March 2019: End of month wrap-up
Something happened this month that reminded everyone at intimate.io — why we do what we do.
Returning to our Philippines HQ after a week in Hong Kong for Asia Crypto Week, intimate.io co-founder, Leah Callon-Butler, was detained by Filipino border police and searched for over an hour. Her passport was taken and she was charged with bringing illegal goods into the country.
Those illegal goods were a stack of Smile Makers vibrators that she and fellow co-founder, Nathan Smale, had been lugging around the world to sell at crypto events for the purpose of demonstrating the recently-launched intimate.io payment gateway.
Filipino law categorises adult toys as obscene and immoral items that are prohibited within the country.
“It’s absolute BS,” said Mattias Hulting, co-founder of Smile Makers. “The law is very vaguely phrased — who’s to say what’s obscene or immoral? — and sets the stage for a legal impasse or corruption,” he said, when we reached out for advice on the matter.
Smile Makers are one of 27 merchants across the world that have signed with intimate.io to offer their customers the option to pay with crypto at checkout.
“In reality, most countries that have prosecuted behind ‘obscenity laws’ have done so on the basis of pornography, especially child pornography, or at its most conservative, graphic depictions of sexual activity or genitals,” said Hulting. “Our [Smile Makers] products don’t fall under any of that, so there is no legal precedent for claiming them to be obscene. And they are certainly not illegal — in fact, I have even spoken directly with the Philippines Department of Health about them, and they can issue a certificate of exemption for us,” he confidently advised.
Luckily, Leah wasn’t denied entry, but the customs officials did confiscate our vibrators.
The experience was far from smile-inducing, but it was a stark reminder of the harsh stigma that is still attached to human sexuality around the world… Which is exactly the motivation behind our vision for a sex-positive future.
PRODUCT
Since we launched the intimate.io payment gateway at the end of January, we have added several ERC-20 tokens and this week we will also add Bitcoin.
Changpeng Zhao, CEO and Founder of Binance, was particularly excited to learn that — thanks to intimate.io — he can now buy a vibrator with BNB…
See his Tweet here and a screenshot below. Thanks for the shoutout CZ!
In the last week, we’ve also finalised the API documentation and added sample code for any merchants wanting to integrate. For any merchant interested in adding crypto to their checkout process, email merchants@intimate.io.
Busy times ahead as we move onto additional integrations, finalise the Partner Portal V1 and commence our mobile project.
THE CRYPTOSMILES SERIES
The CryptoSmiles Series was launched on Medium to celebrate those visionaries who were the first in the world to buy a Smile Maker via the intimate.io crypto checkout at CryptoSmiles.Store.
So far, we’ve heard from Jaide Barclay and Sam Davies. We’ll be posting more Q&A interviews with customers of intimate.io over the coming weeks.
AROUND THE WORLD
Leah was in HK for Hong Kong Blockchain Week (4–8 March), speaking on a panel about ‘Blockchain Trends 2019’ at Block O2O, as well as a special appearance to celebrate Women in Blockchain for International Women’s Day — read all about it here.
Leah returned to HK again for Asia Crypto Week (11–17 March) and Nathan joined this time too. This was a brilliant opportunity for networking as we continued to build our presence with the blockchain community in Asia.
A real highlight of the week was the TenX event where TenX, Circle and The Floor discussed the recent advances in Stable Coins and announced the launch of TenX cards in HK — more info on that coming soon!
IN THE MEDIA
There’s nothing quite like seeing your brand featured in Rolling Stone… We would know because on 21 March 2019, the iconic publication featured intimate.io in an article about problems with payments in the sex industry. It was titled: How Cam Models are Finding Freedom in Cryptocurrency.
The journalist learned about intimate.io through cam model Glitteri Gabi, who discusses her crypto allegiance in the article. A long-time supporter of intimate.io, Gabi is famous for her interactive sex ed forums in our Telegram channel. Our friends at SpankChain got a great review too!
Leah was named by SmartCompany as one of Thirteen inspiring women in Australian startups and small business. She also appeared on three podcasts:
- Blockchain Pro Podcast with Adriana Belotti — Stories of people working to create the decentralised future.
- Think: Digital Futures by 2SER with Jake Morcom — The Adult Industry Goes Crypto, featuring Mattias Hulting (Smile Makers) and Adrian Lee (University of Technology Sydney).
- Digital Noir with Sam Davies — The Future of Blockchain in the Adult Industry.
Liam Fitzpatrick from Commswork wrote this excellent review of real-world use cases for blockchain technology, featuring intimate.io and VideoCoin.
We had a little chuckle at this because the founder of VideoCoin, Halsey Minor, publicly refused to have his photo taken with Leah after they appeared on a panel together at CoinAgenda Las Vegas in January 2018. Apparently, he didn’t want to be associated with intimate.io given the adult nature of our business… So he must be stoked to see our two brands side-by-side yet again!
Until next time, lovers xx
