Chasing the Bitcoin Boys in the Crypto Capital of the World
A tour of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where cryptocurrency diehards are leaving the U.S. dollar behind
The people of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, have always hated rules. A shipping town first settled in the 17th century, Portsmouth was by 1864 home to 120 bars, 30 brothels, and three police officers. It’s a place where a young exhibition shooter named Annie Oakley spent her summers giving free shooting lessons to women, and it’s a place where Blackbeard, among other pirates and privateers, allegedly left buried treasure.
Today, it’s a place where a Tesla Model X SUV bearing the state’s “Live Free or Die” plates zooms by as I walk to the Seacoast Repertory Theater, the lobby of which houses a Bitcoin ATM.
When I arrive, I quickly discover that the term “Bitcoin ATM” doesn’t mean it’s a thing you stick a debit card into exchange for Bitcoin. Instead, it’s a cube that eats your cash and spits Bitcoin into a cryptocurrency wallet app on your phone. Which means that to buy cryptocurrency at this Bitcoin ATM, I have to find an actual ATM, withdraw cash, then return to the Bitcoin ATM and give it my money.
“It only takes hundreds,” says a guy in the lobby who has borne witness to my struggle. He’s a local who…
