NSFW stars flirt with crypto after banks shut down cash accounts

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NSFW internet stars say they’re relying on crypto to make a living after mainstream finance companies started terminating their accounts.

Adult performers believe that corporate America is shunning their industry and refusing to take them seriously, despite their content bringing in upward of $10 billion per year, reports the New York Post.

Financial giant Wells Fargo reportedly sent letters, dated August 25, to a raft of content creators, informing them that their accounts were to be closed. What’s more, the company gave no reason for the closures beyond saying that it “performs ongoing reviews of its account relationships in connection with the Bank’s responsibilities to manage risks in its banking operations.”

In order to continue to operate their businesses, a number of these performers say they’ve registered with a website called WetSpace, a platform that operates in a similar fashion to OnlyFans but processes payments in cryptocurrency.

The site currently accepts eight different coins, namely Avalanche, Tether, USD Coin, Ether, Binance Coin, MATIC, BUSD, and Dai.

Speaking to the Post, former nurse and WetSpace founder, Allie Rae said: “We are not at the mercy of the banks, because we are crypto and do not answer to them, therefore we do not have that threat hovering over us,” (our emphasis).

She also says that the site provides anonymity to users due to the fact they don’t have to use a credit card to sign up and view content. This, Rae says, “has proven to be of great value to this audience.”

The banks’ assault on the adult industry is just the latest hurdle that performers have had to overcome.

Last year, OnlyFans threatened to shut down NSFW content amid concerns from payment processors (the company eventually changed its mind and continued to host the disputed content), and just last week, Instagram nixed the account belonging to pornography streaming site Pornhub.

This is despite, says Pornhub, it not breaking any of the Meta-owned platform’s rules around nudity or sexual content.

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