An X-Rated Edition! 😉

When the first wave of COVID-19 hit in 2020, one Boston-area ICU nurse worked more than 12 hours a day. As a way to cope with the overwhelming situation and deteriorating working conditions, she took to Instagram for some fun and entertainment and started sharing her sexy bikini photos. Fast forward to 2022, the nurse-turned-Instagrammer is a successful virtual sex worker-turned-cryptopreneur building WetSpace, a platform where adult entertainers can mint NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and accept crypto tips.

Meet 37-year-old Allie Rae – the CEO of WetSpace, who laughs now about how it all began; from quitting a nursing profession to becoming an adult entertainer to building a crypto-friendly website.

“When the hospital found out about my photos and videos, I got an ultimatum — to keep my nursing job or quit. I chose the latter, and that’s how it started,” said Rae. 

Although the journey was not easy, it has made Rae a stronger woman and a face for adult entertainers trying to build equity in themselves.

It was nothing serious.

After the pandemic hit, Rae began her Instagram page with her husband, who was on furlough. It wasn’t long before when the couple noticed so much traffic on the page, and people seemed to like her pictures. She started an account on OnlyFans, following the lead of millions of serially-bored at-home adults looking to make money – the adult content site was a savior for sex workers who struggled to keep their jobs. Rae gained more than 70,000 followers on the adult content site in mere weeks. Those figures helped her pull in over $8,000 after a month. 

“As a nurse, I used to earn $6,500 a month. To earn more than that was quite liberating and a confidence booster for a woman like me who was in her late 30s,” said Rae.

A mother of three children made the OnlyFans account her top priority. That hustle paid off – and the couple has seen months where they made more than $300k/month. 

However, after OnlyFans announced it would ban sexually explicit videos on its platform, content creators on the platform were panicked. 

Though the company ultimately walked back that decision, panicked models and adult entertainers joined other platforms. But if it could happen to OnlyFans, Rae figured censorship would likely find its way to other websites or apps. 

“I realized that there’s a higher power over the adult industry. For instance, there’s the banking industry that has its own rules and guidelines in order for making payments to the adult entertainers and models, and so on”, she said. 

That’s what prompted Rae to start WetSpace, an OnlyFans-esque platform which cut out payment processors like VISA and Mastercard and turned to the world’s borderless money system – cryptocurrency. 

Rae was an early investor in CumRocket, an adult token which surged in popularity after Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted about it in 2021. However, after parting with the ‘pump and dump’ nature of sex-themed tokens, Rae turned her learning experiences and connections from CumRocket into the foundation of WetSpace.

WetSpace is now in beta, but already includes much of the core functionality. Fans can subscribe to content creators on the site – or buy NFTs and tip their favorite creators – by connecting to their crypto wallet and paying with tokens such as Tether ($USDT.X), Polygon ($MATIC.X), Avalanche ($AVAX.X), and others. The adult entertainers can select what coins they want to be paid out in.

To date, Rae has built a team of about 50 people who handle the operational and development side of the website. The next plan is to build a management portal for models and earn revenue. Since most of the accounts are handled by agencies, she plans to connect account managers to WetSpace and earn commissions. 

Rae believes that a crypto-friendly adult website is beneficial for both models and followers because: a) there is no barrier to making money since the transactions are in crypto, and b) it protects the identity of the fans.

There are challenges, though.

Talk of crypto and porn in the same sentence is likely to elicit mixed reactions – and the intersection of these two spaces often fetches mentions of money laundering or “black money.” Rae says she is very much aware of this fact, underscoring that KYC guidelines and other necessary rules are applied and diligently enforced on the platform. 

She wants authorities and people – many who are rooted in deep puritanical values – to realize that sex work is a profession and is, in fact, perhaps the oldest profession. In an effort to gain respect and equal opportunities, she said, “I want to be the face of the adult industry by blurring the harsh line between normal people and porn stars by using cryptocurrencies.” 

“Crypto is indeed liberating and self-empowering for women and adult entertainers,” she added.

After El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender, some countries are following suit – but how about cities? As part of a partnership with Tether, Switzerland’s southern city of Lugano will purportedly begin accepting cryptocurrencies as legal tender. 

Switzerland has been capitalizing on crypto and the new field of “green mining” for a long time. However, this hyper-local advancement has elicited many questions. Namely: how will this be done?

At a Plan B event in Lugano on Thursday, Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino said his company had established a 3 million-Swiss franc fund in collaboration with city officials to encourage the adoption of Bitcoin, Tether, and the LVGA (city’s crypto coin) token for shops and businesses in the city. The project is intended to bring talent from the blockchain industry to Lugano and promote the city as a blockchain hub in Europe.

Lugano Mayor Michele Foletti, and host of the event, described the move as a “de facto” legalization since the Swiss franc will remain the incumbent currency in Lugano and throughout Switzerland. The current move will enable its residents to pay their taxes using crypto. The plan is to extend payments to parking tickets, public services, and tuition fees for students. To support the region’s blockchain startups, Tether will create a fund of up to 100 million Swiss francs that aims to support crypto unicorns. Moreover, Polygon will also assist by providing infrastructure.

The 8th largest city in Switzerland, Lugano, is home to just 63,000 people. However, it will host the Bitcoin World Forum later this year. 

While the move sounds interesting, here are some bigger questions: Is it legal for a city to adopt a new currency? If yes, then can each city have its own currency? And what about the country’s sovereignty? 

If you ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the answer would be a big no. The organization has repeatedly warned El Salvador to stop using Bitcoin as legal tender, calling it bad for the economy. The Central American country is still trying to determine whether or not Bitcoin can be its national currency. Although tourism in the country has risen by 30% after Bitcoin adoption, the economic situation is worsening due to the volatility of Bitcoin. Moreover, the residents aren’t too pleased with the move and have protested against Nayib Bukele, who they call a dictator. We look forward to seeing what the repercussions of Swiss City’s decision will be, both financially and socially.

As McDonald’s goes to war with the Doge Army and Tesla CEO Elon Musk over accepting the dog-themed meme currency for its famous fast food, one company is embracing crypto more openly – Shake Shack ($SHAK).

The burger chain is conducting a promotion where customers are rewarded with either cashback or bitcoin when they purchase through Block’s (formerly Square’s) Cash App.

The Wall Street Journal reported Cash App customers who use the debit card available through the app would receive 15% of the purchase price back in Bitcoin. The promotion will run through mid-March, providing a window for the chain to decide whether or not its customers are interested in cryptocurrencies.

At this time, the food-chain giant does not plan to accept cryptocurrencies as a form of payment. Jay Livingston, chief marketing officer, told WSJ that after this trial, it would be possible to decide whether they should accept them as a form of payment in the future or whether to extend the rewards program.

These promotions – called Boosts – have become a staple of Square’s Cash App consumer app. It’s also one of the app’s most standout features over competitor Venmo (which is owned by PayPal.) Cash App curates the Boosts, which vary by region and purchasing behavior, for their users. As of this writing, possible Boosts include 20% off Instacart, 4% off Lyft rides, and 5% of online purchases from Sam’s Club.

There are currently over 240 Shake Shack locations in the United States and over 125 abroad. While assessing its position in the changing ecosystem, it is certainly dipping its toes in. But it’s not the only one. Burger King tried out a similar deal in November in partnership with Robinhood Crypto, offering 20 Bitcoin, 200 Ether, and 2 million Dogecoins over three weeks. It will be interesting to see if and when McDonald’s begins to accept Dogecoin.