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 training middle in a far-flung vacation spot (plans are at the moment below wraps).
Alongside his Bitcoin instructing aspirations, he helps out at a small-scale Bitcoin mining facility in Slovakia, co-founded a crypto cafe often called 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 need to do with it?
It begins with Bitcoin, which he first heard about in 2015. However like many individuals, “I did not take a number of discover. I assumed it was a rip-off, it was a pyramid scheme and all these sorts of issues,” he informed Cointelegraph.
Nonetheless, geared up with a background in arithmetic and buoyed by the passion of a tenacious good friend fascinated by open-source applied sciences, Matuska did not fall a lot however swan dive down the rabbit gap in the course of the 2017 bull run.
He all of the sudden realized, “Oh my God, this Bitcoin factor is one thing actually superb.”
Matuska in his trademark Bitcoin sweater. Supply: Dusan Matuska
He took day without work his instructing and consulting jobs to review Bitcoin. Inside months, he had deployed his public talking expertise to offer 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.
“Educating 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, as it is also recognized, is the child brother to the Paralelni Polis cafe in Prague. It is a cafe rooted in different studying, or “parallel training,” which harks again to when Czechoslovakia was a communist nation.
The Paralena Polis, or “crypto cafe,” espresso store and assembly house. Matuska is on the precise, crouching with glasses. Supply: Dusan Matuska
It’s an apt epithet for a protected house to study, tinker with and ultimately use cryptocurrency. “No fiat is allowed,” Matuska added.
The parallels of instructing about restricted worlds throughout communist rule and studying about an alternate monetary world the place fiat foreign money is surplus to necessities are clear-cut on the cafe. Matuska defined:
“So, the concept was to not struggle in opposition to the system however to construct up a parallel system. The identical as Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a peaceable protest in opposition to the system. It is not going to interrupt issues, however slowly it should make them out of date.”
Whereas serving to out as a barista on the cafe, Matuska spoke to unassuming crypto lovers, from 73-year-old former bankers to senior residents interested in transacting with crypto.
Aged girls studying about Bitcoin at a bazaar run by the crypto cafe in Slovakia. Supply: Dušan Matuska“I usually 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 tips on how to pay with Bitcoin, anybody can.”
Higher but, the rationale why the septuagenarian transacted through 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 have been laid, and Matuska had two epiphanies: Bitcoin is for everybody, and Bitcoin solves issues.
For Matuska, whether or not it is sending cash to a cousin in america, bequeathing cash to grandchildren or just “serving to folks lower your expenses to struggle inflation,” it isn’t just a few cool tech or “number-go-up expertise.”
Sooner or later, his girlfriend requested, “My instructing colleagues are asking about tips on how to educate children about Bitcoin. Is there a guide for you?” After that, Matuska shifted his focus from instructing adults to instructing youngsters as nicely.
Due to 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 staff.
Slovakian schoolchildren studying “Bitcoin Cash.” Supply: Dusan Matuska
Increasing his Bitcoin training 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 monitor of the numbers, Matuska used to keep up “an excel spreadsheet. Then I used to rely YouTube video views. however there was an excessive amount of overlap.”
He is now engaged on a sequence of metrics to succeed in his purpose, undoubtedly monitoring the variety of downloads on the Bitcoin-focused podcasts he information.
Within the podcast sequence, Matuska solutions widespread questions and explores thought experiments he was uncovered to throughout his Bitcoin instructing. Some of the in style thought experiments is a riff on Satoshi Nakamoto’s anonymity and is definitely from the primary podcast he recorded.
It is referred to as “How I met Satoshi,” and it refers to a theoretical assembly with the creator of Bitcoin. Matuska defined:
“Similar to Pythagoras and his theorem, we do not truly 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 repeatedly.”
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It’s doable to mathematically show that the Pythagorean theorem works 1000’s of years after his loss of life. “Will probably be the identical for Satoshi’s calculations.”
Whereas Matuska “meets” with Satoshi, it is extra about the true “assembly” that happens whenever you start to interact with the works of a genius, whether or not it is Albert Einstein, Michelangelo or Aristotle.
Finally, for the founding father of Bitcoin, Matuska shared that we “must be completely satisfied that we do not know who this particular person is.”
“The perfect factor that Satoshi did was to create Bitcoin. The second neatest thing Satoshi did was to evaporate.”
