The Porcupine Freedom Festival, commonly known as PorcFest, is an event held annually every June since 2004 in the

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

state of

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

. The festival is the main event held by the

Free State Project The Free State Project (FSP) is an American political migration movement founded in 2001 to recruit at least 20,000 libertarians to move to a single low-population state (New Hampshire was selected in 2003) in order to make the state a stronghold ...

, a

libertarian Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...

organization that advocates for the relocation of libertarians to New Hampshire in order to make the state a stronghold for their

movement Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...

. The festival has been described as "the libertarian version of

Burning Man Burning Man is an event focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance held annually in the western United States. The name of the event comes from its culminating ceremony: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred ...

" and "the largest gathering of libertarians in the world". The festival on average hosts approximately 1,500 attendees.

Background

The

originated from a 2001 essay by then-

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

student (and later

lecturer Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

) Jason Sorens. The idea behind the project is to get 20,000 libertarians to move to

, a state with a low population where a group of that size could yield significant political influence. By 2014, about 1,500 libertarians had already moved to the state, and several "Free Staters" have been elected to the

state government A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonomy, or ...

, including Andrew Prout of the

New Hampshire House of Representatives The New Hampshire House of Representatives is the lower house in the New Hampshire General Court, the bicameral legislature of the state of New Hampshire. The House of Representatives consists of 400 members coming from 204 legislative district ...

. The Free State Project hosts two annual events in the state: The

New Hampshire Liberty Forum The New Hampshire Liberty Forum is an annual convention-style conference hosted by the Free State Project. It has attracted attendees such as U.S. Presidential candidates, a sitting U.S. Senator, a sitting U.S. Representative, state legislators, ...

, a convention-style event, and the Porcupine Freedom Festival, which is a weeklong event held at a

campground A campsite, also known as a campground or camping pitch, is a place used for camping, overnight stay in an outdoor area. In British English, a ''campsite'' is an area, usually divided into a number of pitches, where people can camp overnight u ...

Lancaster, New Hampshire Lancaster is a New England town, town located along the Connecticut River in Coös County, New Hampshire, Coös County, New Hampshire, United States. The town is named after the city of Lancaster, Lancashire, Lancaster in England. As of the 2020 ce ...

History

The festival began in 2004, one year after New Hampshire was selected as the target state for the Free State Project. The festival is named after the

porcupine Porcupines are large rodents with coats of sharp spines, or quills, that protect them against predation. The term covers two families of animals: the Old World porcupines of family Hystricidae, and the New World porcupines of family, Erethizont ...

, which serves as a mascot for the Free State Movement. The festival is known for its embrace of

cryptocurrencies A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank A bank is a financial i ...

and

precious metals Precious metals are rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical elements of high economic value. Chemically, the precious metals tend to be less reactive than most elements (see noble metal). They are usually ductile and have a high lustre. ...

over

Federal Reserve Notes Federal Reserve Notes, also United States banknotes, are the currently issued banknotes of the United States dollar. The United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing produces the notes under the authority of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 ...

, as most vendors accept cryptocurrencies such as

Bitcoin Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...

Bitcoin Cash Bitcoin Cash is a cryptocurrency that is a fork of Bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash is a spin-off or altcoin that was created in 2017. In November 2018, Bitcoin Cash split further into two cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV. History Since i ...

, and

Dogecoin Dogecoin ( or , Abbreviation: DOGE; sign: Ð) is a cryptocurrency created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who decided to create a payment system as a "joke", making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the ...

. In 2013,

Vitalik Buterin Vitaly "Vitalik" Buterin (born 1994) is a Russian-Canadian computer programmer and founder of Ethereum. Buterin became involved with cryptocurrency early in its inception, co-founding ''Bitcoin Magazine'' in 2011. In 2014, Buterin deployed Eth ...

, the creator of the cryptocurrency

Ethereum Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether (Abbreviation: ETH; sign: Ξ) is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capita ...

, attended the 2013 PorcFest along with Erik Voorhees, an early embracer of Bitcoin and a member of the Free State Project. A 2011 episode of ''

Planet Money ''Planet Money'' is an American podcast and blog produced by NPR. Using "creative and entertaining" dialogue and narrative, ''Planet Money'' claims to be "The Economy Explained." History The podcast was created by Alex Blumberg and Adam Davids ...

'' discussed the prevalence of

forge A forge is a type of hearth used for heating metals, or the workplace (smithy) where such a hearth is located. The forge is used by the smith to heat a piece of metal to a temperature at which it becomes easier to shape by forging, or to th ...

s at the festival for the purposes of working precious metals (

silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

in the case of the episode) into smaller units for sales transactions. The event in 2020, held during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, attracted over 1,000 attendees.

Jeffrey Tucker Jeffrey Albert Tucker (; born December 19, 1963) is an American libertarian writer, publisher, entrepreneur and advocate of anarcho-capitalism and Bitcoin. For many years he worked for Ron Paul, the Mises Institute, and Lew Rockwell. With the ...

of the

American Institute for Economic Research The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) is a libertarian think tank located in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1933 by Edward C. Harwood, an economist and investment advisor. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. History ...

gave a presentation at the festival wherein he argued against the

COVID-19 lockdowns Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of non-pharmaceutical interventions colloquially known as lockdowns (encompassing stay-at-home orders, curfews, quarantines, and similar societal restrictions) have been implemented in numerous countrie ...

. The event in 2021, for the first time since 2004, was a sold out event. It sold out again in 2022.

References

External links

* * * {{Official website, https://www.fsp.org/porcfest/, name=Free State Project 2004 establishments in New Hampshire Annual events in New Hampshire Festivals in New Hampshire Libertarianism in the United States Political events in New Hampshire Recurring events established in 2004

Background

History

References

Further reading

External links