Bitcoin Forum

At the first sight Bitcoin is ideal for porn since it protects customer privacy and cuts payment processing costs for the provider. Like many in the community I expected for long that Bitcoin will pick up in that industry and kept wondering why it takes so long...

... until today, when I learned from an industry insider why Bitcoin is not accepted at porn sites:

1. Because nearly all porn sites have introductory offers that lead to a subscription with recurring billing on the credit card until the customer explicitly recalls it. The fees are calculated with the assumption that most customers forget to cancel at least a couple of times or not even recognize that they pay for a service that they no longer use.

2. Because affiliates - those who direct traffic to the porn site - want a share of those fees in upfront. An affiliate receives a multiple of the introductory offer immediately if someone he directed to the site subscribes for a plan. Affiliates do not want the site to use bitcoin either.

3. Porn sites have difficulties working with payment processors and are called 'high risk' industries, but not because of their customers or products, but because they themselves misuse the credit card re-bill features (see 1) and cause lots of customer complaints at the credit card issuer.

4. Biggest porn sites therefore have their own credit card processor.

Summary: Bitcoin would be beneficial for customer of porn but will not happen until the industry has any other choice.

Very interesting read, but i want to bring to your attention that a bitcoin only site exists where people preform "acts" for bitcoin
So it does exist but , for the well established sites it probably wont even work mainly because everyone who they are getting
their subscription from has no clue of what bitcoins are, if they did the price of bitcoin would rise and would benefit me.

You could always, start your own porn site, and accept Bitcoin only.

I actually thought about making one in the last few weeks.

they already have that site i cant remember what its called exactly but its like a webcam kind of thing, bitcoins only no credit cards.
LOL but in all seriousness why would you even want to run a site like that its a dirty business, and not worth it.?
The money probably isnt even that good , you will get decent income maybe depends on your advertisement

Yeah, that's what the WWW needs, more porn sites!

It's: classycams.com

why bitcoins should work for porn.

1. bitcoin was designed to prevent companies just taking out cash from your account without request, simply because you forget. and any porn company relying on this form of theft should not be in business as its not good customer service.

2. instead of paying a monthly fee of a few dollars for unlimited access. bitcoins allows small transaction. it has been proven that a pay per view of EG $x per show earns more from regular customers then a $xx a month flat fee.

3.affiliates can get paid within 10 minutes and know that there will be no chargebacks to worry about. nor can affiliates abuse the payment system as they cannot simply abuse/grab money from other peoples accounts to make their ratings/commission look good. meaning porn sites do not need the expense of high security payment processors

4. if you are using a porn site that requires credit card details and has the scammy re-bill system then you truly would be that naive to think bitcoin is not better for both customer or business

I'm willing to go in with someone else to make a BitCoin only porn site.

I offer technical expertise , programming expertise, hosting...etc


let me know

Good luck^^ But its like any other business and should be treated as such, and i dont know the diffuculty of maintaining a good profit.
I doubt a lot of profit could be made because not a lot of people heard about bitcoin maybe from ads? maybe i am wrong.

And, back to the topic the more people that use the bitcoin the better that goes for any adult site.

Pretty sure Coinbase has a method for recurrent billing, though OP's point still stands for 2 reasons: It's recurrent payment, not billing. User must initiate, obviously. There are probably complex or exotic TXscript structures to replicate that functionality, but it's definitely not in demand. Secondly, and also to OP's point, we do hundreds of Visa txns a month. Easier to get lost in the bill. Not so for Bitcoin yet. You'd notice it.

Interesting point brought up about subscriptions/monthly charges.

Makes wonder when we will have options like that with bitcoin, currently it would be quite hard to provide subscriptions in bitcoin especially if you get tricked into it and then cant dispute the charge like you can when you call your cc company.

You list more reasons why Bitcoin will be successful because it works for the average Joe and not the big companies.

Sell yearly subscriptions? You do bring up a good point about recurring payments, but even recurring payments don't work if the person doesn't have any money.

This does seem like a natural fit, and while there may be obstacles to making it work logistically - I'm thinking we'll see this develop in 2014.  Sure, the reasoning why not to do it sounds reasonable, but I'm sure there's people who would pre-pay for a year, etc, if they could use BTC. 

Recurring payments are far from unique to the adult industry and are in fact extremely common with credit cards and bank accounts. Many companies will rely on inertia on the part of consumers, and / or sales pitches in order to keep receiving payments after the customer has lost interest in the product or service. Gyms for example are notorious for this. The main reason that adult is so high risk is not recurring payments but rather that many who purchase adult services online will issue a charge back in order to protect their marriage or relationship when their spouse or partner finds out about the charge for adult services.

Now with Bitcoin recurring payments are possible and are in fact being proposed for version 0.9 of the reference client http://thegenesisblock.com/significant-merchant-improvements-planned-for-bitcoin-v0-9/ (http://thegenesisblock.com/significant-merchant-improvements-planned-for-bitcoin-v0-9/); however unlike the credit card or bank account situation the customer is always able to cancel the payments without contacting the company receiving the payments since Bitcoin is a "push" rather than "pull" payments system. The trouble with recurring payments with a "pull" model as is commonly used with credit cards and bank accounts is that in many cases the company receiving the payments is less than helpful when the time comes to cancel the payments

If You explain to models, how to use coinbase, they will make shows for bitcoins.
But if there are no requests to pay with bitcoins? Customers give only stupid proposal about paypal payment.
Now Payoneer give new restrictions about adult services too.

Models are paying from 50% to 75% for money processing, billing costs and video stream service and advertising fees under webcam sites.

Who create a platform with less costs for models under bitcoin or other - will be a winner.

All known and discussed in 10 threads before.

Was I wrong to participate based on the title tense? You are all acting as if the thread is "why Botcoin cannot ever be..." To me, IS NOT is present tense, occurring now.

doesnt free porn make paying for porn in any form kindof obsolete? i mean what kind of crap do you have to pay for? and if your fetish is so sick that you need to have cash on hand to make the firl/guy do it, dont you think it might be time to take a step back and look at your life choices? I enjoy porn just as much as the next guy but really dont see the need for pay to watch porn. just my opinion tho

If people were not stupid enough to pay for porn the entire porn industry would dry up and die. people pay all day everyday.
Porn is good as drugs, people want it, people need it and people will always want it since ancient times.

No, live shows rocks. Have You seen girls naked in public places making online shows?
People tip for that, and for many other things.

Don't forget the BIGGEST reason! Bitcoin is (mostly) anonymous!

This way you can pay for porn and not have your wife ask you about that strange charge on your credit card statement. This is a huge one for people who want to be discrete.

There are a lot of prepaid cards, some time anonymous.
No traces on other billing history.

how do you pre-pay for the card?

They can skip recurring memberships, and charge by video or image set.

This also makes it more difficult to do a siterip, where someone buys a single month membership, downloads the entire site, and cancels it right away. If someone wants to siterip the whole site, it would cost them hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

Alternatively, switch to 3/6/12 month memberships only.

Had porn sites accepted bitcoin early on, and kept the bitcoins, well, shit, they'd be sitting on a huge pile of money that would absolutely dwarf any recurring membership.

I am not into starting a porn site, but tried to sell my technology to someone operating a couple of them. Thereby I learned what I wrote in the OP and shared it like a good community citizen. That is all.

Yes, I think porn sites should use Bitcoin as it would fit their customer's need, but whoever tries to sell that to them has to come up with a method that can compete with the revenue stream of their current scheme.

It definitely is somewhat interesting discussion , but i guess you have to angle it and treat it like any other business, and whats
the point of business PROFIT PROFIT PROFIT. Can it be profit made by bitcoin? probably if you use good marketing strategies if other
business succeed using bitcoin why wouldnt this one.

1. "How it is" trumps "how it should be". Companies relying on the forgetfulness of their customers do exist, and presumably are profitable. They're therefore not going away  unless they become unprofitable.

2. Proven where? Does that work for porn, where there's an abundance of free material available, and brand loyalty is - I'm guessing - much lower than for TV shows and movies? I'm guessing there's a reason flat fees are used, see #1.

3. Now you have to either convince the affiliates to also take Bitcoin or also have a system in place to pay them in fiat, after exchanging your BTC first.

4.Again, since such sites exist, I assume some of them are profitable. Are there any sites that have managed to survive without re-billing?

edit: Point is, from what I read in the OP, it sounds like a degree of scamming is inherent to the internet porn business model, and since Bitcoin makes it harder for them to pull the kinds of scams they rely on for profit, Bitcoin isn't likely to be embraced by the porn industry soon.

in cash (https://www.lottomaticaitalia.it/servizi/lottomaticard/Lottomaticard_easy_bis1.html)  
Not available in this moment, but start to sell in short time


or with card to card or credit card deposit with this card (http://goo.gl/dwzbQG)
for US residents is not available directly, you need search some partner, for example odesk.com
this card become explicit deny of any cryptocurrency transfer and contact

You do realise that the problems you describe are a result of people trying to take other peoples' money without their consent? Maybe Bitcoin isn't the problem and porn companies just need to be more honest about how they charge people, you're seeing plenty of Bitcoin webhosts etc. popping up that do recurring payments and all they do is just send you an invoice rather than try to steal your money which is the way it should be.

I've been on the receiving end of the type of behaviour you've described from games companies, particularly SOE who tried to charge to the card I was using without my knowledge, the problem like with most things Bitcoin is with the users rather than the actual code itself.

These issues are (recurring billing.etc) are quite silly. I don't think that they will be having a major voice if porn companies decides to introduce Bitcoin payments. The main thing is that their business can increase many fold through the guaranteed anonymity.

The OP was meant to be informative for those who wonder why Bitcoin does not pick up in porn: the re-bill scams and affiliate upfront payments far exceeding the first installment, are an essential part of the internet porn industry's business model.

The porn industry will use Bitcoin as soon as they run out of card processors supporting their re-bill scheme or customers who fall for the scheme or figure how to create comparable revenue.

Unfortunately a scam that works is rather profitable (until it is not), but at the moment our honest Bitcoin has an uphill battle here. I do not advocate any emulation of their flawed model with Bitcoin but am interested to hear about honest profitable models I can bring up next time I try to penetrate that industry.

They know that, but one who attempts to increase market share this way will immediately loose all affiliates and be outcasted by the rest. Small players, new comers attempt it, but bigger ones do not take the gamble until the current scheme works.

BTC users are smarter. They don't pay to get porn.
Come on, you've got to be stupid to pay for porn nowadays. There are tons of sites which are free.

Came here to say that. But that's a short sighted argument, assuming bitcoin keeps expanding.

It's indeed short-sighted, but still somewhat valid. I think that a good portion of people who usually pay for site subscriptions aren't very Internet-savvy and don't want to go through the hassle of finding free porn (even if it's very, very easy to find).

Then again, I personally love seeing live shows and I've tipped models in the past even though I have easy access to all of the free porn I could ever need/want.

There's also the adult services industry. Adopting BTC on those could really help. Think Adult Friend Finder, etc...

How are pre-checked cross sales supposed to work with Bitcoin??? :P

Sexcoin is here  ;D
Do you understand ? each coin/each activity

Bitcoin is NOT a currency.
Bitcoin is a commodity.

Also think about, adult industry doens't want anonymous customers. They want and need personal data on the customers for there marketing & research departments.


+1 for SexCoin obvious

bitcoin will be adopted by adult industry once it's widely used and demanded as pay option by consumers.

for those who say why pay for porn, one of answers could be high quality, although that could be hard to come by due to amateurs infesting the industry. but even amateurs can provide high-er quality for pay.

Were is used for webcam models?

I dunno I had high hopes for sex coin but then there seems to be v weak development going for it and weak marketing and poor infrastructure. There is also no vision driving it.

I think eMunie has a better chance on being adopted By porn

Who actually pays for porn? I think the porn industry will have to change its business model or it'll go the way of the music industry.

The First rule of trade:

"The Seller speaks the BUYERS language" - ancient saying going back to the Phoenicians.

What this means is, as soon as there is a group of people who choose to only pay for {anything} a certain way,
A Group of sellers will adapt to reach that market.

The advantages of paying for these Services/Products with Bitcoin are obvious.

       No surprise recurring Fees.
       Far greater anonymity.
       Much safer generally (example Credit Card Thefts from site, or transaction interceptions by malware).

There are advantages for Sellers also..

       Easy (almost free) setup - at least of basic accounts.
       No money to be spent on CC security compliance.
       Nearly immediate receipt of Bitcoin (rather than up to 72 hours)
       No international financial borders to deal with.
       No charge backs.

From a quick check, it seems there are already quite a few such sites that accept Bitcoin.

In my opinion this is one industry that will adopt Bitcoin quicker than many others..

The proliferation of all these altcoins will end up doing a lot of harm for Bitcoin. What is the point in all these? One coin for porn, another for shopping.. like that? Why can't we use BTC for all of these purposes?

Users, and that money flow you can see yourself, go to myfreecams.com

Also, somewhere I read that the per capita spending for porn is highest in Japan and South Korea. Volumes are higher in the US / EU, but the revenue is not there.  ::)

explain better please, about what is that?

Webcam sites are in grow, you can check it.
Recorded video sales are down, but there still huge money in circulation

Here (http://www.avn.com/search/search.pl?criteria=bitcoin&submit.x=18&submit.y=6) are news about bitcoin in adult industry.

Webcams represent just a tiny fraction of the porn revenue. Most of the revenue still comes from DVD sales and rentals.

And regarding the US revenues, even with a population of 300 million+, the revenues are lower when compared to Japan and South Korea.

This is my reasoning. All this has come down to is a dev thinking how can he create the next Bitcoin and looking at what markets are the biggest to capture. Oh, the sex industry, let's try a coin for that. Are normal people actually going to want to keep a sexcoin wallet on their comp or phone? No. Bitcoin, yes.

Log in VK.com, make a search for video files and think what you will rent after that.

I noticed Metal Bondage and Chastity Babes started accepting bitcoin.

"Recurring with CoinBase", this is how they solve the recurring payment problem.

If they're requiring you to hold a balance in a centralised hosted wallet, it's not really Bitcoin is it. It's just using Coinbase as a bank (bad idea!).

I believe there's another issue that's holding Bitcoin back in the porn industry: they use credit cards as a sort of cheap proof of age. The assumption being parents won't allow children access to their credit cards, and you need to be of legal age to get a bank account. That seems like a fairly unreliable assumption to me so perhaps some of their chargebacks actually come from teenagers buying porn and the parents charging it back.

However with Bitcoin there is obviously no proof of age angle to it. So ..... not sure how you solve that one.

I wonder how their credit card processors can even tell the age of the legal holder, because
1) I've had a bank account since I was 8, not sure how early I could have been eligible for more than an ATM card
2) danieldaniel claims to have got an Amex gold card at age 15 without lying about his age, and has had various "adult" accounts
3) prepaid cards, which appear to some machines as full-fledged credit or debit cards, don't encode age at activation, and may be sold to minors

A solution for age proof with bitcoin could be a service that sells "adult" colored-coins for regular coins. The porn site(s) could only accept those. Certainly that site would need to do the age proof thereby requiring identification, but it would at least isolate the identity from the from the porn site.

I just found this site. A list of site you can get porn using bitcoin.

http://www.gentlybitten.com/index.php/bitcoin-smut

Most of those sites are either cam sites or softcore ones. Sadly, I don't think that at this point of time, no hardcore porn site accepts BTC.

Why is that "sadly"?

We need hardcore porn sites, i.e the ones run by well known US/EU based companies to accept BTC. It will result in a lot of publicity for Bitcoin.

Buy domain, buy content and sell it for Bitcoin or another coin. Will to start?

porn.com accepts bitcoin.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=395218.new#new