Dušan Matuska is, amongst many different issues, a Bitcoin educator and advisor. The Slovak’s dream is to teach 100 million folks about Bitcoin (BTC) by 2030 by means of talks, podcasts, webinars, workshops and even a Bitcoin schooling middle in a far-flung vacation spot (plans are at the moment underneath wraps).
Alongside his Bitcoin educating aspirations, he helps out at a small-scale Bitcoin mining facility in Slovakia, co-founded a crypto cafe generally known as Paralelni Polis within the capital metropolis of Bratislava, and has translated well-known Bitcoin books into his native tongue, Slovak.
However, how did he get right here? And, what does assembly Satoshi Nakamoto should do with it?
It begins with Bitcoin, which he first heard about in 2015. However like many individuals, “I didn’t take a whole lot of discover. I assumed it was a rip-off, it was a pyramid scheme and all these sorts of issues,” he instructed Cointelegraph.
Nonetheless, outfitted with a background in arithmetic and buoyed by the passion of a tenacious pal fascinated by open-source applied sciences, Matuska didn’t a lot fall however swan dive down the rabbit gap through the 2017 bull run.
He instantly realized, “Oh my God, this Bitcoin factor is one thing actually wonderful.”
He took day without work his educating and consulting jobs to review Bitcoin. Inside months, he had deployed his public talking expertise to provide the primary free talks of many about Bitcoin. At his first “open workshop, the place 40 or 50 folks got here” in early 2018, one thing started to click on.
“Instructing one thing that I’ve a ardour for feels pure to me. I gave webinars, consultations, free talks, all these sorts of issues associated to Bitcoin. Then, we based Paralelna Polis in Bratislava.”
The crypto cafe, because it’s additionally recognized, is the child brother to the Paralelni Polis cafe in Prague. It’s a restaurant rooted in different studying, or “parallel schooling,” which harks again to when Czechoslovakia was a communist nation.
It’s an apt epithet for a protected house to study, tinker with and finally use cryptocurrency. “No fiat is allowed,” Matuska added.
The parallels of educating about restricted worlds throughout communist rule and studying about an alternate monetary world the place fiat forex is surplus to necessities are clear-cut on the cafe. Matuska defined:
“So, the concept was to not battle towards the system however to construct up a parallel system. The identical as Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a peaceable protest towards the system. It‘s not going to interrupt issues, however slowly it is going to make them out of date.”
Whereas serving to out as a barista on the cafe, Matuska spoke to unassuming crypto fanatics, from 73-year-old former bankers to senior residents interested in transacting with crypto.
“I typically use the instance of the 73-year-old man when educating folks about Bitcoin. If he can discover ways to use a Bitcoin pockets and the right way to pay with Bitcoin, anybody can.”
Higher but, the explanation why the septuagenarian transacted by way of Bitcoin is that it was “simpler for him than it was to make use of on-line banking.” Matuska confirmed to Cointelegraph that the aged man was not, in truth, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Whereas, sadly, the Bratislava crypto cafe closed final yr as a result of COVID-19 pandemic, the Prague cafe lives on. Plus, the foundations had been laid, and Matuska had two epiphanies: Bitcoin is for everybody, and Bitcoin solves issues.
For Matuska, whether or not it’s sending cash to a cousin in the USA, bequeathing cash to grandchildren or just “serving to folks lower your expenses to battle inflation,” it’s not just a few cool tech or “number-go-up expertise.”
At some point, his girlfriend requested, “My educating colleagues are asking about the right way to educate children about Bitcoin. Is there a guide for them?” After that, Matuska shifted his focus from educating adults to educating kids as effectively.
Because of the assistance of different Bitcoin educators within the house, in addition to a profitable crowdfunding marketing campaign, Matuska has despatched over 2,000 Bitcoin-related books to varsities throughout Slovakia, translated into Slovak by himself and his workforce.
Increasing his Bitcoin schooling aspirations into faculties was a deft transfer. He‘ll want all the assistance he can get to succeed in his purpose of teaching 100 million folks about Bitcoin by 2030. To maintain observe of the numbers, Matuska used to take care of “an excel spreadsheet. Then I used to rely YouTube video views. however there was an excessive amount of overlap.”
He’s now engaged on a collection of metrics to succeed in his purpose, undoubtedly monitoring the variety of downloads on the Bitcoin-focused podcasts he information.
Within the podcast collection, Matuska solutions widespread questions and explores thought experiments he was uncovered to throughout his Bitcoin educating. One of the widespread thought experiments is a riff on Satoshi Nakamoto’s anonymity and is definitely from the primary podcast he recorded.
It’s referred to as “How I met Satoshi,” and it refers to a theoretical assembly with the creator of Bitcoin. Matuska defined:
“Identical to Pythagoras and his theorem, we don’t really must know if he was a very good man or a foul man, or if he was orange, blue, yellow or black, no matter. The important thing factor is that the Pythagorean theorem works time and again.”
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It’s doable to mathematically show that the Pythagorean theorem works 1000’s of years after his loss of life. “It is going to be the identical for Satoshi‘s calculations.”
Whereas Matuska “meets” with Satoshi, it‘s extra about the actual “assembly” that happens once you start to interact with the works of a genius, whether or not it‘s Albert Einstein, Michelangelo or Aristotle.
In the end, for the founding father of Bitcoin, Matuska shared that we “must be comfortable that we don‘t know who this individual is.”
“One of the best factor that Satoshi did was to create Bitcoin. The second smartest thing Satoshi did was to evaporate.”
