I'm looking to start a central Iowa btc meetup in the Ames or Des Moines area. I'm hoping to understand if there is any interest here or if anyone has any suggestions for such a meetup in the central Iowa area.
With all the retail locations in that area who take Dwolla thanks to Des Moines being home to Dwolla's HQ (and there being an easy way to cash out from BTC to Dwolla USD, through Camp BX) and also the ability to get fast (same-day) transfers of USD funds from a bank account to an exchange (thanks to Dwolla's FiSync transfer gateway from Verdian credit union), Bitcoiners in the area have it easy!
It makes for an easy way to plug bitcoin too. Each merchant you visit and pay using Dwolla you could then suggest to the merchant that if they also accepted Bitcoin for payment they'ld receive some additional business from Bitcoiners who have a much lower number of merchants they can buy from and pay directly with bitcoin. And since the merchant accepts Dwolla they already have the equipment (e.g., iPad tablet, or desktop system, etc.) to accept Bitcoin for payment as well.
