Major news from the bitcoin-in-real-life hotspot of the world, Keene, New Hampshire! Now, you can get your car repaired with bitcoin at the award-winning, ASE-certified Wilder Automotive at 384 Washington Stree in Keene. Winner of the Keene Sentinel “Reader’s Choice Award” for Best Local Mechanic of 2015, owner Steven Wilder learned he had multiple customers who were asking about bitcoin. As he looked into it further, he discovered that accepting bitcoin may also get him new business through the door, as the owner of Keene-based Linux computer internet retailer Think Penguin, has said he needs some car repair done and would prefer to give his business to a bitcoin-accepting mechanic.
As stated in the radio ads that Shire BTC has been running on the Peak 101.9, Bitcoin is an international currency, but feels hyper-local. We’ve seen multiple examples of local bitcoin-accepting businesses patronizing each other. Not only do business owners get to keep more from each sale than they do from credit card transactions, but that also means more money staying here in the Keene-area economy, rather than going to megacorporate credit card companies!
Pizza doesn’t get fresher than Little Zoe’s, now available for bitcoin!
Wilder Automotive accepting bitcoin is a major level up for Keene, which until now had several smaller-ticket brick-and-mortar businesses onboard the Keene Bitcoin Network, like Main Street hair salon Moda Suo, gift shop Route 101 Local Goods, and Vietnamese food truck Bon Vivant. The announcment may attract excited bitcoiners from around the region to get their cars and trucks repaired with BTC.
Another established, award-winning Keene business that is now accepting bitcoin at their point-of-sale is Little Zoe’s Take and Bake Pizza, located in the Center at Keene on Gilbo Ave. Originally established several years ago, the unique pizzeria makes each pizza fresh and then you take the pizza home and cook it in your oven! Their delicious pizza is available with a staggering amount of topping configurations and won NH Magazine’s “Best of NH” award for 2013. (more…)
Originally launched in August of 2015, Cell 411 has since been installed 85,000 times, worldwide. Its primary purpose is to connect people with their friends, family, and neighbors in any emergency situation, from being pulled over, to a fire, to medical emergency. At that it’s been an incredible success, and it’s free to use. Now, by adding ride sharing, Cell 411 has gone to the next level. They’ve decentralized ride sharing even moreso than UBER and Lyft and Cell 411 did it without a single dollar from investors or publicity in advance. For those who have been watching Arcade City – Cell 411 has accomplished AC’s original vision while Arcade City’s app doesn’t even have ride sharing yet.
I’ve been a longtime supporter of Arcade City. Arcade City’s founder, Christopher David gave a great keynote speech at the 2015 Keenevention and is a blogger here at Free Keene. In its early days and through the summer I promoted AC on my radio show and became one of the top recruiters. However with the early September release of the current software, I was pretty bummed that ride-sharing was not included, and instead it was just a “game” involving earning and giving “karma points” to other people in the network. It didn’t make sense, especially since Arcade City already had ride-scheduling in their early 2016 app. Obviously the code from the first app could have been included in the September 2016 release and allowed drivers to get started giving people rides immediately.
Good-bye UBER, Cell 411 is here.
Arcade City had succeeded and building incredible buzz by moving operations to Austin, TX after the city council there drove UBER and Lyft out of town with their control-freak regulations. They made a facebook group, (since their old app had been pulled from the Android and Apple stores at this point in anticipation of the September-released app) and attracted 30,000+ participants into the group! The Austin facebook group garnered a bunch of media and even a police raid of the Arcade City offices.
Drivers of UBER and Lyft were understandably interested in Arcade City, which promised an app that would truly decentralize ride sharing. The original vision Chris David had was to cut the corporations out of the picture. No longer would UBER and Lyft (and their imitators) be able to control the drivers. Drivers would be able to set their own rates as well as accepted payment methods – cash, bitcoin, credit card, silver, or whatever. This vision would bring a new level of competition to the transportation business, while making it even harder for governments to target those involved with regulation. (more…)
ANOTHER New Hampshire restaurant now takes bitcoin! STREET, a trendy restaurant on the hipster West End of Portsmouth became the latest business in the Live Free Or Die state to trade goods and services for the new money. I stopped by with my partner Steven to have Sunday Brunch. He had biscuits and gravy with an avocado omelette. I had bacon and avocado in Scrambled eggs with a Hash brown. When we were done, we paid in bitcoin! Thanks STREET!
The Shire Free Church launched our Bitcoin Vending Machines in Keene and Manchester with the intention of spreading Bitcoin in furtherance of our mission to foster peace. With both machines now fully paid for, phase two of our outreach project has begun – advertising Bitcoin on local media!
Keene is unique in that it has a higher bitcoin-accepting-business-per-capita ratio than even San Francisco, the purported #1 city for bitcoin-accepting businesses. As you’ll hear in the radio ads, bitcoin is a powerful local currency that can also be used internationally. “It’s Keene to buy local”, and Bitcoin empowers local business owners to keep more from each sale, rather than sending three percent outside of the area to credit card companies.
The Peak’s Three FM Transmitters from Keene to Western Vermont
That means more money staying here in the Keene area, which benefits the entire community.
In addition, the first ad in the series specifically mentions several local mom-and-pop businesses that are accepting bitcoin, at no cost to those businesses. The entire budget for the ad campaign, which starts on October 10th, is directly sourced from our bitcoin vending efforts.
The first ad will start immediately and the second ad will be put in rotation a few weeks in. The first ad is an introduction to Bitcoin for the Keene area consumer and the second targets local business owners. Here they are:
“The Peak” (heard on 101.9 WKKN-FM Keene, 100.7 WTHK-FM Wilmington, VT, and 104.7 W284AB Jamaica, VT) will be the only radio stations where the ads will be heard for now, as we can’t afford to air them on every local station. The Peak seemed like the best choice as its “Adult Album Alternative” music format and local branding likely attracts listeners who deeply appreciate the buy local message. Listeners will be able to hear the Bitcoin ads multiple times from 3p-6a, seven days a week, starting today.
This is a historic moment for Bitcoin. While Bitcoin has had radio ads in the past, they were purchased (by Roger Ver aka “Bitcoin Jesus”) on my radio show, Free Talk Live and its network, LRN.FM. Though FTL is heard on over 160 radio stations, this Keene ad campaign marks the first time bitcoin has ever been promoted heavily in one geographic area via one of the oldest forms of media, radio. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest from the bitcoin capital of the New Hampshire and maybe even the world, Keene.
If you’re a bitcoiner who’d like to contribute to this ad run, please send bitcoin to 137bAdkwoqzVMoR6WUR6Qn9vqvuG991wFH
Representative Barbara Biggie of Milford Vows to File Bill Repealing NH’s Lone Cryptocurrency Regulation
A week after their first meeting, the “Commission to Study Cryptocurrency” has made their official recommendation to the full legislature. In the conclusion of this week’s meeting, commission chairman and state representative John Hunt of Rindge said, “Some states have done a lot of regulation. New Hampshire has chosen the seemingly most de minimis regulatory authority of what all the states have done. Obviously, the maximum de minimis would be to repeal what we’re doing and that can be left up to the next legislature. But at this time, this committee will take no position on what is the right answer.”
However, when asking each commission member what they want to do, representative Barbara Biggie of Milford said her concern is that regulation will “snuff the industry, the cryptocurrency industry in New Hampshire and around the country, so I think we should stay out of it right now, regulating-wise”. Hunt asked Biggie if she’d sponsor a bill to repeal the lone existing regulation which authorizes the banking department to license businesses as “money transmitters” who transmit “convertible virtual currency”, and she said she would!
While banking department representative Maryam Torben-Desfosses claimed they are not considering Bitcoin Vending Machines or businesses or individuals who accept and spend bitcoin as “money transmitters”, that did not assuage the concerns of the bitcoiners in the room. Those who attended the previous meeting were surprised at Desfosses’ claim that attendees at the last meeting saw value in the banking department’s regulation. Just in case the state representatives also misremembered the last meeting’s public comments, the people at this meeting (which included new faces from last time) again spoke firmly against any regulation whatsoever.
It’s frequently said that working inside the system is a waste of time, but in New Hampshire many state reps will listen to you and showing up and being heard absolutely made a difference here. That said, we need more liberty-oriented crypto-enthusiasts to move here and get active. Please join the Shire Society today and start planning your move to New Hampshire.
