There’s no denying that cryptocurrency can create a safe space for sex work. Visa and Mastercard run everything as far as payment processing, taking payments, accepting credit cards, and banking goes. Before diving into the world of crypto though, there are a few things we must address within both vanilla and NSFW (“not safe for work”/adult) communities.
There is low-risk payment processing and then there is high-risk payment processing. High-risk accounts are used for accounts that typically have more chargebacks than other accounts. Things like weapons, sex toys, hospital bills, hemp products, gambling, and much more all fall under this type of account. In order to continue to do as the “safer” or low-risk accounts do, a person or company with a high-risk account must go through other third-party companies in order to be able to have an income and process digital funds.
It is still risky to go with your own high-risk payment processing company, because the chargebacks then fall on you, and you will still have to follow Visa and Mastercard regulations (just with an added fee). However, it does give you a bit of control within the non-crypto world.
“Many banks and companies single out sex workers by forcing them to pay higher fees and interest rates because they consider them ‘high-risk.'”
The previous also means that sex workers who want to work online where they are safer and would prefer an income digitally have no say-so in the fate of their incomes. This is a major setback and strips away what little securities they have left. It is now crucial that one become well-versed in the world of cryptocurrency in order to sustain themselves digitally.
Why Crypto for Sex Work?
Visa and Mastercard have once again amped up the KYC regulations of the subscription and clip sites adult-content creators choose to post to and generate revenue for daily. They are now making platforms monitor everything posted to their sites before these posts even go live. Since Twitter seems to be one of the only platforms that lightly deletes our accounts en masse, it has now become an outlet and community news source. However, frequently running across Tweets such as the ones below can feel like there is a constant attack…
It can be draining:
comply with literally every site’s policies changing overnight and it’s dramatically affecting our sales, as some sites have just removed enormous amounts of content and others have new content in review queues for days. Please, and I cannot stress this enough, PLEASE don’t send
— Goddess Alexandra Snow (@DominaSnow) October 15, 2021
we roll with the punches. Check your favorite creators links and sites for where to show support (don’t wait for us to tell you, be proactive!) and show understanding as it may take much longer than usual for us to return messages while we deal with this chaos.
— Goddess Alexandra Snow (@DominaSnow) October 15, 2021
It seems as though every week a new regulation is here to put us out of business or jeopardize the content we’ve put out over the years. Categories, genres, and niches have also been rebranded to fit the aesthetic of these regulations and further control the way we get paid. We can no longer even use words such as “hypnotize,” “toilet,” and “piss.”
Digital currency is necessary. Getting started may seem like a difficult task, and with a quick search of “how to get Bitcoin,” you are bombarded with various ways of investing your hard-earned USD into BTC. But it’s not as complicated as it seems. You have access to realms you aren’t allowed to penetrate through KYC regulations; there is freedom and a plethora of options that come with crypto-based payment systems.
In an article (quoted above) written by the ACLU, the nation’s largest public-interest law firm, they outline the extent of these new KYC regulations and the effect of these changes happening in the lives of sex workers currently:
“The policy makes it harder for sex workers to do business online and makes sex workers more vulnerable, especially those who are trans women of color… To take one example, a site like OnlyFans has one million content creators. If each of them uploaded one video in a given day, under Mastercard’s policy, OnlyFans would have to review each video before it’s published to determine whether it complies. Pre-publication review at that scale is almost impossible, and would likely be rife with errors considering the speed at which online platforms operate. This policy will make it much harder for platforms to host adult content, which will destabilize the websites that sex workers use to make a living. Additionally, this policy is not targeted to address Mastercard’s stated concerns. The policy applies only to a small fraction of web sites—those that host adult content—but all available evidence indicates these problems proliferate across all kinds of websites.”
Sex workers are already get blacklisted from other payments apps such as Venmo, PayPal, CashApp, among others; it is time to find other paths. Sex workers need other options so that we have a safety net.
So, What is Bitcoin?
According to Investopedia:
“Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency created in January 2009. It follows the ideas set out in a whitepaper by the mysterious and pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto… Bitcoin is known as a type of cryptocurrency because it uses cryptography to keep it secure. There are no physical Bitcoins, only balances kept on a public ledger that everyone has transparent access to (although each record is encrypted). All Bitcoin transactions are verified by a massive amount of computing power via a process known as ‘mining.’ Bitcoin is not issued or backed by any banks or governments, nor is an individual Bitcoin valuable as a commodity.”
Since the exchange of BTC operates through a peer-to-peer exchange, you have way more control over the transferring of your money. It is decentralized, which means (at least in the United States) that banks do not have a hand in your funds.
Think about when you place your money into a checking/savings account: there is a limit on the amount of unsuspicious deposits you can make. You must report any single transaction you make that is more than $10,000 when dealing with regular banks and the IRS’ $10,000 rule. We are surveilled daily as your funds sit in a fiat account as crypto currencies on the digital market soar.
There is no limit to how much Bitcoin you can send in a single transaction, and with anonymous wallets that trace back to nothing, it’s super easy for your BTC transactions to never even be found in the sea of the Blockchain (and with the help of wallets like Electrum). A whale (very rich investor/individual) was able to transfer $20,000 in one transaction without their identity being disclosed.
Getting Started with Crypto
To get started, make an account on Coinbase.com or obtain the Coinbase app in your smartphone’s app store. If you want an even better and more anonymous option, obtain an Electrum wallet. Here’s a guide on how to do so:
Coinbase is like the PayPal of cryptocurrency payment systems. When you purchase Bitcoin through Coinbase, you are purchasing particles of it, not the entire Bitcoin (unless you wish to and can).
Toronto-based Sex worker, entrepreneur, and law student Isobel Andrews writes:
“Cryptocurrency (or “crypto”) can be a sex worker’s best friend when it comes to paying for advertisements and collecting deposits, due to its immutable nature and relative privacy compared to bank transactions, credit cards, or payment processors like PayPal.”
You can set up your account to Coinbase, but since most of these sites are vulnerable to hacking, you can transfer out your funds to your Electrum wallet, and then from there, a new one (still in Electrum) so that your transactions are practically untraceable and you generate a fresh address not attached to a wallet that is attached to a monitored platform.
Voila! Control is back into your hands! Explore your options with crypto and make sure to do your research and your own due diligence. Alt coins can also be a great alternative to keep. Meme coins may just be the future.
Sources:
- ACLU: “How Mastercard’s New Policy Violates Sex Workers’ Rights”
- Investopedia: Bitcoin Definition
- “A Beginner’s Guide to the Electrum Bitcoin Wallet”
- “Cryptocurrency for Sex Workers and their Clients”
Mistress Lovely is an aspiring coder, kinky clips artist, and crypto connoisseur. She is a power fetishist and Feminatrix attempting to pave the way for other sex workers in tech and content creation.
Follow her @MistressLovelyx and HotMovies on Twitter and Instagram