Pornography was the killer app Web 1.0 and now it has its tawdry reputation and not-safe-for-work (NSFW) content to the ICO world many real blockchain use cases. This article weeds out the scams from the true players to present a landscape of today’s adult entertainment industry tokens.
A table of 16 ICOs and projects can be found at the end of the article.
Industry protocols, privacy coins, rewards, crypto-collectibles, snake-oil scams. It seems like every legal aspect of the adult entertainment industry has multiple blockchain plays, with brick-and-mortar stores and established brands all getting into the action. The key use case is facilitation of payments that are both secure and private. This is necessary because as a SpankChain blog post reads:
“[Payment companies] have systematically denied service and redlined the adult entertainment industry. They have routinely closed accounts of small businesses, artists and independent contractors whose business happens to be in the sex industry.”
Paypal and Square are just two popular services with policies that prevent their services from being used to buy legal services from the adult entertainment industry. Furthermore, and more on the borderline of legality, in 2015 when Visa and Mastercard stopped their services from being used to pay for personal ads on Backpage, a site that had been used by sex workers. See Love, Sex, Bitcoins: The Rise of Blockchain in the Adult Industry for more information.
Many cryptocurrencies have been created for the adult entertainment industry, but there is little proof that these are legitimate or widely used. Although we don’t want to give sh-t coins credence, Strategic Coin did identify at least four adult industry-focused coins that are trading on an exchange but have little to no volume. However, there is hope as a new wave of tokens like Wankcoin and Eroiy completed ICOs recently. Another approach is to use a non-industry specific privacy coin like Monero to facilitate trade. For example, the industry-leading website Pornhub now accepts cryptocurrency such as ZenCash and Verge.
Two successful ICOs are working on payment systems. In May 2018, BunnyToken’s ICO raised 8.5 million USD to build blockhain-based payment solution. Intimate raised sign 9.5 million USD in its June ICO. A pseudonymous reputation framework for decentralized markets, intimate’s solution is the closest we’ve seen to an attempt to create an industry-wide blockchain protocol
Another model is to create a token to be used within a closed ecosystem. SpankChain is the most prominent example of this approach and currently has a market capitalization of over 13 million USD. Several other tokens claim to facilitate payments between live streaming entertainers and clientele. There are also “gentleman’s clubs” and adult resorts that have created tokens, but these appear to be more of a gimmick as opposed to a real tokenized economy.
This article would be incomplete if it didn’t cover crypto’s use by sex workers, whether they are a model, camgirl, escort or prostitute. Coindesk’s Leigh Cuen is one of the leading experts on the topic. She believes that sex workers are already using bitcoin for transactions as well as a store of value to save towards retirement. Last year, Cuen wrote about an app that claims to be the “Uber for escorts”. Since then, several other solutions have been created that provide useful blockchain enabled functionality for sex workers and its customers. For example, LOVR Network is a tool to book appointments with sex workers that will use blockchain to store information about health certificates and enforce KYC compliance. This European focused project is expected to complete its ICO at the end of the month.
Adult Industry ICOs & Blockhain Projects
The original article has an interactive version of the table images below. The following tokens are mentioned: Adult Entertainment Token; Adult Chain; Animation Vision Cash; BunnyToken; Eroiy; ExtraLovers; Intimate; KenCoin; Live Stars; LOVR Network; OKOl; redBUXA; SpankChain; Vice Industry Token (VIT); VogoVA and Wankcoin.
Featured Image: NSFW Koszulka by Danny Beers
Originally published on Strategic Coin, a website that is no longer operational.
