but, but I like to see Salvadorians, because that means we are in the right track, like, if we don't have local people, that means we can do better. And we saw Salvadorians in the stage telling their stories, telling what we are doing, what they are doing. And it was so beautiful. Like, to be honest, I was very, very happy. I don't I went to say to the organizers, I don't know who the agenda, but it was great.

Mike Peterson:

Well, Roman was was really the timbera was the driving force behind this. He had this idea to do the paso a paso. He wanted it in Spanish, targeting Salvadorans. And plan B was like, very gracious. They heard this idea, and they said, Hey, why don't you make it part of the conference? Because initially the idea was to have a standalone they said, Hey, why don't you have it to be part of this. Then we didn't have to go out and try to find our own sponsors and everything, and we were able to incorporate it and and they really made a big push that I think half the tickets that were sold were sold to Salvadorans, which is huge, because historically, even the conferences that have been here, it's been a pretty small percentage. And so it's that, the cool thing for me was it wasn't just that, like it was in Spanish, like language wise, because we've always had, like, the translator things, but the feeling over on those stages were just different. Also, like, I think for the people here, it's one thing to come in and have it in your language, but you still, if it doesn't feel like culturally, like inclusive, it's so I had had you go over there, everybody's, you know, obviously louder and warmer, and it's a different environment than on the English side. And so I loved how the two different sides really represented the, you know, the differences in the cultures. Yeah,

Dulce Villareal:

even as a speaker. And thank chimbora for the invite. Yeah, chimbora, and you are a force of nature. You go to a conference speaking English, as in this one feeling on one energy, like I've been in many conference lately, actually mostly speaking English, yeah. Oh, and this conference was my first in Spanish in a long, long time. And after I finished my talk, like a lot of people reach out to me and ask me a bunch of question and I am not the only one like katria from Cuba. She finished her talk, and she has to stay with other people because there is interest. Our people want to learn more. I think she keep teaching how to do peer to peer for one hour, and you feel different. And, yeah, it was gorgeous. I think people from Plan B. We need to do it again. Yeah,

Mike Peterson:

no, no, for sure, I think that, yeah, those plans are already already in motion. For next year, they already have the dates locked in. They've already rented the facility. So also, yeah, so, so, and I think it'll be even more amazing, because this year we didn't have that long to plan. And so for next year, I think it'll be next level, and they have more space. They got an additional big auditorium for next year because the, I mean, they they sold out on the tickets. Like, I have week and a half before

Dulce Villareal:

there is people from the community coming. There were a lot of people trying to get in. Oh, yeah. Like, I'm not saying one or two people, no, a bunch of people wanted to get in. That's amazing. I had

Mike Peterson:

people DMing me, and they're like, I already have my flights in my hotel, and I don't have ticket hunt. I'm like, I would usually at a conference. You can, like, help if it's like, one person. But I'm like, No, we've already, like, switched our limits with with even trying to bring our own team in. And so it was, but that's a great problem to have, yeah,

Dulce Villareal:

so it's a good problem. It was a different conference. Yeah, I hope they do it again. I got invited again, because I feel like if I also have time, I could do more workshops, teaching. There is so much we can give to our community in terms of education, and I, I am pretty sure in this 2025 we will see more collaboration between the different communities, because ecosystem is also more mature. We know each other, we trust each other. I can say that we love each other. Yeah, we, we, we've been in the space for so long that I feel like there is friendships, strong friendships between each other, and that also allowed us to do better projects, too.

Mike Peterson:

And I'm assuming that at this particular conference, you met a lot of new people. People. Sometimes you feel like you go to conference, you see the same people, and you have but I felt like this because it brought so many new people in, especially on the Spanish stage. I'm sure you have are leaving here with a lot of new connections, yeah, yeah,

Dulce Villareal:

a lot of new connection, people who want to learn more, something really different from these conferences. I don't know if it's because I'm a women speaker, but a lot of women reach out to me, and for one of these reason is like, normally, there is no women speaker, right? I guess it's more a mostly dominated field, like science, but we are gonna launch finances, personality only for women, because there is studies that show that where you have only womans, they feel more safe. And at this point we need more women. I think the adoption is gonna I was talking with Mercedes from Circular Economy in Merida, and it's like the in the moment, we have the same number of women and men, I think is going to come between adoption, because a lot of the mothers are in charge of the house. Is the house like the economy in the house is, is in charge of women, of woman. And then I was like, Oh, gee, we need more woman. And I think I want to invite people who are Spanish speakers to join the finances, personalities. Bitcoin Paramount is que vamos a lanzar he I want a lot of woman, and it's going to be totally free. Well,

Mike Peterson:

I don't know if you noticed that, and this has been something that the the Bitcoin community is always, you know, they've been aware of, and they've been really making a push to get more women involved, but it's a challenge. I always joke, it's the it's the only place you can go where the women don't have to wait in line for the bathroom, but the men do. But if you noticed, on the Spanish side at this conference, I felt like there was almost, almost like an equal representation of women as there were were men. I felt which, which was very unusual on the English speaking side, it was still mostly, mostly men, but I felt like on the Spanish speaking side, so that, to me, was super meaningful, because I felt like that means that the South as Salvadoran community, and I think the way Bitcoin rolled out here as a grassroots effort, I think it's seen less as like high finance and more as like, Hey, this is a tool for the people. And so by the interest, by the people that we saw attending the Spanish sessions, I felt like, wow, that's really have an impact.

Dulce Villareal:

One thing I always say to my female co workers, or any woman that I met in the space, is, yes, we are less woman, but there is a beautiful sonority. There is a beautiful sisterhood, because we are only few of them. Then basically they became your best friends. Then I can say today, like I have really good friends in Bitcoin space, women friends, and we help each other a lot. Yeah, we are not a lot, but we help each other a lot. Then even if you don't see a lot of womans in the space, we help each other. Yeah, you are going to find a mentor. You're going to find a friend. It's a very welcoming on that side. And for example, this time in the Bitcoin for Open Source Initiative that we will talk later, we have you only two womans, but they were incredible. And I on my side, as a female CEO, I do everything that is in my hands to keep this woman safe, protect and give them everything but to feel that they are in the right place, even if they are only two womans between 20 guys, you know, yeah, and they, I feel like they feel safe, welcome. And I want to invite other womans to also start their own initiatives, like they can start their own initiatives. They can copy and paste Liberia Satoshi in their own community. They can use our material. Is everything is on the on the web. They can use it. It's free, open source, and everybody can use it in their own little community or in their big cities too.

Mike Peterson:

So let's talk about the new initiative. Do you have the four OS Bitcoin for open source? What is that initiative and where did this idea come from?

Dulce Villareal:

Yeah, this is crazy, because I sometimes I feel like imposter syndrome. And of course, I am not a senior developer. I I didn't feel entitled to do an initiative for senior developers, but I have a lot of support from my team. My team is Federico from Argentina. I. It's a lawyer, a nerd who is, is kind of, my is my right hand is not kind of, is, sometimes I spend more time with him than with my partner. And Ivan from Spain is also. He's a senior engineer from Spain, also a teacher in Liberia Satoshi, and we have a big push from other international institutions to do it, and they say, hey, you've been doing this for three years for free. We trust you. You do an amazing job. I think we should do senior developer training. And it was hard to say just but I say yes, and we did it. It wouldn't be possible without the team. There is it was really hard to do something new, like everything that is new, the first time is hard, and the first time is always hard. And we did an amazing program for senior developers, only, targeting senior developers. And we did a funnel of proof of work with code challenge that were provided by chain code. We did some tricks, because I am a Developer Advocate. I know the culture, like we suffer of a lot of imposter syndrome. Then we did some adjustment for our culture. Without mid tops, but basically, we were targeting senior developers in in the community with the goal of build a portfolio in open source that is going to help you to apply for new jobs, to build a career. Because when you are a developer, and if you are working in closed source, you cannot show your work to the companies. They don't know how you amazing you are as a developer, we have to shift the paradigm of closed source to open source. We don't promise jobs, we don't promise money, we don't promise nothing, but build a portfolio in open source. But from 350 350 developers who apply. We get the best developers. And we did a residency in Argentina. In person. We have Peter Todd niftine. I forgot the Oscar from fedimint, the head of engineer of fedimint. We are. We are seeing amazing photos. It was, Is this part of the program? Yeah, we use part of the program. Nifty name is talking about lighting, lining, network. She said, the protocol developer, we have a bitter talk. We had also Serge from chain code. We did a lot of focus in career, I realized planning, planning strategically, how is your life and what tools you need to build your life, is very important, and we did some planning of your lives. Here we are with Oscar from fedimint, amazing developer. We have Francisco Calderon from maastro too, and we didn't even do classes. It was amazing. It was one of the best experience in my life. Amazing people like amazing people. And we finished, we just grab up this effort from March to December, and three of the developers already got grants. Nice, yeah, Maurice got grant from spiral clay is the junior developer I was telling probably is going to start soon as an inter and beat Ross is also supporting Latin American developers. Bittros is an initiative from Jack Dorsey. He gave some sets, some bitcoins, actually, for African development, but they decide to do a bigger job than now with trust is focusing this global south. That means they

Mike Peterson:

are okay. That's good, because I've I remember when the initiative was announced, and it was, it was very exciting. There was a lot of kind of hoopla around it, and then it kind of like was very slow and rolling out. And I've heard some criticisms of, like, how slow they've been, so it's good to hear that they're kind of ramping things up. Yeah, now they're distributing more funds. Now

Dulce Villareal:

they are doing all global south. That means Latin America, Africa and Asia. I think the criticism sometimes came from you have the money, but tell me, you know, money is not enough. You can get a donation, but the most important is the people, the human capital, and starting something new is hard, like, I don't like to criticize sometimes, because it's hard to do new stuff, definitely, and if you have this amount of bitcoin, first of all, you have to put secure. Yours is Bitcoin, then see how you're gonna work. At least for my experience, as today, I have a great experience. I can tell you, in one year, what is my experience with bittros, but it's been good. I think, in the beginning, probably, as any project, a startup initiative, is hard in the beginning, but on my side, no complaints or anything is being fast, no,

Mike Peterson:

obviously, it's amazing. It's amazing. Yeah. And

Dulce Villareal:

today, they released four grants in the African Bitcoin Conference, or three. They have one of their developers from Africa in chain code as an intern. I hope chain code get more developers as an interns and not as a brain drain. You know, take the developers forever. I believe our people, if they want to be in their communities, they should be in their communities. If they want to work in New York or London, they should be wherever they want to be, but the freedom should be to choose where you want to stay and where you want to live. And in Liberty, Satoshi and Bitcoin for open source, we are working to create opportunities where people are and as a Bitcoin developer, you can work from El sonte. They actually a lot of people move here. You can work from Mexico. You can run from Patagonia in Argentina, and you can work remote, get a salary. The salaries are very high for Latin America. And if you became a senior developer in the Bitcoin open source space, that this is what we are doing, finding the talent and give them all the toolkits they need to become the best, but they are already good. We are just giving some toolkits, some tools. This is how you apply a grant. These are the grants. This is what you have to do. This is what you don't have to do. From our experience, but the talent exists, and I think the future of Latin America is right, because the our people is amazing, good, hard, hard, working, smart, but I hope they know there is opportunities to work as a Bitcoin, open source developer or creating companies. Also. Creating companies is a good idea, too. They don't have to be necessarily an employee, and if they want to be an employee, we can help them to make contacts with these companies too

Mike Peterson:

well. I think it's so important a lot of times just to give people a starting point, because we've seen that here in El Salvador, like a lot of the young people, don't even know where to start. They see this opportunity coming, and they don't have necessarily a lot of mentors here. There wasn't in the past, there wasn't a strong developer, you know, community here, but we're seeing that change in El Salvador through a bunch of different initiatives, including Cuba plus and some of these other things that have Torres Dev, and there's been a number of different initiatives here. And I think

Dulce Villareal:

this is a global problem. Yeah, the lack of mentorship is the hardest problem we all have to solve. Then this this problem. India has this problem in Bucha that is in the equal initiative also Beatrice builders in Africa, they have the money, but you cannot create mentors from the night. We have the same problem. I think our people also need to understand that the first generation sometimes not gonna have mentors. I didn't have a mentor. I was the only women in Silicon Valley, Latina who was a Bitcoin Right? Or in blockchain space like I, for years, I've been the only Latina, thanks, God. I'm not the only one anymore, but it's going to be hard, but also that means you're going to be a pioneer here, and as soon as you feel ready, you have to be a mentor. You know, like now, I am a mentor for many people, but that's a global problem. Yeah, I hope more people come to Latin America live here like people from Europe. I love what Jonah tag, the move here teaching people. Adam Gibson, there is people who've been moving to El Salvador. I hope this continue like also, we need this movement of human capital and smart people from the north to the south. I'm so happy to have you here in Latin America. Mike, I think I hope this flow of knowledge and people and also value keep moving, because we cannot continue with North sort the North and the So South being so different, we have to have equal opportunities in any part of the planet.

Mike Peterson:

No, I. I love that. I love that. Well, is there, is there anything else that we haven't covered that you want to talk about? Yeah, um,

Dulce Villareal:

I want to say people like follow us in Twitter, yeah,

Mike Peterson:

but, but anything, we'll get that, that at the end, we'll make sure they know how to support you. But have we covered? Have we covered everything? Oh, yeah.

Dulce Villareal:

I want to say, like in Bitcoin for OS is a Salvador, Salvadorian entity, or I love that, I love that, yeah, yeah. We have to, have to be coherent, yeah, talk and do the same, right? Um, most of not criticizing, but everywhere is in fiscal part. Para ISOs, fiscales, yeah, and we decided to do it here, like if bitcoin was easily tender, and we can use Bitcoin as a as our money in El Salvador. And Salvador is a Latin American country, and we are focusing Latin America. We create an entity in Salvador to give grants. In this year, we are going to be focused in raising money and fundraising to give grants to Latin Americans, anywhere who lives in Latin America, even like if you no ad from Latin America, but you live here and you were willing to teach and share your knowledge also, and micro grants in that way, people can start easily and fast in Bitcoin open source or dedicating their life to Bitcoin. Personally, it's not like religious but changing my life to Bitcoin, like to dedicate my life to Bitcoin education is is doing my bed, my life better every day, like I wake up happy. I know I'm changing the world. I'm not. I'm doing good, and I kind of want to share that, right? It's not like a call, but I promise like doing something that you know is good for humanity, like Bitcoin is doing is good money, decentralized, citizenship, resistant. Money makes your life so different. And also, if you can also make more money than being a Bitcoin developer, why not? Then we want more people to dedicate their life to Bitcoin, and we are fundraising to give grants to developers in Latin America. That's our goal, and we are not going to stop. So

Mike Peterson:

for for people out there in the Bitcoin space that want to support that effort, how can they specifically give towards towards this grant? Yeah,

Dulce Villareal:

as today, they can reach out to us. Right now, we will have every all the information in our website. They can go to our website that is B, 4o, s, dot Dev, or Bitcoin for open source.com, or in our Twitter, they can follow us, and they will see how to donate. If they donate in Bitcoin, it will be in the Salvadorian entity. If they donate in Fiat, is going to be in our American entity, and they can get their tax exemptions. Basically, it's gonna be separate Fiat world from Bitcoin world. Yeah, yeah. And if you want to help, you want to become a mentor, you can became a mentor. If you want to help us, reach out to also to anyone in our team. We are happy to listen to you and to see how we can do better with Bitcoin education in Latin America.

Mike Peterson:

And then for library of Satoshi is have a separate site for that.

Dulce Villareal:

Yeah, okay, basically, the courses are going to be what we've been doing the last three years. But what do we change from this year? Is the best students from the courses are going to be the ones who go to the residency. The bu for always, residency, we didn't notice, but our best students have the same qualities that the best, the best senior developers in the residency, then, if you are a top performers in all our classes, in our courses, we will invite you to the before us residency. That is in person. We don't know where we are going to do could be Colombia, could be Mexico, could be here in El sante, wherever we find the way to do it. But basically, you start taking classes. You became showing your proof of work, and you weren't one of the best developers. You got invited to the Bitcoin, the Bitcoin for OS residency, or before us residency, and from there, we helped you to get a grant. And once we fundraise enough, we will give you a grant. Okay,

Mike Peterson:

awesome. And where? Where can people follow you? I'm assuming you guys are on Twitter. I don't know if you're on noster. Where's the best place?

Dulce Villareal:

Yeah, we are all the social media is lib de Satoshi in Twitter. Nostro, we are the same.

Mike Peterson:

And Liberia de Satoshi.

Unknown:

Satoshi in Twitter, just

Mike Peterson:

L, I P,

Dulce Villareal:

L, I B, L, I B, L, yeah. Okay. No leap, I V, Liberia Satoshi, or you can follow me. That is dulce the ULC, underscore XYZ, and I have my I used to have Twitter change exchange, but you can send me a message, or also LinkedIn, and we will have this year, more presence in social media and podcast. And thank you so much for the invite. I hope, I really hope, Salvadorian people join to our classes. We need more Salvadorians, because Salvadorians are the future. I'm from Salvador too, and they have to disper the knowledge.

Mike Peterson:

No, definitely. Well, one, one thing that we're doing new here, that we're using AI to to also release in Spanish, so you'll be able to hear you'll be able to hear yourself in Spanish and see how close it sounds to how it should sound. Wow.

Dulce Villareal:

So excited. Yeah. Also we, you can see in our website the the bootcamp lining plus AI, actually, we are teaching how to use AI and lining at the same time. Awesome. Then we invite them to check their website and follow our initiatives. We we keep trying our best and doing our best to update everything to be in the cutting edge technology, because our people deserve

Mike Peterson:

definitely, that's a good note to end on. Well, I appreciate you spending the afternoon here. And yeah, we'll have to revisit again next year. Yeah,

Dulce Villareal:

and yes, I would love to come to the Sante more frequently. A beautiful, beautiful work. What you are doing here. Mike, thank you well. Thank you. Bye.