Now, the gigolo-turned-television star-turned voluntaryist talk show host and now published author has made the move to New Hampshire!
When I asked him to comment on what pushed him over the edge to deciding to move over 2,700 miles for more freedom, he said, “Your talk at Anarchapulco 2017 first sparked my interest. I ended up meeting [then Free State Project president] Matt Philips the next day and he invited me to speak at PorcFest. That got me intrigued. Then I was invited to speak at FreeCoast Fest and Liberty Forum. With my involvement in crypto and the ability to really ‘live it’, along with people I liked asking me to make the move. I just decided to go for it. I’m glad I did.”
Here’s the first episode of Vin’s show that he’s released since making the move where he and his co-host cover moving to NH, cryptocurrency, psychedelics, and liberty as a spiritual evolution. Great show! Welcome home, Vin.
P.S. You’ll be hearing more from Vin this week as he’ll be guest co-hosting Free Talk Live with me and Mark Edge this Tuesday evening from 7-10pm Eastern. You can listen live at Free Talk Live’s site, or watch our video feed via the LRN.FM Twitch.
I’m excited to announce that decentralized blockchain-based media protocol called LBRY.io is now hosting the over 900 videos from the Free Keene YouTube channel!
Yes, that’s more than a decade’s worth of video! Thanks to LBRY, we’re no longer subject to YouTube removing our videos, since they’ll be ingested into the censorship-free LBRY system as well.
Based in New Hampshire, LBRY has contributors from around the globe and has welcomed Free Keene, even sending an email announcement to their followers letting them know about the Free Keene LBRY channel. Before you click on that, you’ll need to install the LBRY app (available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS).
While LBRY does allow its content creators to monetize their videos via their cryptocurrency the “LBRY credit (LBC)“, Free Keene’s videos are free to download and watch and you don’t have to watch ads! In fact, every video you download with LBRY, you also host (like file-sharing networks), so you’re contributing to the LBRY just by watching. It’s a pretty cool system and I’m really pleased that Free Keene is in early as a featured content provider.
I look forward to the day when decentralized media storage and service is helping protect more content globally from corporate and government censorship. Please check out LBRY.io, download and run their app, and please subscribe to the @FreeKeene channel for the latest, censorship-free NH-liberty activist video content!
Now that Keene’s original Bitcoin and DASH vending machine has been majorly upgraded to the top-of-the-line General Bytes brand, the Shire Free Church was able to move the popular and rock-solid Lamassu brand Cryptocurrency Vending Machine to a new location in Keene!
I’m excited to announce that Thirsty Owl, directly across Winchester St from Keene State College, immediately stepped up to take the Lamassu. Thirsty Owl, (formerly known as D’s Cafe) offers beer, wine, and liquor along with excellent and affordable food like sandwiches, tacos, burgers, and even breakfast all day. Owner Darren Humphrey began accepting cryptocurrency at the register in 2017, including Bitcoin Core (BTC) and DASH and was excited to host the area’s third public CVM.
Now, two of the area’s three CVM’s are open seven days a week in downtown Keene, with Thirsty Owl extending cryptocurrency availability into the late night in Keene, as it closes at 2am Thursday through Saturday and 11pm Sunday through Wednesday. You can see full location detail, machine info, and hours on the Thirsty Owl’s new Coin Radar entry here.
The cryptocurrency-accepting bar in Keene, Thirsty Owl, now features a CVM!
Thirsty Owl is also the destination for this week’s Keene Crypto Network Meetup group. We’ll be there at 2pm today (Sunday) so if you have questions about cryptocurrency, there’s no better place to go than our meetup. If you can’t make it, we have meetups every eight days.
This also means Keene continues to be the dominant cryptocurrency hotspot in the Northeast United States and one of the top on the planet. Not only do we have a high amount of cryptocurrency-accepting businesses per-capita (more than major cities worldwide), Keene also trounces bigger cities like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Manchester on CVMs per-capita!
If you’re into cryptocurrency and you aren’t living in New Hampshire, especially the hotspots of Portsmouth and Keene, you’re missing out.
Now we’re proud to announce another major upgrade. As of today, Route 101 Local Goods will now be home to a top-of-the-line General Bytes brand Cryptocurrency Vending Machine selling both BTC and DASH. (You can check it out on the CoinATMRadar site here.) The new CVM is massive and attractive, with a huge touch screen interface and beautiful color-cycling LED lighting. General Bytes is the top CVM manufacturer in the world today and they’ve really earned that distinction.
Keene has also earned its distinction as a cryptocurrency hotspot, having the longest-operating CVM in the Northeast United States and one of the highest concentrations of cryptocurrency-accepting-businesses-per-capita in the world! For a while, our CVM was the only one northeast of New York City, until the Shire Free Church launched our machine in Manchester in 2016.
Route 101 Local Goods sells cool NH-made products and accepts crypto!
In the last several years, people have traveled from across the Northeast United States to use our machine. Its low price in comparison to other BVMs is worth the trip, plus the customer service from its location, Route 101 Local Goods, is unmatched. Store owner Chris Rietmann is a huge cryptocurrency advocate and even gives his customers 5% off any item in the store – if they pay with cryptocurrency – and Rt. 101 accepts a BUNCH of them.
In late 2017, we added DASH (aka “Digital Cash”) to the machine, making it the region’s first Cryptocurrency Vending Machine! In fact, both DASH and BTC are accepted by multiple businesses in the Keene area. More announcements about that will be coming soon, so stay tuned here to the Free Keene blog for the latest on the cryptocurrency evolution happening here in New Hampshire.
By the way, you haven’t seen the last of the Lamassu. It’s still an excellent unit and in great shape after serving customers day-after-day. It’s staying in Keene, but I can’t announce the new location yet. Soon!
I still can’t believe it. I just watched this video by CNN about a New Hampshire man who is able to live his entire life on cryptocurrency. I’ve come close, but he’s got even me beat. Truly an impressive feat. To learn his secret, watch this video:
Now, in just the first quarter of 2018, an explosion of competition has hit the Manchester area. Two national Bitcoin Vending Machine operators have entered the NH market and added several machines. One company called Coinsource dropped three BVMs into Manchester back in late January and within a month, a Nevada-based company Coincloud placed a BVM one block north of the original CVM at Murphy’s Taproom in Manch at a vape shop called Vaporamas.
Manchester’s CVM Explosion, as of March 2018
That same company has also placed units in brand new New Hampshire markets, also at vape shops in Nashua and Salem! Finally, New Hampshire’s newest BVM just went online about a week ago in Manchester’s Mall of New Hampshire in the food court. It’s a smart location – people sitting around eating have more time to get curious about the machine and maybe check it out. The operator of the mall unit is the brand new “Simple BTC LLC”.
That’s a total of 13 Cryptocurrency Vending Machines (though the units from Coincloud, Coinsource, and Simple BTC are BTC-only at this time) in and across Southern New Hampshire. Sadly, the Twin Mountain BVM in the North Country closed when the gas station housing it went out of business last year. Compare NH to Massachusetts, where according to the excellent website “Coin ATM Radar” there are 24 CVMs for 6.79 million people, which is one machine for every 283,101 people. In NH it’s 13 CVMs for 1.35 million people, which is one for every 103,846 people. New Hampshire is crushing Massachusetts with more affordable rates at its machines and nearly three times more CVMs-per-capita! NH even beats out NY, CA, and FL ranking at #5 nationwide for CVMs-per-capita, with almost ten machines per one million population (using 2015 numbers and data from Coin ATM Radar). You can see where your state ranks on this spreadsheet. (more…)