Words by Edward See Yuen Wong
Art by Dedrey Erng

Theoretically, you could be paying for a threesome, but by the time you climax your coin will only be worth a sad handjob.

Michael is 40 years old. His cold, dilapidated demeanour reflects an aura of both incompetence and impotence. The pimp tries hard to hide any glimpses of condescension, but it’s difficult when you’re looking at someone like Michael. He digs his hand into his pockets…he has forgotten his wallet.

He then asks, in a nervously apologetic tone, “Do you take DickCoin?”.

Prostitution is the oldest trade in the world, and has blockchain technology seduced us into a revolutionary or unnecessary conundrum in the way we satiate our primal lusts?

You’re here to read about sex, but let me brief you on crypto payments. Paying with decentralised cryptocurrency tokens allow transactions to be made autonomously without the need for a third party. So, your partner need not waste their time scouring over credit card bills and bank statements for evidence of monkey business – your sins are digitally safe.

Cryptocurrencies, like people are highly volatile and whilst its libertarian values of a decentralised world do allow hopes for a utopian future, humanity…cough cough ‘millennials’ should tread with caution not to buy into a vicious cycle of self-delusion and naivety. After all, why would anyone pay for sex with a deflationary cryptocurrency like Bitcoin which has a limited supply of 21 million coins. Theoretically, you could be paying for a threesome, but by the time you climax your coin will only be worth a sad handjob.

The old school way to do anything dodgy is to pay with cash, but in the crypto-world we ask… “Why not Bitcoin?” Bitcoin and some other cryptocurrencies are not really anonymous, as all transactions since the genesis of the coin are permanently open for the public to view. Such is the fundamental principles of blockchain technology.

So long as you know the Bitcoin wallet address belongs to a naughty sexual service, it’s bound to get a feckless partner or two in trouble.

Abolishing the ‘sex tax,’ lowering transaction fees for online premium porn payments, can be achieved through the integration of crypto payments – meaning the current credit card fees won’t be fucking you.

Spankchain is a crypto economy powered service built on Ethereum, aiming to reduce transaction costs from 50% to 5%, and that’s a huge victory against this medieval ‘sex tax’. Many adult stars in the industry have already voiced their support for Spankchain, including Kayden Kross who was the spokesperson for the coin’s initial offering.

Many adult stars work hard for their mullah. What happens if their payments get reversed because some high-profile client got caught with his “pants down” in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or if some poor girl gets exploited in one of those infamous ‘casting couches’ and doesn’t receive compensation for bodily fluids secreted onto her eye? At least with Spankchain, we can ensure that these women’s labour rights are respected. Adult star Janice Griffith writes that, “The discrimination we face in dealing with payment processors seriously hinders the inherently innovative nature of our industry, and that’s why I’m so excited about SpankChain.”

It doesn’t just have to end there. Imagine a reality where you actually get paid to watch porn? Sounds like the perfect fantasy, so feast your eyes upon ViceToken. The online ad industry is a chaotic mess, and with the prevalence of piracy you can bet that barely a penny ends up in the hands of content producers. This is because advertisers pay an advertising network, who then pays the agent of the content producer. Each of these parties take a cut and, because the content producer doesn’t usually control the distribution network, very little of the revenue is shared with them.

ViceToken aims to change all that by ensuring that content producers get rewarded for creating content, curators get rewarded for identifying relevant content and, most significantly, viewers get rewarded for watching porn via a decentralised payment system.

The sexual revolution of the 21st century looms upon us all. Whilst many local brothels in Melbourne are open to the idea of accepting cryptocurrency payments for their services, none actually have their digital wallets established yet. Regardless of whether the ‘killer-app’ for the sex industry champions privacy, the labour rights of sex workers or rewards porn viewers in favour of a more equitable porn advertising industry; it truly is a turn on to learn that there’s so much more to this digital revolution than just Lambos and accidental billionaires.