Bitcoin Education-What I Learned Teaching a Bitcoin Class in Texas

by James · May 11, 2023

Riot Platforms facility in

Photo by Korok Ray

Bitcoin Pizza Day is approaching on May 22, so now is a good time to take stock of how bitcoin has evolved since its inception. I am teaching the first bitcoin class this semester at Texas A&M University, titled “The Bitcoin Protocol,” and it has already reshaped my view of the industry. I have learned that there is no better way to learn about bitcoin than to combine classroom instruction with visits to companies in Texas that are already using this technology.

It is a technical class of 20 computer science students, most of whom have little prior knowledge of Bitcoin, where we work through the book “Programming Bitcoin” written by Bitcoin Core developer Jimmy Song. We cover cryptography, economics and computer science. We spent a few weeks defining elliptic curves over limited fields and finally created our own bitcoin address.

At first, I was worried that I would attract more students who wanted to learn about crypto in general, rather than Bitcoin specifically. On the contrary, when the class started I was surprised by how little the students knew about cryptocurrency. My students are new to the whole space so their minds are open and fresh. From my perspective, there is a real opportunity to educate pre-coiners about Bitcoin, not just in trying to convert altcoiners to bitcoiners.

One of the most impactful moments for me, as an educator, was when the class built our own transaction from scratch and broadcast it over the testnet. I saw the students’ faces light up when they realized that anyone with a computer and internet connection can participate in this alternative economic system. And in addition to classes, we also went on field trips to see what the bitcoin ecosystem looks like outside of our screens.

Go to Bitcoin companies and conferences

We visited the Riot Platforms facility in Texas, to see the largest bitcoin mining operation in North America, and then attended the BTC++ developer conference in Austin and met experienced developers with experience from companies like Blockstream. Next, we headed to coworking space Bitcoin Commons to hear from Jack Mallers, CEO of fintech startup Strike, who talked about the Lightning Network and how tiered scaling solutions enable different payment options for bitcoin. Bitcoin is mathematically and computationally abstract, so visiting a mining facility and office space both showed the tangible side of the bitcoin ecosystem. It helps bitcoin feel real.

In addition to the company’s offices and facilities, bitcoin developer conferences draw an international audience and demonstrate the technology’s global reach.

Start with basic Bitcoin transactions

The challenge my students faced is that Bitcoin is a holistic protocol project that relies on several interconnected components. Without mining, cryptography, scripts, digital signatures, full nodes and proof-of-work mining facilities, Bitcoin would not work. If you don’t know that transaction inputs point to previous transaction outputs, you won’t be able to construct a bitcoin transaction. Like any software project, the details matter and the pieces must fit together to work.

So even if you are teaching technically advanced students, I recommend focusing on systems thinking and bitcoin fundamentals for a holistic view, rather than teaching a sequence of disconnected exercises. In addition, the best way to learn about software is to use your hands.

Fortunately, the university donated 25 hard drives to our class. We loaded them up with the Bitcoin blockchain to run full nodes. In this way, the students could participate directly in the bitcoin network.

Overall, bitcoin education remains the biggest barrier to bitcoin adoption. Using bitcoin responsibly requires both financial literacy and data science. This also provides the industry’s biggest opportunity. Based on the success of this class, bitcoin educators like myself hope to see bitcoin education become a regular part of university curricula.