January Plan ₿ Monthly Roundup
Hello Plan ₿ Academy!
Welcome to the first edition of our Monthly Roundup, where we keep you in the loop as we continue together learning about Bitcoin.
This newsletter is designed especially for our students. Each month, you’ll receive a clear snapshot of what we’ve been working on: new tutorials, courses, platform features, upcoming updates, and live classes — all to support you on your Bitcoin journey.
(If you’d rather not receive these updates, you can opt out at any time using the link at the bottom of this email.)
Let’s dive in!
🔥 Spotlight: Plan ₿ Program Is Back
This is something we really want to highlight: starting February 2nd, the Plan ₿ Business & Developer Tracks return, now running fully in parallel, giving students the opportunity to choose the path that fits their goals.
The Plan ₿ Program, developed by Giacomo Zucco, is a five-month journey combining solid theory, real-case practice, and networking opportunities. Students learn the foundations of Bitcoin before splitting by topic, with masterclasses from leading experts and project assignments from companies in the industry.
Developer Track
For those who want to build on Bitcoin and Lightning. From fundamentals to more advanced concepts, the focus is on developing a strong technical foundation and learning to create real, working applications.
Business Track
Designed for founders, operators, educators, and anyone building or managing Bitcoin initiatives. Students explore industry models, strategy, regulation basics, and how to scale Bitcoin adoption in the real world.
Both tracks share a strong common base, then branch off into their specialized paths — and naturally, the 21 top performers from each track join again in Lugano for Summer School, an intense Bitcoin bootcamp reserved for the most committed students. This year, a full two week bootcamp, culminating with a Bitcoin Hackathon!
Interested? Learn more, early bird pricing are about to end this January 15th increasing the price significantly!
Use code AcademyStudents for a 21% discount on either track!
📘 New Learning Content
New Course Release!
The new course Bitaxe Open Source Mining Mastery (MIN306) by wantclue has been released, offering a complete, hands-on journey into the world of open-source Bitcoin mining hardware. From assembling Bitaxe devices to tuning firmware, benchmarking performance, and contributing to the broader ecosystem, this course demystifies the technology driving today’s grassroots mining movement.
If you're curious about building your own ASICs or want to understand how open-source miners are reshaping Bitcoin’s mining landscape, this course is the perfect place to begin.
We also launched two in-person courses in Lugano for those who wanted to learn how to build Lightning applications and become proficient with the Breez SDK. Both sessions were recorded and will soon be available on our platform as self-paced courses. Discover the course!
Tutorial Highlight!
Before closing the year, the team added over 30 tutorials! Since it’s naturally hard to list them all here, we’ve selected three for you to explore whenever you want to learn something new:
- Dana Wallet – A great tool for improving privacy, including Silent Payments (BIP-352).
- Start9 Server – Learn how to run your own sovereign services and private server.
- Ashigaru Privacy Suite – A large set of privacy tutorials covering Whirlpool, Stonewall, Stowaway Payjoin, and more.
(One could take this as a signal to jump in and proofread… and earn some sats!)
👨🏫 Teach with us!
We’ve launched a new page for teachers to join the adventure and share our common passion. This page allows anyone interested in teaching or hosting a course on Plan ₿ Academy to get in touch with us directly. A welcome video for future educators will be added soon. Check it out here
📄 New Database of Research Papers
A brand-new research papers page is now live, featuring a large collection of Bitcoin-related research papers, from the 1970s to today. The repository team assembled a vast database that maps the academic and technical research landscape surrounding Bitcoin. It’s an invaluable reference for educators, researchers, and curious minds alike. If you're curious, don't hesitate to dive in!
🧰 Learning Tool of the Month: DIY Hardware
This month we highlight Specter DIY, an open-source signing device you can build yourself using simple, off-the-shelf components.
New Tutorial – Specter DIY: Is a hands-on guide to assembling your own hardware wallet and keeping it fully air-gapped using QR signing. You’ll learn how to:
- Build the device
- Install the firmware
- Use it with Specter Desktop or multisig setups
DIY hardware is one of the best ways to deepen your understanding of Bitcoin security, and Specter DIY is the ideal place to start, we actually had a live workshop during the Plan ₿ Week in Lugano the previous month.
Follow the tutorial!
🌍 Community Learning Milestones
During November:
- New languages: Bulgarian and Thai are currently being finalized to be added onto the platform, thanks to our proofreaders' efforts. We are now reaching a total of 28 languages onto the platform!
- Content contributions: 26 new tutorials were published across wallets, privacy, hardware, and operating systems.
- Over 38 contributors improved our translations all from tutorials, translations, and course quality.
- Steady improvement: 45 proofreading pull requests were submitted this month by 38 contributors:
Shoutout to the French, Spanish, and Swahili teams, who led the month in proofreading contributions with 9, 8, and 7 PRs respectively.
📅 Plan ₿ Community Calls
We organise bi-monthly online meetings where the Plan ₿ Community unites to discuss the most various topics related to Bitcoin. It could be a new Bitcoin tool, a philosophical thought, a hot trending debate or a hands-on tutorial for Bitcoin teachers! Those meetings gathers our contributors and friends, and is open to everybody. So don't hesitate to join us in the next meetings!
Next Community Calls Planned:
- On 15 January, 4pm (GMT+1) - "How to raise your kids in the Bitcoin standard", by Mir Liponi. Mir will be talking about how her family is balancing the values of the Bitcoin standard in the education of their kids: what are the struggles? What are the values to transmit to kids? Join here!
- January 29th 5pm (GMT+1), stay tuned to know more soon ;) Join here
Previous meetings are available for replay
- On 11 December, @alexbrou, CTO of Peach and English/Portuguese proofreader, presented “Peach Bitcoin: a no-KYC P2P Bitcoin exchange and why it matters more than you think.” –Watch Replay
🗞️ Plan ₿ Academy becomes uncensorable
In our new blog post “Plan ₿ Academy becomes uncensorable: our app is coming to Pears!”, we explain why moving Bitcoin education to a peer-to-peer architecture matters.
By deploying Plan ₿ Academy on Pears, a serverless P2P technology by Holepunch, the platform no longer depends on domains, hosting providers, or centralized infrastructure. Each user becomes a node, making the application resilient to censorship and accessible even where the traditional web is blocked.
Read the full post!
💡 Free or Regulated Economies
In Damien Theillier’s blog post "Free or regulated economy?", he reminds us that the debate between a free and a regulated economy is ultimately a debate between two worldviews.
Thinkers like Locke and Nozick argue that a free economy best respects individual rights, while Mises and Hayek show that it also works better in practice because only free prices can coordinate the knowledge dispersed across millions of people.
In short: economic freedom is both more ethical and more efficient — a principle that also underpins Bitcoin’s design.
Read the full post!
Thanks for learning with us. If you’d prefer not to receive these updates, you’re welcome to opt out at any time. We hope you’ll stay with us, though, as we’re excited to keep you in the loop on everything we’re developing.
Keep studying, keep exploring, and keep pushing your bitcoin education forward. See you next month!
The Plan ₿ Academy Team