There was a time when a significant number of people were incredibly bullish on the Web3 Adult Industry, and many would deem it the necessary next step in Adult Entertainment. During the 2021 bull run, we saw an influx of Cryptocurrency projects targeting and promising to revolutionize the adult industry. However, the hype surrounding some of these projects seems to have disappeared into the depths of the Internet. So what happened to the decentralized adult industry promise?
The Promise
The reason Web3 and adult entertainment seemed to be a perfect match couldn’t be simpler — decentralization of adult content and its distribution promising a fairer environment for content creators without subjecting their content to the unfair ToS and monetary policy of a centralized platform. Throwback to when OnlyFans nearly banned all adult content, only to backtrack the next day due to massive outrage from its user base. The idea of a decentralized platform where individuals can create Adult Content shared in a way that minimizes the involvement of any middleman entity, such as onlyfans, is a strong value proposition for any adult content creator.
The Current Situation
So if decentralization promises a better, fairer Adult Content platform, what has happened with some of the most hyped projects in the space? Let’s take a look at some of these projects.
–CumRocket Crypto–
CumRocket Crypto achieved notoriety in November 2021, reaching a total market cap of $110 million. It was among the first concepts of web3 adult sharing platforms that somehow positioned themselves between meme coins and an adult platform. Finally, something has reached actual meme status when Redditors joke about becoming millionaires and having to report capital gains as “Got early into cummies.” Despite the meme status notoriety and several “strategic” partnerships, CumRocket has lost over 95% of its market cap since its all-time high.
Furthermore, the top creator on the platform, Dickasso, owns a total of 3.5m of the platform’s tokens, which at the time of writing is equivalent to ~$10.000 as opposed to nearly $300.000 during the all-time high. Most other creators’ earnings are now worth under $3000, which indicates why the platform only saw some niched attention. Adult content creators would be unable to earn a living, so many have left or remain inactive.
–Taboo–
Taboo branded itself as a “Playboy for Crypto,” promising privacy and freedom to create, minus the meme angle CumRocket took. However, the business model seemed to have been very similar to CumRocket. Taboo also launched an NFT collection of “Taboo Punks” that currently sits at 0.09ETH floor price. The project lost over 96% of its value from a $400 million market cap to only $16 million.
–Nafty–
Like the previous 2, Nafty promised privacy, instant payments, and ownership of the content created and purchased. In addition, just like CumRocket and Taboo, Nafty had a token, a marketplace, and “strategic” partnerships to entice users to join. There is currently very little data on the token; however, according to many online, this project has been nothing but an orchestrated cash grab or “rug pull.”
Furthermore, the team has missed every step of the roadmap, so is project is not going anywhere. It is unclear what the total rugged amount was, but there are still 14,000 Nafty token holders today, which means the scam was significant.
The Issue
And this is just the situation with the most popular projects, which were “fortunate” enough to create some community buzz, albeit temporarily. However, the reality is there are now hundreds, if not thousands, of copycat projects with the same approach that will inevitably meet the same fate. There are more and more popping up daily, with popular Twitch Streamers announcing their own NFT Adult Content platform almost weekly.
None of the other new projects have made it past the promise phase, and given the current state of the market, it’s not very likely that many of them will see the light of day. Do another search tomorrow, and you will likely find a brand-new set of different results. With so many platforms already available and more projects popping up daily, what’s stopping the Adult Content Industry from migrating to Web3?
The Solution (In My Opinion)
The answer lies within the current product offering. Unfortunately, Nafty, Taboo, CumRocket, and countless other copycat projects are not prioritizing the growth and development of the platform and its user base. Rug artists built most of these projects for hype during a bull market where everyone would go and buy any coin they could find and would magically see double-digit gains in a matter of days. That alone is unsustainable, but when a product offering is tied to the underlying value of its governance token, once the tide turns and the market becomes bearish, these projects will struggle to survive. However, I believe that the creators of most of these projects are fully aware that they are riding a temporary hype and are probably prepared with an adequate exit strategy so the core group of developers will be well-off in most cases. The issue is that it creates disappointment, and unmet promises, creating an unsustainable income stream for creators.
If Adult Content creators are to survive — as in day-to-day living on the income they make from ERC-20 tokens that fluctuate with hype — it would be a massive surprise to see anyone able to achieve that, let alone thrive. Significant help in situations like these could come from stablecoins ($DAI,$USDC) and the protections they offer in volatile markets. Adult entertainers can also control more of their “Brand” using Domain names such as the traditional [.Com] or even the new blockchain-based [.Eth].
This set of projects listed above was primarily based on Ethereum and implemented as “tokens”; the round before this was essentially stand-alone layer one chains. The next round of projects will undoubtedly focus on eth layer two chains such as zksync and polygon. As a result, reduced fees and increased speed could help further reduce friction during onboarding, transactions, and everyday use.
Closing Thoughts
Web3 Adult Content Platforms need to be rethought from the ground up for these to provide a viable alternative to traditional centralized Web2 platforms. Web3 is about decentralization, ownership over one’s data, and privacy. It is not about meme coins, it is not about tokenomics, and it is not about “get rich quick” schemes. A fairer web is a decentralized web monetized for the individual content creator, not the corporation that owns the website.
In addition to everything listed above, web3 and decentralization contain countless deeper problems that reach deep into the fabric of much of our current understanding of human/digital networking and our rights and responsibility regarding them.
These issues extend well beyond the Adult Entertainment Industry. These ideas would be a good starting point, not only for Adult Content platforms but for any platform that wishes to provide a web3 alternative to a mainstream web2 service. Start with the user.