Keene Solidifies Position as Global Leader in Cryptocurrency Acceptance with Three More Businesses Onboard in January!

Keene on Anypay's Hot Map

Anypaymap.com shows the most active crypto-accepting businesses in the area.

Big news from the Monadnock Crypto blog! The Keene area now has three additional local businesses that are accepting cryptocurrency for their services. All three are mobile businesses and will travel to their customers and were all added to the local Coinmap in the last month. That brings the already very high concentration of businesses accepting crypto to an all new level, keeping Keene in the top tier of cities globally that are high in crypto-acceptance-per-capita. In fact, both Forbes and Bitcoin.com have called Keene, “Crypto Mecca”.

With her new business, “EuPHOria”, the founding chef of Keene’s “Pho Keene Great”, Isabelle Rose, has struck out on her own and is now regularly meeting customers in Keene with hot Vietnamese food cooked-to-order. Another recent addition is Pure Bliss Clean, a professional cleaning service that handles home and small businesses. Also, Kenzy Dietz of “KD Prestige Detailing” recently won Monadnock Crypto’s radio giveaway contest on 92.7 Bratt FM and decided to set up Anypay Cash Register shortly thereafter. Dietz had already been introduced to cryptocurrency by someone close to her and was elated to be the winner of the $500-worth-of-crypto giveaway. When asked what her reasons were for accepting cryptocurrency at her car detailing business, Dietz said, “Cryptocurrency is the currency of the future, so I am delighted to be a local business that accepts it as payment. Not only is it easy to accept, but it’s a great way to broaden my businesses acceptance of alternatives to paying with just cash, checks, or debit. The future is coming.”

You can read the full article over on the Monadnock Crypto blog here.

The Fourth Annual Forkfest 2020 to Include Independence Day! Jun 29th – Jul 5th

Forkfest Logo

Unofficial Forkfest Logo

Have you been to Forkfest yet?  If you have, you already know how great it was and are likely planning to return.  If you haven’t been yet, you won’t want to miss Forkfest 2020.  Forkfest is a libertarian decentralized camping festival, with no board of directors or organizer, so there’s nothing official about it in any way, but this week, Rogers Campground‘s owner Crosby Peck has “officially” welcomed Forkfesters back for the fourth annual festival happening in 2020 from June 29th through July 5th.

Of course, those are just some arbitrary dates chosen by some Forkfest old timers, who this year decided that Forkfest 2020 would move and expand to the entire week after the Porcupine Freedom Festival. Though Porcfest has yet to officially announce their dates, we have no reason to wait. For the first time ever, Forkfest will coincide with Independence Day weekend!

Rogers Campground for decades has been known for having a well-attended Indpendence Day weekend, complete with a fireworks show.  Rumor is the fireworks professional Rogers has hired for years is retiring soon, but there’s a good chance Crosby will be hiring someone else to keep the longstanding tradition going. Whatever happens with the campground’s fireworks show, Forkfest will surely be a perfect event to happen during that timeframe. Many Forkfest attendees are big secession fans who love the idea of New Hampshire independence.

Given the point of Forkfest is that attendees create the event they want without asking permission, it should be interesting to see the variety of ways independence will be celebrated across the week, leading up to Independence Day that Saturday July 4th, which happens to also be the final night of Forkfest 2020.

Pirates’ Big Gay Somalian Road Builders Disco 2019

Pirates’ Big Gay Somalian Road Builders Disco at Forkfest 2019

Something else Forkfest attendees seemed highly interested in this year was cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, DASH, and Bitcoin Cash. All the food vendors at Forkfest this year were offering their wares for those three cryptos, at least. As a result, this year’s Forkfest felt like a libertarian crypto festival, held in the woods. At one time, Porcfest felt similarly, when people like Roger Ver, Charlie Shrem, and Erik Voorhees all attending the event during Bitcoin’s earlier years. I don’t like predictions, but think it’s safe to say the crypto aspect of the event will continue and perhaps even grow stronger at Forkfest 2020.

If you want to attend, keep in mind that the demand for camping, RV sites, and hotel rooms will likely be even higher in 2020, not just because Forkfest grew significantly on its own from 2018 to 2019, but also because in 2020 we’ll be mixing with the regular Independence Day weekend campers.  Plus, since Forkfest will be following Porcfest in 2020 and it was heavily marketed to Porcfesters this year, you can expect more people to stay on if they were already attending Porcfest. Make sure you lock-in your reservations for June 29th through July 5th as soon as possible. You can visit Rogers Campground’s website and call them at 603-788-4885.

Want an excuse to stay in the Shire even longer? The long-running Porcupine Freedom Festival aka Porcfest will be happening before Forkfest in 2020, though you do have to buy a ticket to attend Porcfest, while there is no ticket required or even available for Forkfest, as there’s no organization to support. Forkfest is New Hampshire’s decentralized libertarian camping festival.  No one is in charge, so everyone is.  Hope to see you at Forkfest 2020!

Meanwhile, you may also want to connect with other past and future Forkfest attendees. It’s easy to do that with the popular unofficial Forkfest Telegram channel and also the Forkfest forum at the Shire Forums.  Want to show the world you are planning to attend?  RSVP on the Liberty.menu event here and then share it on your favorite social media!

Unofficial Forkfest Wide Logo

Unofficial Forkfest Wide Logo

My Interview on CoinSpice’s Podcast

Really old picture of me and Mark Edge

Really old picture of me and Mark Edge

Recently I had the pleasure of being interviewed on the CoinSpice Podcast with host C. Edward Kelso. We discussed my path to cryptocurrency and the benefits of pro-liberty crypto people migrating to New Hampshire, specifically the Crypto Mecca of Keene.

You can listen to the full interview here.

Thanks to C. Edward Kelso for the opportunity and check out CoinSpice for crypto news with a focus on the currency aspect of cryptocurrency.

Longtime Campus Convenience Store Now Accepting Cryptocurrency + Bitcoin Magazine Coverage

My Campus Convenience

My Campus Convenience, Keene – Now Accepting Cryptocurrencies!

As of last week, Keene now has two well-known and busy convenience stores that are accepting multiple cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC), DASH, and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Corner News, the Main Street icon for over 100 years has been accepting crypto since 2013 for various convenience items and smoking accessories, but they now have a crypto-accepting competitor in the form of My Campus Convenience.

“CampCo” has been in business a long time and is very conveniently located to the Keene State College campus, located at its northwestern end, at 152 Winchester Street in Keene, right across from Thirsty Owl, a crypto-accepting bar. Thirsty Owl’s owner, Darren Humphrey, recently took over management of My Campus Convenience and immediately implemented accepting cryptocurrencies as one of his first changes.

It’s a no-brainer. Humphrey has obviously had a good experience with cryptocurrency acceptance at the Owl. Taking crypto from customers means a business gets 100% of every sale, unlike credit cards that take away about 3% of every sale, and an even larger percentage of your profit. Unlike US Dollars or other fiat currency that go down in value due to constant inflation, Cryptocurrency also has the potential of going up – or down – in value, so many local business owners like Humphrey are holding it for the long-term. Though it’s not difficult to turn cryptocurrency into US Dollars, if that’s what the business owner wants to do.

The new addition of Campus Convenience to the growing roster of crypto-accepting Keene-area businesses solidifies our place as one of the top few cities in the world for businesses-per-capita that are accepting crypto. We beat even the “Bitcoin Cash City” of Townsville, Australia where a conference will be held this week to promote that area.

Stickers at My Campus Convenience

Crypto Stickers at My Campus Convenience

There’s no doubt what Townsville’s crypto community have accomplished is impressive, but their city’s population is over 178,000, while Keene’s is about 23,000. That means with 78 BCH-accepting businesses, according to the “Marco Coino” app, Townsville has one business for every 2,293 people while Keene’s 14 BCH-accepting locations gives it a ratio of one business for every 1,642 people. That’s great, but we are bested in the Bitcoin Cash acceptance category by Ljubljana, Slovenia where a payment processor called Elipay is having tremendous success getting allegedly as many as 220 area businesses including at least one grocery store to accept cryptocurrency including Bitcoin Cash. With 279,631 in population, that gives Ljubljana a ratio of one business for every 1,271 people.

The other main crypto spent on-the-ground here in Keene is DASH, which has been accepted by businesses across Keene since 2017. It was with DASH that New Hampshire-based Anypay pioneered their “DASH-Back” program , which pretty consistently gives instant 10% rebates to customers making a purchase at merchants who run the Anypay system. In Keene almost every business that accepts cryptocurrency from customers in real life is using Anypay’s point-of-sale. Eventually, Anypay launched a Bitcoin Cash-back system as well. Both of their crypto rebate robots are funded by donations and are active at the time of this writing.

Finally, big thanks to Bitcoin Magazine’s Colin Harper for this feature-length piece about how unfriendly the banking system is to cryptocurrency users. He interviewed both me and local liberty activist Aria DiMezzo who is the top seller at Local.Bitcoin.com – the online Bitcoin Cash marketplace.

Stay tuned to Free Keene for the latest from Crypto Mecca, as more liberty-loving crypto fans move here thanks to the ongoing NH Freedom Migration, the crypto economy here will keep getting better. And don’t forget to drop in to Campus Convenience for smoking accessories, CBD, alcohol, snacks, and more – all for cryptocurrency. Plus here’s a cool map from Anypay that not only shows you where crypto is accepted in Keene, but also when the last time was that someone bought with cryptocurrency.