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WetSpace – Porn does not interest the blockchain

The social media platform “OnlyFans” is known for its smut content. When it wanted to rid itself of this image, it scared away content creators like Allie Rae. The mother of three, nurse and porn queen finally founded her own platform: WetSpace. There, users can pay for nude content with cryptocurrencies.

Mother of three, nurse, military veteran and soon to become a millionaire – the biography of Allie Rae reads like that of a fictional character. The 37-year-old stripped bare on the Internet and celebrated great success. But what if the platform for this were to disappear?

OnlyFans lost its payment service provider

That’s what happened to OnlyFans (even if the operator later backed out). The reason: payment service providers such as Mastercard or Visa no longer wanted to support the naked teasing. The solution: simply cut out the middleman. Cryptocurrencies make it possible.

First and foremost, banks are the problem. The obvious solution then is, well, how do we get rid of the banks? Fortunately, there are decentralized solutions and cryptocurrencies.

Porn businesswoman Allie Rae to Cointelegraph

The OnlyFans business model

Started as a live streaming website and social media platform, OnlyFans was the first to be launched. It allows content creators to connect directly with their fans and get paid for it. Fans can tip a small amount during streams or pay for exclusive streaming content. However, the internet being the internet, over time it turned into a porn website.

Most are female and naked

130 million users counted the website in 2021 and about 2 million content producers. The creators did not plan for a large part of them to be female and nude. And yet it’s so obvious: you stream, dress (or undress) sexy, do all sorts of lewd things, and get some money thrown at you by the viewers. For larger amounts, the streamer invites them to private chats.

Underwear offered instead of nude photos

For some, this is quite a lucrative business, as the example of Bella Thorne showed. When she debuted in August 2020, the actress earned $1 million in one day. However, since she promised nude photos and only offered underwear, a small scandal broke out and many users demanded their money back. Among the critics were the streamers who regularly showed everything and accused her of just exploiting the platform.

Kryptos für nackte Tatsachen
Raising money via relevant websites – paid with cryptocurrencies.

OnlyFans wants to ban objectionable content

In August 2021, it came out that the website wanted to ban explicitly pornographic content from now on. This became known on the basis of leaked documents, which were available to BBC News. According to the documents, the pressure came from the payment partners, the banks. Illegal content was also involved. A few months earlier it came out that minors were using the website for themselves. Not as visitors, as viewers, but to sell explicit content. They managed to do this with fake IDs and details.

Porn streams should be a thing of the past

The ban on explicit content referred to the following areas:

  • Underage and other illegal images and videos.
  • Even perfectly legal streams and content were to disappear from the platform as soon as they were a bit too objectionable.

At least, that’s what the payment service providers, who made the payments for OnlyFans, demanded. As of October 1, the porn streams were supposed to be over. However, the provider quickly did an about-face, as Business Insider reported. Countless users complained about this decision. Because this would mean losing a large part of the revenue, OnlyFans finally relented. Nothing changed for the many streamers. Nevertheless, the incident led Allie Rae to rethink.

Mother, nurse and then porn star

Even before her rise as an OnlyFans star, Allie Rae could not be accused of leading a boring life. At 17, she joined the US Navy, where she met her husband. A year later they got married. She then tried her hand at marketing and real estate until she found her dream job: a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit. However, due to the pandemic, she had to spend some boring days at home, where she created an Instagram account.

Male fans rallied around Allie Rae

Although she only posted about field hockey and other trivia, many male fans soon rallied around her. Allie Rae was 37 when the then-nurse first sold a few photos on OnlyFans. A large fan base quickly gathered around the mother of three. By the way, she is still married to her husband. He appears in many of her videos.

All Rae becomes famous – with consequences

That her fame on OnlyFans will have consequences, she got to feel a few days before the porn ban was announced. At work, she didn’t talk about her revealing photos and streams. However, when it could not be hidden anymore, the hospital gave her an ultimatum: either she keeps her job or her OnlyFans account. Since she was now earning more from her photos and videos than she was in the ICU, she opted for the latter. Even newspapers like the New York Post reported the incident.

WetSpace and cryptocurrencies as a solution

Both incidents got them thinking. What if the banks stopped serving after all? What if they were kicked off the platform? The result was the creation of their own website: WetSpace. This platform, under construction, offers similar features to the website that made it big, but focuses solely on erotic and pornographic content. WetSpace also aims to solve the problem of online payments. Namely, one only accepts cryptocurrencies.

Blockchain does not interest porn

For websites like WetSpace, cryptocurrencies seem made for the job. Their decentralized network does away with middlemen who could deny you a payout. The blockchain doesn’t care who sends how many BTC for what purposes. On top of that, users don’t have to provide any personal information during the transaction. This is a great advantage, especially in the case of objectionable content such as pornography. Because even if these do not violate any laws, not everyone wants to have Pornhub and Co. on their credit card bill.

Features of WetSpace

  • Tip: Users can send cryptocurrencies to performers at any time. WetSpace initially only supports stable coins such as BUSD, USDT, USDC, DAI and also Ethereum or AVAX
  • Subscription: users can pay to subscribe to certain girls’ channels to stay up to date on new content
  • PPV: “Pay-Per-View” is the name of this feature, where you pay once to watch a video
  • NFTs: actresses can stamp their own content such as pictures and videos as NFTs and thus prevent unauthorized copying

WetSpace presents itself as a kind of Instagram for porn. With features similar to social media, users can follow performers, watch and share new content, follow streams and get access to exclusive content. Meanwhile, content creators get full control over their content and payments. 15% of their revenue goes to WetSpace (it’s 20% for OnlyFans).

The problem of funding porn sites

Pornography websites are mostly financed by advertising. When browsing the Internet, few people are willing to spend money on the videos and images. For the website operators, a similar problem arises as it already plagued the music industry. Why pay money for it when you can consume it for free? Or the data can be easily pulled from the Internet? Attempts to better monetize the Internet pornography business have already been made, and continue to be made.

Verge launched for Pornhub

In 2018, Pornhub introduced payments using the cryptocurrency Verge (VERGE), as reported primarily by crypto sites. While most videos were still available for free, the cryptocurrency could be used to pay for the premium offering. Later, TRON, Litecoin and Bitcoin followed. However, the desired success did not materialize. Those who do not already have some cryptocurrencies will hardly use the offer. Before signing up for an exchange, going through the verification process and buying Bitcoin, the desire is already gone.

Cooperation with PumaPay

Nevertheless, Pornhub is making efforts to push the integration of cryptocurrencies further. In addition to the coins already mentioned, Pornhub is collaborating with PumaPay, a decentralized payment network using the PMA token. At the same time, regular payment service providers are giving website operators a hard time: In 2020, Visa and Mastercard suspended payments because illegal content was said to be on the platform. This is said to involve videos showing child abuse and rape. MindGeek, the company behind Pornhub, on the other hand, defended itself against the accusations, saying that users have to identify themselves in order to upload content.

Cryptocurrencies make it possible

Since then, policies on Pornhub have changed. After the allegations, Pornhub kicked out all videos that were not from verified uploaders. A good 80% of the content disappeared overnight. According to the report, all videos on the platform came from the studios or from the women themselves uploading their own content. Thousands of such girls from all over the world earn their living by streaming and monetizing videos on Pornhub. Whatever you think of it, cryptocurrencies make it possible.

Infobox

What is Mind Geek?

For a long time, it was not known which people or companies were behind Pornhub. MindGeek, or more precisely MindGeek Holding SARL, was founded in 2007 and was called "Manwin" at the time. It is a media and IT company founded by Fabian Thylmann, a German entrepreneur and so-called "porn king." Apart from Pornhub, the company also owns other websites like Brazzers and RedTube. Today, it is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.
Does WetSpace require me to provide my personal information?

For obvious reasons, many people find it difficult to provide personal information on porn websites. WetSpace therefore does without it completely. Users only need to connect their wallet to the website and they can start using the features.

What does it take to join WetSpace as a user?

The website suggests the crypto wallets TrustWallet, Metamask or the Coinbase wallet. Registration is not necessary, nor do users need to verify their identity. The wallet automatically connects to the website.

What does it take to be a content creator on WetSpace?

WetSpace is not ready at the moment. Interested parties can sign up for a waiting list to participate in the beta launch. In contrast to the users, personal details are likely to play a role. So it should also be in the sense of WetSpace to exclude minors.

Martin Berger

Crypto Specialist | Study of Economics.
Main focus: Tokenization | Security Tokens | Cryptocurrencies | Change Management

Martin Berger

Krypto-Spezialist | Studium der Wirtschaftswissenschaften
Schwerpunkte: Tokenisierung | Security Tokens | Kryptowährungen | Change Management