The town of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, has embraced cryptocurrency to the point where it is accepted by nearly every business in the city. The sparsely populated state of New Hampshire may seem like an unlikely place to be on the cutting edge of a technology like this, but the area is actually filled with just as many early Bitcoin adopters as you would find in silicon valley, thanks to a group of activists known as The Free State Project.
The Free State Project is an organization that encourages freedom-oriented individuals from all over the world to move to New Hampshire, for the purpose of building communities with like-minded people. For many people who are a part of this effort, their interest in alternative currencies and disdain for the Federal Reserve System led them into the realm of cryptocurrency many years before it became a mainstream tech phenomenon.
Due to the close-knit community, small businesses were able to experiment with the technology and test how it could with point of sale transactions in real time. One of the best early experiments to test cryptocurrency for retail transactions took place at The Free State Project’s annual campout event “Porcfest.” At this event, vendors selling anything from t-shirts to food accepted Bitcoin in the spirit of working outside of the system.
Many of these vendors had businesses back home where they would also implement these same measures, and many of their customers were inspired to use this currency in their own lives as well. This has created a ripple effect, and made New Hampshire a sort of Cryptocurrency Mecca in the United States, even for people who don’t have anything to do with The Free State Project. As far as regulation, the state is one of the most friendly in the country towards users of cryptocurrency.
Last year, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu signed a bill, HB 436, which makes NH the first state to explicitly protect cryptocurrency from regulation, opening the door for more widespread use and adoption in the state.
Unfortunately, over the years, the legacy Bitcoin blockchain has suffered from scaling issues, and is now impossible to use as a point of sale currency due to high fees and slow transactions. The Bitcoin Cash fork has sought to address these scaling issues in many ways, but there is also a wide range of other currencies that have already made significant progress in solving these problems.
In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the currency of choice is Dash, since it works perfectly as a point of sale payment system, with instant transfers and low fees. Last year, the city became the first in the state to install an ATM machine that offered services for Dash.
Steven Zeiler, founder of digital currency company AnyPay which installed the machine said “Dash is newer than bitcoin and is more widely used on the Seacoast. Dash offers faster confirmation times and greater privacy than Bitcoin.” In a recent CNN segment that featured Portsmouth, Joël Valenzuela, chief editor of Dash Force News was interviewed about why this was the perfect place for an experiment in crypto.
“It some of has the fewest excessive regulations, its the most freedom-oriented permissive, accepting climate, so this has made it a natural place for people trying out different things,” Valenzuela said. I
t is important to note that the CNN anchors don’t seem to have any clue what they are talking about, as the one host remarked that Dash is “legal tender” in the city. While Dash is widely accepted in Portsmouth, alternative currencies are not considered legal tender.
The other host seemed to think that if she paid her electric bill in cryptocurrency, that her bill would rise and fall with the price. In addition to being a cheaper and faster alternative to Bitcoin, Dash also invests in various projects, both charitable and professional, to spread the word about this technology and to show its true potential. In addition to funding the alternative media, Dash has also funded youth programs in Africa and food charities in Venezuela.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:
My name is John Vibes and I am an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. I write for numerous alternative media websites, including The Free Thought Project @tftproject and The Mind Unleashed. In addition to my first book, Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance, I have also co-authored three books with Derrick Broze @dbroze : The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality, Finding Freedom in an Age of Confusion and Manifesto of the Free Humans
I just won a 3-year-long battle with cancer, and will be working to help others through my experience, if you wish to contribute to my medical bills, consider subscribing to my podcast on Patreon.
Even though there's a lot of tribalism within the crypto space, it's great to see the technology taking root at the local level. I don't use DASH myself, but I would love to visit New Hampshire some day and just spend DASH all day.
Here in Manchester, New Hampshire, us Free State Project folk have done everything from following police cruisers with cameras to keep them clean to putting quarters into parking meters in order to starve the system of the opportunity to rob unsuspecting citizens with tickets. It's not just rallies in Concord, though those can be fun, we run for office at all levels too. It's super loose as far as an organization, no one is handing out cards as far as I know, it's more of a mindset to be sure. We are active out here though and love to help free thinkers, Thanks for the shout out bud!
Nice. Am a bit surprised that Developing nations are not leading the wave for the implementation of Crypto, considering it has the power to level the playing field. If they let First World nations take the initiative first, they may never catch up
Wow! That is a very good news for crypto! At least we know now that certain individuals or community is open to the idea of digital cash and crypto. It won't be a surprise if the future is all about digital money.
This is really good news. Cryptocurrencies will slowly take place of fiats and in a long run they might replace fiat currencies. However, without addressing the basic issues like slow transaction speed and high transaction costs with the increasing size of blocks, availability of too much cryptos, centralization of power in few hands etc, this initiative cannot success.
Thanks for sharing cryptocurrency valuable news.
I appreciate your crypto news.
Best of luck
Mass adoption despite the shadow bans is going to be tricky. Alot of money in the market cap. It needs to flow somewhere why not New Hampshire...
I know where I'm going if I end up moving to the states.
Its about time... we have been waiting.
No it doesn't. Next time I go up to Portsmouth NH I will check but that seems unlikely.
Porcfest vendors mostly do, that festival is no where near Portsmouth. Mostly rich yuppie types in Portsmouth, all the freestaters are in Keene.
That’s awesome
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Thanks for sharing. I've smashed the upvote button for you! This is great news as more adoption is the key to crypto growing globally.
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