El Salvador’s Secret Weapon? Its Extensive Bitcoin Education Program, Says Stacy Herbert

El Salvador shook the world in 2021 when President Nayib Bukele made bitcoin (BTC) legal tender, giving the cryptocurrency the same status as the U.S. dollar, the Central American nation’s official currency.

Since then, El Salvador has constituted a bitcoin reserve worth roughly $630 million, established one of the most advanced crypto regulatory frameworks in the world, promised to issue $1 billion in bitcoin-backed government bonds and even convinced stablecoin giant Tether to relocate its headquarters to the country.

But one of the country’s most rewarding successes has been its extensive Bitcoin-centric education program, according to Stacy Herbert, director of El Salvador’s Bitcoin Office.

“Bitcoin country needs Bitcoin engineers, right? We're producing them, and it’s a long manufacturing process, but it’s creating a wonderful positive feedback loop,” Herbert told CoinDesk in an interview. “They graduate, they get jobs, they all become friends. … You can feel a tech vibe emerging in San Salvador.”

The idea, Herbert said, is that when massive companies like Tether or Bitfinex decide to relocate their headquarters or open offices in El Salvador, they have no issue finding the highly-educated workforce necessary to run their operations.

“A lot of students are finding ample opportunity to work at these companies because there's huge demand [for them],” Herbert said. The quality of the Salvadorans’ Bitcoin education incites even more firms to consider El Salvador as a jurisdiction in which to set up shop, and that, she continued, motivates more students to study Bitcoin.

President Bukele has a “vision for a renaissance. Singapore 2.0. Florence 2.0. How do you get there? You need to build a strategy,” Herbert said. “You need the talent pool. You need smart, optimistic, bright people. And that's what we have here in El Salvador.”

Bitcoin Education

Herbert is a longtime bitcoiner — she was one of the first people to talk about the cryptocurrency on international television back in 2010. She came to El Salvador in 2021 with her husband Max Keiser soon after bitcoin was made legal tender and almost immediately spun up an educational program, CUBO+, to train Bitcoin developers in the country. Bukele subsequently selected her to run the Bitcoin Office, which was formally established in November 2022.

The Bitcoin Office advises on policy and legislation and does marketing for El Salvador’s bitcoin initiatives. But the first thing Herbert did upon her appointment was to work on bringing Bitcoin education into high schools. The program initially targeted only five institutions but has now been rolled out on a nationwide level.

Students are shown how to set up Bitcoin and Lightning Network nodes, and the technical details behind ASICs — specialized computers exclusively used to produce bitcoin. The ASIC lessons in particular have been met with enthusiasm, Herbert said. “They were able to hold something, and that really helped them understand in a deep way.”

But Bitcoin lessons aren’t limited to high schoolers only. CUBO+ runs a course which Herbert described as a “very intense bootcamp” that expounds on Bitcoin theory, history and philosophy. Open to roughly 100 to 125 applicants — who get university credits for attending — the program eventually selects 21 students with the best technical skills and pushes their education even further. Some of the students have been flown to Tuscany and Lugano to participate in Bitcoin workshops.

“100% of the students [in the inaugural year] found a job,” Herbert said. “Some of them are making close to $4,000 a month. You know, the average starting salary for a computer science graduate in El Salvador in 2023 was $600 a month.”

Close to 80,000 civil servants have also taken three-day Bitcoin certification courses. And another program will roll out in schools — from first grade to ninth grade — on the topics of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. “We’re laying the foundation upon which we can build a great economy,” Herbert said. “It’s not just the technical details of Bitcoin. It's a mindset shift, to understand what sovereignty and independence mean.”

CUBO+ has already paid off for Herbert on a personal level. Three employees work under her at the Bitcoin Office, all of which graduated from the program before coming to work for the government.

Let the good times roll

The Salvadoran government recently agreed to wind down its bitcoin wallet and make bitcoin payments acceptance voluntary in the private sector (instead of mandatory) as part of a new $3.5 billion deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Herbert said that the Bitcoin Office had not been part of the negotiations but that, in her view, the concessions made by El Salvador changed nothing at all. “The priority is always the people, so [let’s do] whatever helps the people the most, while also maintaining our sovereignty, and our strategy to execute on our vision.”

Still, since the IMF deal was announced, El Salvador has slightly changed up its bitcoin acquisition strategy. In addition to buying one bitcoin a day, the government has purchased, on three separate days, 10 extra bitcoin. When asked whether the change of pattern was a reaction to the IMF deal, Herbert said: “You would have to ask the President directly. … [But] he’s ready to accelerate. Donald Trump is coming to office in a few days, and the race is on. Globally, there’s a race to follow us.”

For Herbert, El Salvador earned its place in the history books from the moment it created the very first national strategic bitcoin reserve, and the U.S., if it does end up constituting its own reserve, will simply be walking in the Latin American country’s footsteps. It’s a competition, then, and El Salvador isn’t necessarily an underdog — according to Herbert, other countries will have to put in the work to keep up with Salvadoran initiatives, which are beginning to bear fruit.

The Central American nation has never experienced peace and prosperity, at least not in living memory, a Salvadoran lawyer told Herbert recently. In the 1970s, while the U.S. was enjoying disco music and the golden age of Hollywood, El Salvador was undergoing social unrest that would eventually trigger the Salvadoran Civil War, which left the state too weak to deal with the growth of violent gangs in the 1990s.

But Bukele’s leadership, combined with the Bitcoin initiatives, are completely changing the population’s frame of mind, Herbert said. All of a sudden, the future looks exciting.

“I think El Salvador deserves the good times that are coming — that are here,” Herbert said. “We're just starting these good times.”