Published on January 15th, 2021
Shirley Lara, Chaturbate executive, has been working in the sex industry for years now and Lara sees bitcoin as being crucial to the business. Why? Because it enables those working in the industry to be able to get payment.
Already there are sex industry platforms that are accepting bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as payment.
Chaturbate accepts 20 different types of tokens right now for those who want to make a purchase. Of the ones that they do accept the most popular for users have been ethereum, bitcoin, and litecoin.
Potential For Bitcoin In The Sex Industry Today
Some experts in this industry, including Lara, have estimated that there are thousands of cam girls who are working on different platforms and they use various forms of payment.
There are thousands of content creators working across pages like OnlyFans, and others. And for many of those industry corporations they are run by men.
But Lara is different in having worked her way to the top of the industry to now be executive with Chaturbate. And she didn’t do it by working within the industry as a performer, her skills are technical and operational.
Lara says that she doesn’t think that crypto is any sort of a temporary trend but that this technology is here to stay for good.
There has been a steady growth in bitcoin users among performers in places like Romania and Colombia and they use crypto as an easy starting point when using Chaturbate or other platforms to try and start earning money.
There are a variety of performers who are stacking sats on Chaturbate and it has introduced many sex workers to cryptocurrency altogether.
The choice of being able to have that payment freedom is critical to those working in the sex industry. Lara admits that her broadcasters do hodl bitcoin though many performers might seek to quickly cash their earnings out.
Many sex industry workers had to shift to working online as clubs and other venues closed because of COVID-19.
This meant that they went to places like OnlyFans and Chaturbate, along with others. And that also meant seeking out online payment methods like using cryptocurrency.
While that might mean a boom in social platforms seeing more content creators, it could fuel a divide with in-person service providers or filmmakers.
Sex workers have admitted that they use bitcoin for the privacy aspect of it in that they can accept payment and send payments without giving any credit card information.
Workers needed to find a new outlet when clubs and regular venues closed down. But it isn’t for everyone, as Nina Mona who is a content creator in the industry admits that she sees too much exposure from getting online to certain platforms like OnlyFans.
Rather than releasing content to a broad audience she prefers to keep it to a small amount of screened clients as each new client could become a potential threat to her.
Aside from getting payment or gifts through central platforms, sex industry workers might also operate their own crypto wallets to send and receive payments.
Now with the teledildonics market segment growing, where internet-connected sex toys can be synchronized to vibrate when payments come in, it brings the experience to a new level. These tip-activated toys are spurring even more payment action on the platforms.
Getting Paid Directly With Bitcoin
There are sex industry platforms like FanCentro and Chaturbate which already receive cryptocurrency payments like bitcoin and other coins. Workers admit that they prefer a direct transaction than a payment that might be facilitated by a platform.
They would also take some of the earnings from the workers as well. Offering cryptocurrency payments gives entertainers more freedom to pursue independence because it gives another payment option.
As one fan with FanCentro put it, who is also a crypto owner, sex workers should be paid for their work that they do.
They work hard to provide a value and a service, entertainment consumption content, and they deserve to be paid right for it.
If that means paying privately in bitcoin then that is what some users are already willing to do. There is hope that the stigma surrounding this work will be eroded.
