Bitcoin (BTC) sets people free. At least, that was what happened in Lebanon’s first Bitcoin-themed escape room in Beirut.
Lebanese bitcoiners from the Bitcoin du Liban group faced the ultimate Bitcoin educational challenge: Bitcoin Escape the System. And the best? The four-person team slipped out of the escape room in the fastest time to date.
Can’t wait to try this… tomorrow.#bitcoin is growing in #Lebanon .@BitcoinduLiban @marco_bdl @Thomssmn @Rothmus https://t.co/v9tminHAy3
— Sooly⚡️سولي (@Sooly_Kobayashi) July 5, 2022
I can’t wait to try this… tomorrow. Bitcoin is growing in Lebanon
For the uninitiated, An “escape game” or “escape room” is a team game in which players work together to solve puzzles, clues, and riddles usually based on a theme such as spies, zombies, and now, Bitcoin. As the name suggests, the mission is to “escape” from the game location within a given time.
Sooly Kobayashi, MENA advisor to Swan Bitcoin and moderator of Bitcoin du Liban, told Cointelegraph that “All of us (except one) had never played escape rooms. We entered the room not trusting our knowledge of Bitcoin.”
However, they likely had a slight edge over those new to Bitcoin. The escape game themes revolve around fiat money, time chain technologies (commonly known as blockchain), SHA-256 (Bitcoin’s hashing algorithm), and self-custody.
Although the escape game is a bit of fun, according to Sooly, it is another example of the Lebanese Bitcoin community’s creative approach to onboarding more Bitcoiners. Sooly, who is also a moderator at Bitcoin du Liban, told Cointelegraph that “education is a challenge in a country that has not invested much in this sector.”
“And with a history full of instability, the Lebanese population has been busy surviving in economic unrest. Therefore, Bitcoin education needed a creative and modern approach.”
As shown in the graph below, public spending on education in Lebanon pales in comparison to that of Argentina; a country that also suffers from critical problems related to inflation and instability. Therefore, it is up to the people to take financial education and creative orange pill techniques into their own hands with grassroots activities.
In fact, bitcoiners from Lebanon to Slovakia are taking Bitcoin education head-on, trying to spread the word of sound money. The books about Bitcoin, games and even family cookouts are spaces for Bitcoin veterans or new to the tech to learn in whatever way suits them best.
For the escape game, due to the sometimes stressful and adrenaline-pumping nature of escape games (if you know it, you know it), participants may absorb information faster and retain it longer. As a result, a Bitcoin-themed escape game could be a quirky but quick way to educate people about Bitcoin. Soloy explains:
“It has been scientifically proven that humans learn best in two scenarios. First, when we are excited. […] Second, when we are expected to convey information to another person, our minds tend to focus and memorize knowledge better.”
To date, escape room founder Said Nassar, an international business engineer, had only seen “few” Bitcoiners play the game. Despite the Bitcoin-friendly appeal, Bitcoin newcomers, or “non-coiners” as they are sometimes known, enjoyed the game.
Sooly adds that some of the players are “shitcoiners”, including people interested in Ethereum (ETH):
Nobody would play this escape room and not learn about Bitcoin.”
For some Bitcoiners, it’s ironic to come out of a Bitcoin escape room. For some, the entire world may already feel like an escape room, and Bitcoin is the only way out.. Bitcoin Escape the System joins a budding list of Bitcoin-themed escape rooms, including The Bitcoin Heist in Macedonia and the DIY Bitcoin Escape Room, Badass Daddy’s Bitcoins.
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