I was browsing a couple Crypto news sites and came across an article about a Sex Tech event that will be meeting virtually to discuss Blockchain Security for it's workers. It made me think, how many partnerships have there been between the Sex Industry and Blockchain? I've compiled a list below of some of the most notable pairings between Blockchain and the Sex Industry.
PornHub & USDT
When PayPal abruptly stopped supporting PornHub in late 2019 an alternative payment method for it's models had to be found. PornHub turned to the Tron-Backed Stablecoin USDT in January of 2020 for payment to it's models. However this is not the first time PornHub has taken steps towards Crypto adoption. In 2018 PornHub partnered with Verge (XVG) as an additional option of payment for it's models. Pretty interesting, if you look at the chart on CoinMarketCap (CMC) the price of VXG skyrocketed (from $0.003 to over $0.005 the week PayPal cut it's ties with PornHub)
Gingr
I found one Medium article and a Twitter account with a single tweet from 2015 about this so I don't know how far off the ground they got. But their goal was to setup a platform for all Sex Workers to be able to receive anonymous, trust-less payments on Blockchain through their own coin. Doesn't seem like they got too far on this one but I wanted to include it because the idea they had here seemed like it could have gone decently far. This is how I assume Blockchain in the Sex Industry will operate in the future. Of course this platform doing well assumes the average sex worker knows what Cryptocurrency is and that it wasn't a scam to begin with.
Tube8 & Vision Industry Token
This was a short-lived partnership but one made of dreams for the average guy out there. Tube8 was paying it's users in Vision Industry Token (VIT) - a token created specifically for viewing adult content. Their idea was to increase the quality of content on the site, they would incentive their viewers to interact with the content (upvote, downvote and comment) to promote better quality content to the top. Great idea in theory.
However today it looks like VIT has since gone defunct and the partnership broken. Their website is no longer available and their 24Hr trade volume on CMC is $0.
Playboy & Vision Industry Token
This one was chronologically before their partnership with Tube8 but I do think it's just as interesting to include. In March of 2018 Playboy announced it's partnership with VIT. By August of that year reports had started to surface that Playboy was suing the company (Global Blockchain Technologies) they had paid to integrate VIT onto it's website for Fraud and Breach of contract. Global Blockchain Technologies quickly dismissed the reports and called it a "Normal Dispute" between two companies. I've not heard of a normal dispute involving legal allegations but to each their own.
Conclusion
In my mind Blockchain and the Sex Industry are a match made in heaven. Anonymity is of utmost importance in both industries. However up to this point I've not seen a practical or good application of it yet outside of what PornHub is doing in implementing Cryptocurrency as a payment method. I'm sure in the near future there will be several practical solutions out there. At this time Blockchain in the Sex Industry is definitely gaining steam as evidenced by the nearly 3 hours of articles I read about the topic, however up to this point has failed to create a practical application.
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed researching it. Thanks for following, tipping and liking. :)
If you liked this post you might enjoy reading my post on An Exchange Newbie's First Trade On Loopring.IO.
After a comment from Nicklas I'm adding SpankPay at the bottom (no pun intended)
Based on the website and the initial things I've read this might be it. The ability to send payments quickly on ETH/Layer 2 and to your desired performer (rather than a seedy studio company). This is the best implementation I've seen.
