Adult stars turn to crypto after banks cut them off

As traditional financial institutions continue to clamp down on the adult industry, cryptocurrencies are gradually becoming the go-to payment method for sex workers.

With this, crypto shows the importance of a permissionless system for an inclusive global financial system.

Several sexual content creators claim that they were banned from several payment platforms due to their work, forcing them to consider crypto.

A good example is Alie Evie Knox, who was banned from PayPal, Venmo, Circle, Square, and Cash App. These platforms claimed she was violating their terms of use, which prohibit anything sexual.

After the ban, she decided to educate herself on crypto and started accepting them as a payment method for her subscriptions.

Narrating the first time she received crypto, she said, “I had a Coinbase account at the time, and he said, ‘Hold your QR code right to this camera here,’ and he sent it through the camera. And I got it.”

Since then, she has emerged as one of the core crypto advocates within the industry. While her interest in crypto goes back to 2014, she’s not the only one. Several adult workers have also stated crypto gives them more sense of security and independence when it comes to their money.

Payment gateways once banned OnlyFans

The policing of sexual content reached a new high last year when popular video content platform OnlyFans announced that it’d ban sexually explicit content.

The platform, which became popular due to this form of content, announced in September 2021 that it would ban such content on its platform due to pressure from payments providers and banks.

What followed that announcement was an outrage that forced the platform to reverse its decision. But it was enough to make several performers on the platform consider crypto.

One of them, Allie Rae, began accepting crypto payment because she believed one wrong policy could affect her source of income.

Since then, she and some other performers have assembled a team of developers to create a cryptocurrency-powered adult entertainment platform, Webspace. Rae, who claims she earns $1.3 million annually, has vowed to donate $1 million toward building that platform.

Crypto serves all

Since crypto went mainstream, the industry has proved its inclusiveness as adult movie stars alongside grocery stores and other businesses have been able to accept digital assets as a payment option for their goods and services.

Apart from its uses as a payment method, the industry has played a prominent role in the world’s political system. Protesters in Nigeria and Canada had depended on the space for their funding when the authorities began to clamp down on their accounts with a centralized body.

Also, the assets have played a huge role in helping Ukraine fund its defense against the Russian invasion of its territory.