NASHUA – Whether you’re getting a haircut, buying a car or brushing up on your rock climbing, chances are you can do it in New Hampshire without spending a dime.

A handful of Granite Staters and private merchants have taken to using a cryptocurrency called Bitcoin do everything from collecting their wages to paying their bills.

The currency first entered use in 2009, with the first bitcoins trading for cents on the dollar. Since then, the idea has blossomed in popularity and value – today, a single bitcoin trades for more than $800, although that figure has fluctuated wildly.

Bitcoins are a digital-only means of exchange created by an anonymous programmer in 2009. They aren’t a currency in the traditional sense because they have no government backing, and there are no printed bills or minted coins involved.

Bitcoins are traded on a person-to-person basis and verified by encoded cryptography, which is unique to every bitcoin.

In New Hampshire, Bitcoin is most popular among social and financial libertarians, who see it as a way to avoid financial systems controlled and manipulated by the federal government. Some also see bitcoins as a potentially lucrative investment, although a risky one.

Darryl Perry, the owner of a publishing company in Keene, said he started buying bitcoins around January 2013 and now has more bitcoins than money in his bank account. He also uses the currency to pay royalties to some of this authors.

“I like the idea of alternatives to the Federal Reserve,” Perry said. “There should be as many alternative currencies as possible.”

Perry has also been doing his best to spread the concept of Bitcoin beyond the confines of his own business. He recently convinced a Keene convenience store called Corner News to start accepting the cryptocurrency as a form of payment.

On Jan. 26, Perry became the first person in New Hampshire to sell a car using Bitcoin. The car, a 2006 Nissan Sentra, was purchased by a man named Robert Mathias with a down payment of 2.3 bitcoins, worth about $2,000 at the time.

Mathias then got a vanity license plate for his fresh new ride: Bitcoin.

In Merrimack, Christopher Martino has begun accepting bitcoin at his barber shop, The Barber’s Tool Shed.

“I just started taking (bitcoins) this week,” Martino said. “It took me a little while to research applications to do it and how to accept it.”

Martino, who identifies himself as a member of the Free State Project, said he’s inclined to “believe in a gold-backed currency” and doesn’t like the amount of paper money printed by the Federal Reserve.

Martino said his barbershop accepts bitcoins because it matches his political beliefs. He also thinks it’s a business savvy move.

“There’s people out there that have bitcoin, and they want to go to businesses that support Bitcoin,” Martino said. “I don’t think people are going to drive here special to use bitcoin, but it’s an option for people.”

Martino, who has been in New Hampshire for only six weeks, said he came to the state from Texas because of the “Live Free or Die” mentality.

In three weeks, Stephanie Murphy will be joining many from across the country in traveling to New Hampshire to participate in the Liberty Forum, which will be Feb. 20-23 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Nashua. A half-dozen of the forum’s sessions will be about aspects of Bitcoin.

Murphy is a voice-over artist who first heard about Bitcoin on the syndicated radio show “Free Talk Live” in 2011. She said she now prefers to be paid using Bitcoin because, “It allows me to have more control over my finances.”

Murphy even offers a 20 percent discount for employers who pay her with it.

“I’m sure people in power don’t like Bitcoin because it takes power away from them,” Murphy said. “People are desperate for money in their control, instead of it being controlled by politicians who can affect their lives in negative ways by manipulating money.”

Murphy said she received her first bitcoin as a gift and since then, she has been hooked.

“The only problem is the volatility can be an issue,” Murphy said.

The value of a bitcoin can change drastically from day to day, a problem that users of the currency blame on insufficient liquidity. More bitcoins can enter circulation only through an increasingly difficult computerized decryption process known as “mining.”

Because of volatility, many bitcoin holders are nervous to part ways with their share of the currency.

“The trend has been that if you hold on to them long enough, their value goes up,” Murphy said. “I don’t think, personally, there’s a difference between hoarding and saving. … We live in a culture that does not value saving.”

Murphy said she eventually hopes to be able to use bitcoins for everything, and likes the currency most because it protects anonymity and she can use it without a transaction fee.

“I don’t have to ask permission to use my own money,” Murphy said.

The only business in Nashua known to accept bitcoins is Vertical Dreams, a rock-climbing gym on East Otterson Street.

Mike Thompson, a climbing coach and an assistant manager at Vertical Dreams, said only one customer has paid his balance since the bitcoin payment option was set up. That customer also helped Vertical Dreams set up Bitpay, a software used to convert bitcoins to dollars.

“We’ve had a lot of people come in and say, ‘Oh, my god, you accept that?’?” Thompson said.

Thompson said most customers who show interest in paying with bitcoins at Vertical Dreams are reluctant about letting go of the currency. He also thinks many people have been turned off to the currency because of media coverage of the anonymous currency’s connection with the drug trade.

“It gets a lot more negative coverage than positive,” Thompson said, speaking about the documented use of bitcoins to buy illegal drugs. “Mostly, that’s what a lot of people use it for.”

Last year, when the Federal Bureau of Investigations shut down the online black market known as Silk Road, more than $28 million in bitcoins was seized. A year later, authorities continue to arrest those who bridged the gap between the Silk Road and cryptocurrency.

Nonetheless, Bitcoin believers continue to advocate for the currency’s use, and people like Martino believe it’s in their interest.

“There’s a market for it. … There’s people who have bitcoin to spend,” Martino said. “If I can make money off of it, I’m going to make money off of it.”

Bradford Randall can be reached
at 594-6557 or brandall@nashua
telegraph.com. Also, follow Randall on Twitter (@telegraph_bradr).