Crypto's Initial Hope for Sex Workers Gives Way to New Challenges Crypto was
once one of the best ways for sex workers to get paid. Now, it’s scarcely more supportive
of the industry than the banking sector. Joining a slew of banks and payment providers
that have shunned the adult industry for decades, regulatory pressure is even encouraging
crypto exchanges to do the same.
“You get on an exchange for as long as you can, until they shut your ass down,” said
Allie Eve Knox, a professional dominatrix and fetish performer, during an interview with Wired.
“You quickly run out of exchange so you sit on a lot of useless money.”
Knox said
she began using digital assets like Bitcoin (BTC) in 2014, holding a QR code up to her screen
during live-cam sessions so that her viewers could send her tips. The network’s peer-to-peer nature combined
with its irreversibility of transactions made it attractive for bypassing controls imposed by centralized finance.
Yet even
if the network is decentralized, the exchanges required
to sell one’s BTC for cash are not. Since regulated exchanges today apply know your customer
(KYC) and anti-money laundering
(AML) controls,
members of targeted industries often end up blacklisted in short order.
“The whole ‘crypto is permissionless and censorship-resistant thing is a bunch of bullshit,” said Knox. She believes that she
has also been blacklisted at Plaid, a data portability network used
by major crypto exchanges like Gemini, Kraken, and Robinhood.
