Pornhub to Accept Tron Cryptocurrency, Whose Founder Just Bought BitTorrent
The pornography industry is often an early adopter of new tech. And so it has come to pass with the highly volatile world of cryptocurrency, the internet’s decentralized and encrypted electronic cash networks.
Pornhub, one of the world’s biggest pornographic-video sites, is expanding its cryptocurrency-payment options to soon accept Tron, founded by Justin Sun — the Chinese entrepreneur who recently acquired file-sharing software company BitTorrent.
Sun bought BitTorrent for $118 million in cash (not Tron’s TRX cryptocurrency), according to a source familiar with the situation. Investors in BitTorrent, which was founded in 2004 and has had a long legacy of being used for piracy, included Accel Partners and DCM Ventures. A rep for Tron declined to confirm the purchase price.
Sun evidently wants to use BitTorrent to expand the reach of Tron. According to Tron, it “aims to be a decentralized entertainment content-sharing platform eventually leveraging blockchain and peer-to-peer network technology.” Tron’s deal with Pornhub, which claims to have more than 90 million daily users, is similarly aimed at building a base of users for the cryptocurrency.
Pornhub also plans to add the ability for users to pay with ZenCash, another cryptocurrency. That follows its recent announcement that it’s accepting Verge, a cryptocurrency that allows for anonymous transactions by obscuring the IP addresses and locations of its users.
“Decentralized payment systems have continued to grow in popularity, and cryptocurrency adoption is exploding across a broad economic spectrum,” Pornhub VP Corey Price said in a statement. “Today, cryptocurrencies are especially viable in the adult entertainment industry because they are privacy-centric and incorporate more anonymity tools than traditional tender.”
Both ZenCash and Tron currencies, which launched in 2017, can be used as payment methods for Pornhub purchases, including the Pornhub Premium streaming service and its traffic and advertising network.
Tron’s token, TRX, has been one of fastest-growing cryptocurrencies in the market although it remains dwarfed by Bitcoin and Ethereum. Cryptocurrencies remain extremely volatile: Tron’s market cap just three weeks ago was more than $4 billion; as of Tuesday, it stood at about $2.6 billion. According to Tron, TRX is able to process payments at a rate of at 10,000 transactions per second — 400 times faster than Ethereum.
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