Playboy Enterprises will be developing an online wallet that will allow customers to use cryptocurrency to pay for company’s online media and includes support for the new Vice Industry token (VIT), according to a post on Playboy’s website published yesterday, March 14.
The first sector of Playboy to use the crypto wallet will be Playboy.TV, which will accept crypto payments for access to exclusive content. The crypto wallet is expected to be released by the end of this year.
The Vice Industry token, which raised $22 mln in Ethereum (ETH) in the first 24 hours of its Initial Coin Offering (ICO), allows viewers of adult industry content on sites using VIT to earn the token for free just by watching content. Playboy.TV’s use of VIT will gives its viewers the option to earn tokens and use tokens to pay for other content, as well as the chance to vote and comment on content.
Vice Industry tweeted the news of Playboy.TV’s integration of VIT tokens yesterday, March 14:
VIT is proud to announce @PlayboyTV integration with VIT tokens. By integrating with #VIT, visitors will be able to pay and earn tokens to view original content, #Crypto #Blockchain #Crowdsale #Playboy #ViceIndustryToken https://t.co/BPEKZh7Piv pic.twitter.com/8LSSGJLXs6
— Vice Industry Token (@ViceToken) March 14, 2018
Reena Patel, the Chief Commercial Officer and Head of Operations for Playboy Enterprises, Inc, said in Playboy’s statement that the company saw a need to give their customers more flexible payment options:
“This innovation gives the millions of people who enjoy our content, as well as those in the future who participate in our casual gaming, AR and VR platforms, more choices with regard to payment and in the case of VIT, an opportunity to be rewarded for engaging with Playboy offerings.”
Cryptocurrencies and the adult entertainment industry have intersected in the past. In January of this year, Cointelegraph reported that world famous brothel Bunny Ranch was considering adding Bitcoin (BTC), intrigued by the anonymous nature of the cryptocurrency.
The intersection of crypto and sex workers has not always been welcomed by both sides. Payment processor BitPay’s February update to its terms of use added a ban of explicit content, leading one pornstar to post online that she was informed that her BitPay account would soon be disabled.