Imagine a nation where high school students learn how to set up Bitcoin nodes, civil servants study cryptocurrency, and university graduates land high-paying jobs at top crypto firms – all backed by the government. Sound like a utopian vision of the future? Welcome to El Salvador in 2025.
Since making history in 2021 by adopting Bitcoin as legal tender, El Salvador has quietly been building a not-so-secret weapon: a comprehensive, nationwide Bitcoin education program. The undertaking is ambitious in scope, ranging from technical bootcamps churning out highly-skilled developers to certifications for tens of thousands of government employees. The goal? To transform El Salvador into a tech and financial hub for the new digital economy – and it’s working.
Creating a Bitcoin-Savvy Workforce
At the helm of this initiative is Stacy Herbert, director of El Salvador’s Bitcoin Office. Herbert, an early Bitcoin evangelist herself, immediately recognized that education would be key to realizing President Nayib Bukele’s vision of “Singapore 2.0, Florence 2.0” – a renaissance built on technological innovation and economic freedom.
The crown jewel of the program is CUBO+, an intensive “Bitcoin bootcamp” that trains promising students in the intricacies of cryptocurrency, from philosophy to programming. Top graduates are rewarded with career-launching opportunities, like participating in international workshops and landing jobs at major crypto companies setting up shop in El Salvador.
100% of the students [in the inaugural year] found a job. 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.
– Stacy Herbert, Director of El Salvador’s Bitcoin Office
Attracting Global Crypto Leaders
The investment in homegrown talent is paying big dividends by making El Salvador irresistible to top global crypto companies. Industry leaders like stablecoin giant Tether are relocating headquarters to the Central American nation, drawn by its crypto-friendly regulations and deep pool of skilled workers.
It’s a positive feedback loop, Herbert explains. As more students graduate with advanced Bitcoin knowledge, more businesses are enticed to open offices in El Salvador, which in turn inspires more students to pursue careers in the field. The result is a burgeoning tech scene in the capital city of San Salvador.
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.
– Stacy Herbert
Empowering All Levels of Society
The Bitcoin education push isn’t limited to universities. Cryptocurrency courses have rolled out in high schools nationwide, giving students hands-on experience with cutting-edge technology like ASICs, the specialized computers used for Bitcoin mining.
Even civil servants are getting schooled in digital money. Nearly 80,000 government employees have completed Bitcoin certification courses, ensuring a fundamental understanding of the technology across all levels of the public sector.
And Bitcoin is just the beginning. New programs on artificial intelligence and robotics are in the works for elementary and middle school students, laying the groundwork for a long-term strategic shift.
We’re laying the foundation upon which we can build a great economy. It’s not just the technical details of Bitcoin. It’s a mindset shift, to understand what sovereignty and independence mean.
– Stacy Herbert
Pioneering a Path to Prosperity
For Herbert, El Salvador’s trailblazing embrace of Bitcoin isn’t just about the technology – it’s about empowering a nation that has long struggled to find peace and prosperity. By proactively developing human capital and building a 21st-century economy from the ground up, Salvadoran leaders aim to rewrite the country’s future.
I think El Salvador deserves the good times that are coming – that are here. We’re just starting these good times.
– Stacy Herbert
The first country to take the leap into making Bitcoin legal tender, El Salvador now stands as a model – and a challenger – to other nations. With a highly educated population, business-friendly environment, and pole position in the global crypto race, the question isn’t whether El Salvador will achieve its economic renaissance, but how high it will rise.
As President Bukele awaits the arrival of crypto-friendly US president-elect Donald Trump, the pace is set to accelerate even further. For the pioneering nation, the sky’s the limit, with Bitcoin serving as rocket fuel.
Will other countries manage to catch up to El Salvador’s head start in cultivating a skilled, crypto-native workforce and building a regulatory haven for digital currency innovation? Facing the prospect of being left behind in the digital economic revolution, they’re certainly going to try. But El Salvador has given itself a major advantage in the game – and it’s playing to win.
