The largest porn website on the internet, Pornhub, along with their affiliates Brazzers and Nutaku will begin accepting Verge cryptocurrency.
Other porn websites have already been accepting cryptocurrency, but the significance is derived from the fact that Pornhub is the largest porn site and one of the largest sites on the web (ranked 32nd biggest by Alexa site rankings). Pornhub has not been shy to innovation since they recently implemented HTTPS encryption, accessibility for the blind and visually impaired, and snow plow service. Pornhub even made a high quality video detailing how porn has been at the forefront of new technology development – online payments, video streaming, and VR.
Pornhub’s Vice-President, Corey Price, said that Verge is “an anonymous additional form of payment,” and that “[o]ffering privacy-focused payment options is something we have been looking to do for a while.” Verge offers privacy by layering Tor and I2P, which operate differently, but still employs a variation of peer-to-peer routing systems all on top of the Wraith Protocol. The Wraith Protocol allows users to choose private transactions within shielded addresses. However, Matthew Green, a cryptographer at Johns Hopkins University who is affiliated with Zcash, another privacy focused blockchain, said that there is still a degree of trust associated with Verge’s private blockchain and that “you just wouldn’t know until something bad happened.”
Early adopters are on the fringe
As Pornhub mentioned in their video, porn has been at the forefront of technology adoption that later went mainstream. However, the video did not mention porn’s most significant influences on technology at the turn of this past century with VHS over Betamax, Blue-Ray DVD over HD DVD, and pay-per-view. The influencing role that porn has had on technology has lead to a lot of speculation about the causes. The proposed causes can range from porn being such a large industry spread across the world to the fact that porn is often viewed as taboo and ostracized from public discourse, which thus leaves entrepreneurs and consumers to their own devices to find the most appealing technology. Whatever the reason, history shows that porn does have a significant influence on wider technology adoption.
This history is a positive sign for expanding cryptocurrency adoption after Pornhub’s partnership with Verge. Right now, Pornhub consumers are limited to Verge usage, but it does provide the opportunity for many individuals to discover and begin using cryptocurrency, which they may not have done before. As consumers explore the vast amounts of cryptocurrencies available, they will discover the pros and cons of each coin and use exchanges to branch out to other cryptocurrencies that best serve their desires.
Dash is familiar with privacy and partnerships
Pornhub said that they decided to use Verge because of its privacy features. It should be noted that Dash also offer private transactions through its PrivateSend feature along side regular transactions. Dash utilizes both features in order to satisfy the many desires of consumers without sacrificing Dash’s ability to offer low fees and fast transaction times. Despite Pornhub seemingly ignoring this, Dash continues to make significant and steady progress with other business partnerships.
The Dash community has been working hard the past couple years to partner with other companies to accept Dash since this significantly spreads awareness of Dash and satisfies some of the many desires of consumers around the world. Just in Q1 of 2018 Dash was added to 14 exchanges including Mercury Cash, Bitit, GODEX, Payza, Coinfield, and other exchanges across the world. Dash was added to CheapAir to allow plane ticket purchases in Dash, Piiko and BitRefil allow mobile refills with Dash, StrikeSocial for social media advertising paid in Dash, and Bravo Pawn Systems for Pawn Shops. Dash has also partnered with FanDuel, the fantasy sports competition website, continued partnership with Dash Aerosports and recently got featured on NBCSN, and entered the sixth and seventh Dash Caracas conferences to continue rapid growth in Venezuela.
These partnerships are just the beginning as numerous partnerships were also announced in Q1 of 2018 as well as throughout 2017. Dash has recognized the importance of not only brand awareness promotion through partnerships, but also the importance of actively increasing the number and variety of marketplaces that accept Dash. Dash is able to make strong and consistent progress through partnerships because of its unique governance and treasury system. These combined features make it easier for consumers to use Dash at their preferred locations, which helps expand the adoption of Dash.
