‘How I met Satoshi’: The mission to teach 100M people about Bitcoin by 2030

Dušan Matuska is — among many other things — a Bitcoin educator and consultant. The Slovak’s dream is to educate 100 million people about Bitcoin by 2030 through talks, podcasts, webinars, workshops and even a Bitcoin education center in a far-flung destination (plans are currently under wraps). 

Alongside his Bitcoin teaching aspirations, he assists on a small-scale Bitcoin mining facility in Slovakia, he co-founded the crypto café known as Paralelni Polis in the country’s capital, Bratislava and he’s translated well-known Bitcoin books into his native tongue, Slovak.

But, how did he get here? And, what does meeting Satoshi have to do with it?

It starts with Bitcoin, which he first heard about Bitcoin in 2015. But, like many people, “I didn’t take a lot of notice. I thought it was a scam, it was a pyramid scheme and all these kinds of things,” he told Cointelegraph.

Nonetheless, equipped with a background in mathematics and buoyed by the enthusiasm of a tenacious friend fascinated by open source technologies, Matuska not so much fell but swan dived down the rabbit hole during the 2017 bull run.

He suddenly realized, “Oh my God, this Bitcoin thing is something really amazing.”

He took time off his teaching and consulting jobs to study Bitcoin. Within months, he deployed his public speaking skills to give the first free talks of many about Bitcoin. At his first “open workshop, where 40 or 50 people came” in early 2018, something had begun to click.

“Teaching something that I have a passion for feels natural to me. I gave webinars, consultations, free talks, all these kinds of things related to Bitcoin. Then, we founded Paralelná Polis in Bratislava.”

The crypto cafe — as it’s also known — is the baby brother to the Paralelni Polis café in Prague, Czechia. It’s a cafe rooted in alternative learning, or “parallel education,” which harks back to when Czeckoslavia endured communist rule.

It is an apt epithet for a safe space to learn, tinker with and eventually use cryptocurrency, “no fiat is allowed,” Matuska added.

The parallels of teaching about restricted worlds during the communist regime and learning about an alternative financial world where fiat currency is surplus to requirements are clear-cut at the cafe. Matuska explained:

“So, the idea was not to fight against the system but to build up a parallel system. The same as Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a peaceful protest against the system. It‘s not going to break things, but slowly it will make them obsolete.”

While helping out as a barista at the cafe, Matuska spoke to unassuming crypto enthusiasts, from 73-year-old former bankers to senior citizens curious about transacting with crypto.

“I often use the example of the 73-year-old man when educating people about Bitcoin. If he can learn how to use a Bitcoin wallet and how to pay with Bitcoin, anyone can.”

Better yet, the reason why the septuagenarian transacted via Bitcoin is that it was “easier for him than it was to use online banking.” Matuska confirmed to Cointelegraph that the elderly man was not, in fact, Satoshi Nakamoto.

While sadly, the Bratislava crypto cafe closed last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Prague cafe lives on. Plus, the foundations were laid and Matuska had two epiphanies: Bitcoin is for everyone and Bitcoin solves problems.

For Matuska, whether it’s sending money to a cousin in the United States, bequeathing money to grandchildren or simply “helping people save money to fight inflation,” it’s not just some cool tech or  “number-go-up technology.”

One day, when his girlfriend queried “my teaching colleagues are asking about how to educate kids…