One of the largest websites in the world, Pornhub, has started defaulting users to cryptocurrency payments for the company’s premium services, after both Mastercard and Visa severed ties with the company.
Pornhub is well-known as the number one adult entertainment website, and according to data from SimilarWeb is the tenth-largest website in the world and recorded over 3.31 billion visits over the last six months. Estimates suggest traffic to the website surged with the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns throughout the world.
The credit card ban came after a New York Times column accused the website of hosting sexual videos of underage and nonconsenting women. While Pornhub refuted the allegations and said these were “irresponsible and flagrantly untrue,” Visa and Mastercard enforced a blockade on the company.
Pornhub has since purged millions of videos from its platform, but as the blockade hasn’t been lifted its premium services plans are now defaulting to cryptocurrency payments as the only option.
The website started accepting cryptocurrencies through a partnership with Verge (XVG) but later expanded to add various other cryptoassets, including TRX and ZEC. In September of this year, CryptoGlobe reported it started accepting BTC and LTC as a payment method.
Using the Probiller payment service, Pornhub now accepts payments in 13 different cryptocurrencies including those mentioned above plus bitcoin cash, dash, ethereum, ethereum classic, XEM, USDT, WAVES, and recently seemingly added Monero (XMR).
On its website, it notes it is currently unable to process credit card payments. Late last year, PayPal stopped letting Pornhub use its platform to process payments to pay models on its platform. It’s worth noting many cryptocurrency users have celebrated Pornhub turning to cryptocurrencies, as they believe adoption will rise as a result.
The non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), on the other hand, criticized Visa and Mastercard for blocking Pornhub as these are the “wrong entities” to address the problems outlined on the New York Times column.
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