How to get paid in crypto
(and turn it into bills paid and food on the table)
By Leah Callon-Butler, Co-Founder and Chief Impact Officer, intimate.io
OnlineCamSummit 2018
For the upcoming sophomore edition of the OnlineCamSummit, our Chief Impact Officer, Leah Callon-Butler, spoke with Thomas Skavhellen to explain how to get started with crypto and make it useful in your everyday life.
Taking place 1st to 4th November 2018, the OnlineCamSummit is an opportunity for cam models to view digital presentations from top business leaders in the webcam industry, to learn how they can increase competitive advantage to grow their business and increase profits.
It’s 100% free but you must register here: https://www.onlinecamsummit.com/register/
With inspiring speakers such as Bella French, Co-Founder and CEO of ManyVids; Lindsey Banks, Brand Ambassador and CamStar; LiviaChoice, PhD researcher and author of The New Camming Perspective; Jay Kopita of YNOT; and Thomas Pedersen, Founder of DivaTraffic… This is event is not to be missed by ambitious cam entrepreneurs. You can view the full schedule here.
Thomas and Leah’s pre-recorded seminar will air on Day 3 of the OnlineCamSummit, Saturday 3rd November.
Thanks to all the generous sponsors that make this event possible, especially partners of intimate.io, MojoHost and YNOT.
IMPORTANT NOTE
This article is meant as a resource for cam models and content platforms interested in increasing business revenue by offering customers the option to pay in crypto. It may seem quite lengthy and complicated, but it certainly doesn’t need to be that way. If you have specific needs, we can develop a learning seminar and/or create tailored educational materials to assist our partners and their models get onboard with crypto.
Can you help us understand what Crypto and Cryptocurrency really is? And why is this better than “real money”?
If you’ve ever been denied a bank account, or had your PayPal account frozen, or been charged crazy high fees — just because of your line of work — crypto could be an alternative for you.
Even so, many people still feel quite intimidated by crypto. Some people don’t trust it. I’ve heard crypto called everything from magic beans, to snake oil, to Monopoly money.
This is totally understandable because the space has been dominated by so much media hype, speculation and technical language. There just aren’t enough people making an effort to explain crypto in simple terms or making it easier to use in our everyday lives.
So forget the BS, here are a few (hopefully) useful pointers to help you understand crypto:
- It’s a form of money that isn’t issued by banks or governments.
- This means it’s not ruled by the same operational guidelines that generally cause trouble for anyone trying to process payments in the Adult Industry.
- It’s super secure, so you don’t need a bank to verify transactions on your behalf.
- You can send it across borders without incurring the usual international transaction fees and processing times.
- You can transact safely with total strangers without either of you having to reveal any of your private or identifying information such as real name, address, bank details, etc.
- Crypto makes chargebacks impossible. After someone sends you crypto, no one take it away from you (like a bank would do in the case of a customer complaint).
- You also have to be vigilant about protecting your passwords and private keys, as there is no ‘reset password’ option in crypto. You really do have full control over your money!
But the big takeaway is this:
You could be losing revenue if you don’t give your customers an option to pay in crypto.
So how can I start getting paid in crypto?
Some of the major platforms, such as ManyVids, LiveJasmin and Chaturbate, are already offering customers an option to pay in crypto. This is great because:
- A growing customer segment is actively looking for ways to spend their crypto.
- If a customer’s credit card declines, they could pay with crypto instead.
- Anecdotally, I’ve been told that crypto customers tend to spend significantly more than people paying with credit card. This makes sense because it’s so much easier and quicker to pay in crypto, plus you get the added benefit of privacy (i.e. the transaction is not going to show up on their credit card statement).
So it’s a good idea to align yourself with a platform that allows their customers to pay in crypto, because you can reap all the benefits without having to deal with crypto yourself.
If you are an independent model or a business owner who would like to start accepting crypto, you can install a crypto payment gateway in addition to all your other existing payment options.
Some examples of crypto payment gateways already used by the Adult Industry are CoinGate and GoCoin. However, keep in mind that these are adult-friendly services, not adult-specific, so there is a risk that they could revoke support to their adult customers at any time, like what happened with Bitpay.
intimate.io is an adult-specific crypto payment gateway designed by and for the Adult Industry. We already have 40+ payments integration partners across our global partnership ecosystem (you can see them all here). If you’d like to chat about installing our software on your website, I welcome you to contact me directly at leah@intimate.io or via our company Twitter.
What services that you know are offering to pay models in crypto today?
Many models have troubles with banking and their accounts can be frozen without warning, which causes a real headache. Add to this the high cost of international transaction fees and crypto is a very attractive option for studios that need a reliable method to pay their models.
I often hear from studios and payment processors who would LOVE to pay their models in crypto. “Personally, I think crypto is amazing, saving both the performers and the members from high transaction fees,” says Andra Chirnogeanu, who looks after Public Relations for Studio 20. “We did offer for our models to be paid in crypto, but only one of the girls had a wallet that we could transfer funds too.”
So your studio may be open to paying you in crypto, but first, you’ll need to set up a crypto wallet. There are many wallets to choose from and each one has pros and cons.
Personally, I love the Trust Wallet App because it’s so easy to download to your mobile phone and you can start accepting crypto payments straight away.
If you’ve never received any crypto, here’s how you can get some right now.
- We love the Trust Wallet App. Download it for free from the App Store.
- Follow the set up prompts (shouldn’t take more than five minutes).
- Get a pen and write down your ‘recovery phrase’ (you’ll need this to recover your funds if you lose your phone for whatever reason).
- It’s a good idea to write down your recovery phrase at least twice, on two separate bits of paper, and hide them in two different places. Remember, there’s no password reset on your crypto wallet, so it’s really important that you give yourself a backup!
Congratulations! You now have a crypto wallet. Now let’s make a transaction!
- On the Home screen of your Trust Wallet App, click ‘Ethereum’
- Click ‘Receive’
- Click ‘Copy wallet address’ (or take a screenshot of the QR code)
- Paste your wallet address into an email (and/or the screenshot) and send to me: leah@intimate.io
- We’ll send USD $25 worth of ITM straight to your wallet (ITM stands for ‘intimate token’)
NOTE: This offer is limited to the first 100 wallet addresses received. You must be a registered attendee of the OnlineCamSummit 2018. You can send an address from any ERC-20 wallet, it does not have to be a Trust Wallet.
Some additional notes on your Trust Wallet:
- It accepts Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens only.
- Ethereum is the second biggest cryptocurrency in the world (the first is Bitcoin).
- There are thousands of ERC-20 tokens. They are all designed for different purposes. ITM is an example of an ERC-20 token which has been designed to meet the needs of the Adult Industry.
- There are many Ethereum-based wallets to choose from, not just Trust Wallet. You might like to check out Metamask or MyCrypto.
- If you want to accept Bitcoin, you’ll need another wallet for this. As a starting point for research, you might like to look at BRD or Mycelium.
Also, mobile wallets are super easy to use and very convenient, but they are not the most secure solution. Think about it like this…
- When I go out shopping, I pop my wallet in my handbag, and I only take as much cash as I need. This is how I think of my Trust Wallet: Very handy for day-to-day spending.
- I would never carry my funds for retirement or my life savings around in my handbag! No, I make sure that my larger sums of money are put away somewhere very safe and secure. I’m not worried if it’s not the most convenient option, because I don’t need to access that money every day.
So, if you decide to get more involved with crypto and you are holding onto larger sums, you should look into getting a hardware wallet, such as Ledger Nano S (the one I showed you in my talk) or Trezor. A hardware wallet allows you to take your crypto offline while you’re not using it, so it’s not as quick and easy to access, but it’s a better way to protect your money over time.
Just like safe sex, safe crypto is important too!
But still it’s hard to use crypto to pay your bills and buy a coffee, so how do we turn the cryptocurrency into bills paid and food on the table?
Earning crypto is the easy bit. Turning your crypto payments back into ‘local money’ (also know as ‘fiat’) can be a little trickier, but it’s really no worse than going through the motions to research and set up any new account.
You need to choose the exchange option that is right for you and it’s hard to offer guidance without knowing your unique circumstances, like, where you live in the world, the type of crypto you’ve received and your requirements for privacy.
So to get us started, I’ll offer a basic overview of your options and I’ll assume you’ve accepted payments in Ethereum or Bitcoin.
Some people like to ‘sell’ their crypto to a crypto exchange such as (but not limited to) Gemini, Kraken or Coinfloor. These guys exchange your crypto for your local currency and can deposit it into your nominated bank account. Just make sure that the exchange of your choice ‘pairs’ with your local fiat, be it USD, GBP, AUD or whatever you need to withdraw.
One of the most popular crypto exchanges in the world is Coinbase, but their user guidelines explicitly exclude anyone working in Adult (just like PayPal and the banks). So in this case, I’d advise you steer clear of Coinbase to avoid the risk of having your account frozen or shut down.
Another option is a crypto debit card. This is an interesting overview of some of the current front runners in this space, that allow you to load Ethereum onto a card that you can spend in-store. Although this is still an emerging market so there may be some limitations to usage.
Something to consider for all the above options, in relation to your privacy:
- Up to this point, all your transactions have been private
- As soon as you go through a crypto exchange that pairs with fiat and works with banks, you’ll need to complete KYC
- KYC stands for ‘Know Your Customer’ and you’ll hear crypto people talk about it a lot
- It means you have to submit your ID to prove who you are (banks require this by law)
A lot of people working in the Adult Industry despise KYC because they don’t want their work identities to be traced back to their private lives. If you can relate to this, a resource that doesn’t always require KYC is LocalBitcoins.com. But generally, KYC is currently inescapable due to local regulatory controls on fiat.
For the ones that have been following the market or heard words about it, it looks very unstable and the value of different cryptocurrencies is going up and down. What can we say to the people that are worried that their money will drop in value overnight?
Just as you should be mindful of volatility in foreign exchange if you accept international currencies, you should be mindful about volatility in crypto.
Intense media hype has made crypto sound like an erratic beast, but if you compare it to other currencies, stocks and financial markets, it’s not all that unique. When I was living and working in Singapore, while being paid in Australian dollars into my Australian bank account, I remember losing about 20% because I didn’t withdraw my cash in local dollars before SGD went up in value. It’s an exchange risk that everyone deals with and it pays (literally) to educate yourself.
To put things into perspective, over the past eight weeks, Amazon fallen more than 25% from its highest valuation and lost over $250 Billion in market value. That’s more than the entire crypto market is worth! So yes, crypto has its ups and downs, but if you look for it, you’ll see that happening in most financial markets.
Having said all that, if you are really worried about your crypto losing value, just move it out into fiat as quickly as you can. Later down the track, when you get more familiar with crypto markets, you might feel more confident and decide to learn how to trade. Or you might decide to stash it away and keep your long-term savings in crypto. The latter is a popular option for people who really believe that crypto is a powerful innovation that will change the world for the better.
What about the legal regulations, is buying cryptocurrencies legal everywhere? What about taxes and stuff?
Different countries have different laws pertaining to crypto. Some, such as (but not limited to) the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, European Union, Singapore, Japan and Korea are friendly to crypto. Others have banned crypto or made it illegal. The majority sit somewhere in the middle with no official stance on the matter. You should do some Googling to check your local region.
And yes, you have to pay taxes on all your income, just like anything else.
Tell us about intimate.io and where you guys comes into the picture.
intimate.io is a crypto payment option for the Adult Industry. We are currently building a payment gateway which can be integrated into any existing web platform with a simple plugin or API (to be released soon). In addition to all your existing payment options, this will allow your customers to pay in Ethereum (ETH) or intimate tokens (ITM).
As a partner to intimate.io, you also benefit from the network effects of being part of our global partnership ecosystem which spans every segment of the Adult Industry including adult content, pleasure products, business services, escorting (in jurisdictions where it is legal, such as Australia and the UK), dating, education, health, gaming, events, travel, media and more. Customers holding ITM are looking to spend with our partners and our primary goal is to help them do it.
If you’d like to know more about intimate.io, please visit our website and join our social channels:
And feel free to reach out to me personally — any time — on leah@intimate.io or @leah_cb on Twitter (please follow)!!
