by Ian | Feb 23, 2018 |
Ron Paul Speaks at Anarchapulco 2018 to a Full House – Photo by Luke Rudkowski
Unfortunately, due to certain prudish elements Porcfest made a critical error and jumped the shark in 2016. After many longtime attendees dropped out in protest, the event has re-branded itself as a family gathering. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it has limited the event’s turnout for the last couple of years. According to attendees of the last two years, Porcfest is just not what it used to be.
According to our discussions with organizers over the many years my radio show, Free Talk Live, broadcast from Porcfest, the top turnout they had was about 1,700 – that number reached after about a decade of events.
Now in just its fourth year, Anarchapulco has already hit 1,700 ticketed attendees! For those unfamiliar, Anarchapulco is a hotel convention in Acapulco, Mexico that is attracting a very diverse, international audience. Attendance more than tripled between 2017 and 2018’s events. This year, for the first time, it was SOLD OUT!
Adam Kokesh joins from the Free Talk Live broadcast table at Anarchapulco 2018.
Most of the event’s sponsors were cryptocurrency-related including prime event sponsor Bitcoin.com, DASH, PIVX, and others. In fact, as they did the previous year, the final day of Anarchapulco was completely dedicated to crypto-related speakers. They called that Cryptopulco.
Like last year, music was an important part of the convention with nighttime performances from Wu-Tang, Jordan Page, Backwordz, and others. Art was also once again present with artists creating beautiful works right in the main hall at the front of the stage. The location was spectacular. It was held this year at the Princess resort right on the beach in Acapulco.
No attendee I spoke with had anything bad to say about the event – it was all rave reviews. Everyone I spoke with is planning to return with friends in 2019 and tickets are already available at Anarchapulco.com for 2019. They’re moving to the venue’s largest event room and can next year hold approximately 4,000 attendees. Expect 2019 to sell-out as well, so get your tickets soon. We hope to see you there.
If you want a taste of what it was like to be there, we did several days of broadcasting Free Talk Live from the event and featured a bunch of the speakers and sponsors of the event on-air. Here they are in chronological order:
Thursday, February 15th, 2018:
Friday, February 16th, 2018: (more…)
by Ian | Feb 2, 2018 |
Hundred Nights, Downtown Keene, NH
Ever since, I’ve been a supporter of the unique approach that Hundred Nights has taken to helping the homeless. Rather than give them a place to stay every day of the year, Hundred Nights opens for the hundred coldest nights. At 7am, all those staying overnight have to get their stuff and leave for the day. They aren’t completely out in the cold, as Hundred Nights also operates a drop-in center open year-round, where the homeless can work on finding jobs, putting together a resume, or just get warm.
Hundred Nights’ BTC Wallet QR Code is 13rPdujR7Gg2v8pGHEF1UwCAP9gVjb6j8v
Given that the bid was so low, it was decided that a matching 1% of a BTC (worth around $150 at the time) would also be donated to Hundred Nights, rather than just $25. I dropped in to the office of Hundred Nights’ Executive Director Mindy Cambiar and helped walk her through signing up with Coinbase. While I’m not a big fan of Coinbase as a company, they do make it easy for people with bank accounts to acquire cryptocurrency as well as convert it to USD if they need or want, so I still recommend them to newbies. Indeed, within a short time, Hundred Nights was ready to accept cryptocurrency donations and the addresses are up now on their website. Whether you live in the area or not, if you’re a cryptocurrency user, please send them a donation to thank them for embracing the future of money!
As of now, Keene’s independent homeless charity is now accepting cryptocurrency including Bitcoin Core (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH)! Here are the addresses to which you can contribute: (more…)
by Ian | Dec 31, 2017 |
The grand opening of Portsmouth’s Free State Bitcoin Shoppe in September
Journalist Melanie Plenda does a thorough job in her story and gets some really useful and insightful quotes from the business owners she interviewed.
You can check out the story here on the Union Leader’s site.
If you’re a liberty-oriented cryptocurrency fan, ask yourself if this level of positive cryptocurrency news coverage is happening in your area. If not, you really ought to consider moving to the crypto-Mecca of New Hampshire. Here are 101 reasons why you should.
by Ian | Dec 13, 2017 |
Border Patrol Agents Hassle Us Over Recording Video of their Checkpoint
Good news! The privacy-invading internal border patrol checkpoints that appeared in New Hampshire’s North Country this summer have been challenged in court by the NH Civil Liberties Union!
From their press release:
As stated in the ACLU-NH’s motion, during these border patrol checkpoints, the Woodstock Police Department (“WPD”) and the New Hampshire State Police separately worked in concert with United States Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) to circumvent the independent protections provided by the New Hampshire Constitution against dog-sniff searches in the absence of a warrant or reasonable suspicion. Specifically, federal CBP agents used dog-sniff searches in situations where New Hampshire law enforcement would have been barred from conducting similar searches. Resulting evidence from these federal searches was then turned over to state law enforcement for drug prosecutions. (more…)
by Ian | Dec 13, 2017 |
Darryl W Perry addresses the crowd during the conference.
Video of the conference has now been posted, and while the quality could be better, it’s better to have it than not. Of special note is the presentation from Keene-area cryptocurrency business-owner Chris Rietmann (2:02:50) and Free Keene‘s Darryl W Perry on a panel discussion about the future of blockchain (4:47:00).
Looking forward to next year’s conference!
by Ian | Dec 8, 2017 |
All Cryptocurrency’s Total Global Value Over $420 Billion!
What a ride! The total market cap of Bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies combined passed $420 billion for the first time yesterday! For some perspective, keep in mind that the global market cap passed $100 billion for the first time in early June. It hit $200 billion five months later in early November, then about three weeks later hit $300 billion. It only took ten more days for the total market cap to pass $400 billion.
With some exceptions, overall, the rest of the cryptocurrency prices trend upward when Bitcoin Core (BTC) is going up. Bitcoin Core has been on a meteoric rise, with nearly a 2000% increase in its US dollar value in the last twelve months! Yesterday, BTC eclipsed over $16,000 according to BitcoinAverage.com. Two days prior to that, it was at $12,000.
When will these steady gains come to an end? Hard to say. Many fear a huge crash is coming, but then again cryptocurrency is uncharted territory. Just because there was a big crash in bitcoin in 2013 doesn’t mean anything for what’s happening now. The market was so small then by comparison to today. If you look at the market cap chart above, you can see that “big” crash at the end of 2013 – but it barely registers as a little speed bump, peaking then at around $13 billion, when compared to the monstrous $420 billion of value in all cryptos today.
Corner News’ owner Roberta Mastrogiovanni poses with her store’s brand new Bitcoin Vending Machine!
Obviously, rule number one of investing is don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose. If you’ve got money in cryptocurrency and you’re spooked and want to cash out, go ahead, just don’t cash it all out. Also, consider diversifying into other cryptocurrency besides BTC. That said, rule number one of bitcoin has always been to hold on for the ride. Don’t let the downs get to you. They will come at some point; the only question is how deep the price drop will be and for how long. It’s important to keep perspective – we’re still in the early days of this. Even though bitcoin is coming up on its ninth year of existence, it’s still young compared to all other forms of money that have been with us for centuries. This is new territory and anything can happen.
We’re all subject to our emotions and beliefs. I got spooked and sold some of the Shire Free Church‘s bitcoin for cash prior to the much-feared “Segwit2x” fork of Bitcoin that was supposed to happen in November, but never materialized. That bitcoin would now be worth three times as much USD had we held it. (more…)
