Ian Freeman for City Council At-Large

Vote Freeman for City Council At Large on Oct. 8th

Vote Freeman for City Council At Large on Oct. 8th

This year, I’ve thrown my hat in the ring for the Keene at-large city council election. The city clerk’s office requested a candidate statement, so I’ve sent them an essay that you can find here on my campaign website at ianfreeman.nhliberty.info. In short, I’d like to get rid of the BEARCAT armored tank the police acquired against the will of the people, end enforcement of victimless crimes, abolish useless and counterproductive city bureaucracy like the Parking Enforcement and Zoning and Code Enforcement departments, and make taxation voluntary.

You can read my full statement here.

Please come out to the primary election on October 8th and vote for me and other pro-freedom candidates like Nobody for Mayor, Aria DiMezzo for Ward 2 Council, Robert Call for Ward 4, and Conan Salada for the Ward 4 special election. Then mark your calendar for general election on November 5th, and “remember, remember” to come vote for any of us that made it through the primary!

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.

Liberals Surround Man, Yell and Prevent Him from Walking at Straight Pride Parade

When I heard the first ever Straight Pride Parade was happening just an hour from my house, I knew I had to go. I brought along my video camera and a microphone with the goal of conducting as many interviews with interesting people as possible. No gotchas, just straight questions: “What brought you out today,” and “What do you think of the event?”

While I am pouring through yesterday’s footage, I came across 4 minutes of particularly defining footage. A man walking down the sidewalk gets blocked by a woman, and then a group of people, and prevented from moving. He yells for help but his calls are unanswered. The masked thugs revel in their positions of power and his vulnerability. They have deemed him the enemy. Why? That is unclear. But they have him. And they are going to project all their anger and hatred onto him. He smiles. He does not relent.

Here is a 2-hour video featuring all my raw footage from the event. You can feel as if you were there yourself!

Bitcoin.com’s YouTube Show Discusses Keene’s Role in Bitcoin’s Early Days

Free Talk Live host Mark Edge recently traveled to South Korea to visit with Bitcoin.com founder Roger Ver. In addition to hosting an episode of Roger’s weekly Bitcoin Cash news show, Mark and Roger also sat down for a special episode where both talk about how they found out about Bitcoin.

Naturally, the Crypto Mecca of Keene, New Hampshire plays an important role in Bitcoin’s early days. You can watch the video here:

Union Leader Newspaper Endorses Nobody’s Campaign for Mayor of Keene!

NH's Top Newspaper Regularly Features Libertarian Activists

NH’s Top Newspaper Endorses Nobody!

Last week, Nobody filed for this year’s Keene mayoral election and Free Keene broke the news. The next day, Nobody was interviewed by a reporter from the Union Leader, the major newspaper based in Manchester. The UL then published their report on Nobody’s campaign on Friday, which was the first mainstream media story on Nobody.

Nobody’s filing for mayor was also picked up by Coin Telegraph, which is a major cryptocurrency news source. They also published the same piece in a few other languages.

News reports are to be expected during a political campaign and the Nobody story definitely has viral potential, but no one expected an endorsement to come from the editorial board of the state’s top newspaper, which happened this weekend in the Union Leader’s Sunday edition!

Newspaper editorials are considered to have come from the entire editorial staff of the paper and is therefore unattributed to one particular writer. For the record, I’m including the full text of their editorial piece below. Please visit ElectNobody.com to learn more about Nobody’s campaign. (more…)