For the third year in a row, local cryptocurrency users in the Crypto Mecca of Keene, NH gathered at local crypto-accepting pizza joint, “Little Zoe’s” to celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day. The annual celebration, set on May 22nd, commemorates what is regarded as the first real-life cryptocurrency purchase in 2010, when Laszlo Hanyecz purchased two pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoin (BTC). This year, the holiday was covered by 60 Minutes.
In Keene, a bunch of people gathered from as far as Amherst, MA and Brattleboro, VT to celebrate with delicious pies from Little Zoe’s Pizza in Keene, NH where for years owners Ed and Melanie Forster have offered take-and-bake pies of excellent quality. This year, Little Zoe’s acquired an oven for their store and are now offering their pizzas hot, with outdoor seating as the seasons allow.
Crypto users gathered at Little Zoe’s Pizza in Keene for Bitcoin Pizza Day 2019.
Today was a perfect day with warm weather and plenty of sunlight for the various crypto fans, old and new, who gathered together in celebration of a form of money that eliminates governments and banks from the picture and delivers a useful, secure form of international money that does what it promises. Cryptocurrency allows value to be sent securely and near-instantaneously, across the globe or right next door, for next to zero fees.
In addition to being useful for sending value globally, cryptocurrency is also attractive to local mom & pop business owners. That’s because with cryptocurrencies, the customer pays the very small fee to send their crypto to the business. This is the reverse of a credit card transaction where the business pays a typically 3% fee, out of their profits for each transaction. In contrast, that means that when accepting cryptocurrency, the business keeps 100% of the sale.
Do you take the road less traveled?
Unfortunately, due to a disagreement among Bitcoin programmers, a “hard fork” or schism happened in August of 2017 that resulted in there becoming two competing “bitcoin” – Bitcoin (BTC) vs Bitcoin Cash (BCH). By that point in time, there were already thousands of would-be competitors to Bitcoin, like DASH, Monero, and others. Because Bitcoin (BTC)’s programmers failed to fix the problems with BTC’s escalating network transaction fees, the competitors were able to successfully offer drastically lower cost alternatives, right on time, when the market most needed alternatives.
Enter Anypay.global, a Point-Of-Sale crypto payments processor that also launched in August 2017 and is based in nearby Portsmouth, NH and co-founded by longtime Keene activist and Free Keene blogger, Derrick J Freeman. Anypay wisely launched offering two options for local businesses to easily accept cryptocurrency at the point-of-sale: Bitcoin (BTC) and DASH. Local businesses who were already accepting BTC were eager to adopt DASH as a lower-fee alternative, because it was the right option for their customers, as DASH’s sending fees are usually less than $0.01 worth of DASH, whereas today’s Bitcoin (BTC) fees can be as high as over $2.00 worth of BTC.
Since then, even more local businesses have begun accepting cryptocurrency including DASH aka “Digital Cash”, BTC, and the newer competitor to BTC, Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Most local businesses accept all three, thanks to the Anypay app, which has expanded to allow business owners to accept multiple cryptos including even Ripple (XRP), Dogecoin (DOGE), Horizen (ZEN), Smartcash (SMART), and a privacy coin called ZCash (ZEC).
Thanks to Anypay, people paying in DASH or Bitcoin Cash at local merchants like Little Zoe’s are able to receive 10% back into their wallet, near-instantaneously. Last year, Anypay launched a promotional feature called “DASH-Back“, which provided DASH-paying customers with a 10% instant rebate along with a DASH-bonus to the business owner. As Anypay’s public charts reveal, the program continues to pay out, with over 52 DASH given out over the course of the program. That’s over $7,900 worth of DASH at today’s DASH price, approx $152.
Recently, Anypay quietly activated “Bitcoin Cash-Back” or “BCH-Back”, which also offers a 10% instant rebate to any customer paying with BCH. From observing customers at recent meetups happening every six days in the Keene area, it appears that DASH and BCH are the clear kings of retail crypto use here in the Crypto Mecca. I discussed the situation here in greater detail on the recent episode of Dash Force News, where I compared the local crypto scene here in the Shire to the scene in Tokyo, another world-capital for crypto-acceptance-and-use:
If you’re new to cryptocurrency and want to learn more, sign up for the free “Bitcoin 101” class at the Bitcoin Embassy NH at 661 Marlboro St. in Keene. If you love freedom and crypto and don’t yet live in New Hampshire, you ought to seriously consider it.
I had the honor of being interviewed on “Bitcoin Cast” on YouTube. I was able to discuss why New Hampshire is the Crypto Mecca and why liberty-friendly cryptocurrency users ought to move here. Thanks to host Christian for having me on. Here’s the video:
It’s been in the cryptocurrency news over the last several weeks, but many do not know what the world’s first-ever “Hash War” is all about. Thankfully Bitcoin Embassy New Hampshire is now here and Head Ambassador Chris Rietmann scheduled an event that happened yesterday afternoon to talk about it.
What is the history of the conflict brewing between rival factions of the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) community, and what might happen in the all out “Hash War” that’s supposedly to begin this morning at just before high noon today (11/15), Eastern time? If you watch the video, you’ll find out all we know:
The first car purchased at a dealership directly for Dash | AutoFair Nashua
Something big happened this week.
The famous “Bitcoin Pizza” story was overshadowed by a punky, lesser-known cryptocurrency quietly occupying the number 12 spot on CoinMarketCap. The implications of this week’s event will be felt for decades and change the way the mainstream views cryptocurrencies forever.
One question plagues cryptocurrency users everywhere. Whenever you talk with doubters about the numerous advantages of using digital cash over fiat, invariably the response comes:
“But what can I buy with it?”
This question drives you nuts. You explain that at first, there was nothing you could buy with it. Then, there was pizza. Then coffee shops and yoga studios started accepting it. Then you could use a handful of janky websites to buy some (sometimes expired) digital gift cards. But now there is something much more real. More tangible. More serious.
A brand new car.
Yeah, you read that right. This week, the largest chain of auto dealerships in New Hampshire, AutoFair, sold a vehicle off one of their lots in exchange for DASH (digital cash).
A year ago, Bitcoin (BTC) was in pretty bad shape with its fees climbing to ridiculous levels due to some arbitrary network limitations. This caused a lot of problems in the marketplace with people not wanting to use their BTC to make purchases at local businesses around the Keene area who were accepting the world’s first decentralized cryptocurrency.
Thankfully, Portsmouth-based Anypay came along to save the day at retail with the launch of their Point-of-Sale crypto merchant payment processing system that added DASH as an alternative to BTC. With the ability to choose what to accept at their POS for the first time ever, local merchants eagerly jumped onboard with Anypay and got set up to accept DASH in addition to BTC. As a result, customers were able to avoid the BTC fees by paying with the sane, fast, affordable DASH.
However, only retail’s problems were fixed by Anypay. Cryptocurrency activists in the area were still hurting because the BTC fees had killed one of the most effective forms of direct outreach – printable Bitcoin tips! We had for many months been giving away printed Bitcoin (BTC) tips to local restaurant servers and others with whom we wanted to gift BTC. These tips were made possible by an innovative site called BCTip.org. Sadly, the insanely high Bitcoin fees at the time made using BCTip impossible to justify in late 2017. Since BCTip had at one time been an advertiser with Free Talk Live, my radio show, I reached out to the operator and asked if he were considering adding any other cryptos to the site and he said he was not but pointed out the site was open source.
Creating six $10 Cryptotips with Bitcoin Cash.
So, I teamed up with Michael Hampton of Ringing Liberty and he actually programmed a whole new site from scratch to do the same thing that BCTip did for Bitcoin (BTC), except do it for the alternative cryptocurrencies like DASH and Bitcoin Cash. We launched quietly with a public beta early this year with DASH as the only initial crypto available to print as tips. This month, I’m happy to announce we’ve now added Bitcoin Cash (BCH) to the site and it’s now the default option when creating new tips.
These printed, business card-sized tips are super-easy to use. Just visit Cryptotip.org and create a batch of tips in the US Dollar value of your choice (or international currencies including GBP, EUR, RUB, JPY). Choose which crypto you want to use to fund the tips, DASH or Bitcoin Cash, put in your refund address and print up the tips. Cut them out and then put your tips in your wallet so you can easily give them out wherever you go.
When your recipient visits the URL on their tip, they’ll be given a brief introduction to cryptocurrency and instructed on installing a wallet so they can redeem their tip into their crypto wallet. If they never redeem it, YOU GET YOUR CRYPTO BACK! When you create the tips, you choose the expiration time. THe default is one month. Once the tips expire, you get any unclaimed tips back in your wallet. Cryptotip is a killer app for crypto and a low-risk way to spread cryptocurrency to new people.
They make great stocking stuffers or other gifts as well. Maybe you can think of new, fun ways to give away your Cryptotips!
Don’t forget, a Cryptotip should only be given as a bonus on top of an already good cash tip. You want the server to take you seriously and look at the Cryptotip so be sure to be a good representative of crypto and leave your Cryptotip in addition to your cash. Visit Cryptotip.org to create and print as many tips as you’d like!
