Welcome to our course! Below, you’ll find the contents of the above video in text form. We’re releasing the course one lesson a week, every Wednesday over twelve weeks. Enjoy!
Hey! This is David. Glad to have you here for our one-hour Introduction to Bitcoin in the Faith course. In this course, you’ll learn the past, present, and future of money in the context of the Bible, the Catechism, and Catholic economists and theologians.
I’m a teacher, and I’ve studied economics and engineering. Let’s start with a prayer. The priest who catechized me always began his classes with this prayer.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
COME, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and kindle in them the fire of Thy love. Send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created. And Thou shalt renew the face of the earth. Amen.
Let us pray: O GOD, Who taught the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant that, by the gift of the same Spirit, we may be always truly wise, and ever rejoice in His consolation. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
We’re here to study Bitcoin, but first, we need a grasp of money’s history and the current financial system. This foundation helps us understand Bitcoin’s unique nature and its potential, viewed through human dignity and the common good. Without it, Bitcoin’s significance might be hard to grasp.
This course adapts My First Bitcoin’s open-source diploma, used by over 30,000 graduates in El Salvador and 30+ countries. We’re grateful for their work!
Next, I’d like to introduce three Catholics who’ve aided our mission.
We met Dr. Guido Hülsmann at the ‘Thank God for Bitcoin’ conference in Nashville, July 2024. He’s an economist known for The Ethics of Money Production. He was the conference headliner and we chatted as I bought his latest book on charity.
We met Don Jesús Huerta de Soto through email. He is a respected economist and businessman in Madrid, and Dr. Hülsmann told me that he teaches there. I asked my Spanish teammate to email Don Jesús and ask if he would offer us guidance. He responded! He generously hosted us for a meeting and his evening lecture, and gifted us eight books. These books have made this course better.
Finally, we met Pierre Rochard at the Catholic Bitcoiners retreat in El Salvador in November 2024. Pierre is known for his early Bitcoin articles and helping lead Bitcoin companies. Pierre used his platform to spread the news of the event, and his leadership in the community emboldens our mission.
These three men follow the Austrian school of economics, with origins in 1500s Catholic Spain, more concretely in the School of Salamanca, and 1800s Catholic Austria. These two men here, leaders of the movement. First, Martín de Azpilcueta from Navarre, a priest, church law expert, and economist that laid the groundwork for this very course in 1556. And second, the Austrian Carl Menger, the founder of the Austrian school, who wrote his Principles of Economics in Vienna in 1871.
My background in teaching and economics, combined with my faith, is the foundation for this course.
This helped us connect with Don Jesús. My teammate wrote to him of my conversion studying Bitcoin.
In this course, you’ll learn about money in the first half, then get practical with Bitcoin in the second, all in the context of the Faith.
Trust the process—the reward of a deeper understanding, informed by your intuitive sense of morality, will be worth it.
Let’s continue with some questions for you.
Links:
Pierre Rochard’s account on X, and his apostolate CatholicBitcoin
Don Jesús Huerta de Soto’s website
Dr. Jörg Guido Hülsmann’s publications
My First Bitcoin’s website
Have feedback to improve this part of the course? Submit it anonymously here.
Read this post in Spanish here.
The questions mentioned at the end of the video will be released when we launch the next part of the course next week, on Wednesday, March 19th, 2025.
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