“The future of sexuality is here, and boy it’s predictably sad and weird: girls stripping for Bitcoin tips, a virtual currency that’s not really worth anything. Start mining yer coins, boys! Welcome to GirlsGoneBitcoin.”
~ Gizmodo

It’s easy to miss the true value here. There is an inherent complexity in understanding a decentralised form of money. Nothing like bitcoin has existed before. Money has operated without middlemen. So the true social benefit of early technologies is often ignored by major media giving the reader only half of the picture.

We got a glimmer of this recently when Rap News announced that they were accepting Bitcoin donations. Within 48 hours, they had received over $500 in Bitcoin donations – pretty good for such a specific genre of music.

A list of features fails to capture the driving imagination propelling Bitcoin. It is often said that Bitcoin users are intense proselytizers. This zeal is not without reason, for Bitcoin is more than an improved internet payment system. It is symbolic of a new age of global connectivity and technology. In the aftermath of revolutions across the middle east, a vast encyclopedia of the world’s knowledge and sharing networks have stolen the keys to locks held by gatekeepers. Out of this emerges a new way of codifying transactions and the democratic transfer of wealth: algorithmic money.

Bitcoin is a system without masters. Free from domination by central parties, and driven by incorruptible mathematics. Nobody owns the Bitcoin network. Nobody can stop you donating to Wikileaks or other political causes. Bitcoin removes the need for middlemen who control the system of transactions. They are replaced by mutual agreements written in code, an algorithm.

Bitcoin has the potential for massive social good. A common slander against people who don’t understand this techology, is that “oh it’s only good for drugs” or “it’s a money laundering mechanism” (to paraphrase Senator Chuck Schumer). In actuality, it goes way beyond and has the potential to be a catalyst of epic changes in our lifetimes. Changes which will realise a wealthier world.

Pornography on Reddit

In the last month, a new sub-reddit called Girls Gone Bitcoin (see Girls Gone Wild for the cultural reference) has emerged. On this sub-reddit, people (typically girls) upload full nude photos of themselves and include a Bitcoin address. In an amateur digitised version of a strip-club, viewers who want to reward the girls can send them a donation. To many, it is safe and harmless fun.

Chateau deCrypto is another sub-Reddit created by a splinter group of girls after there was worry over the commercial nature of Girls Gone Bitcoin. Essentially, it is the same format and the groups remain friendly.

Welcome to leChateau deCrypto (please pardon the dust) a cooperative of women dedicated to providing a safe and exploratory atmosphere for bitcoins, sex positivism, cryptography, and of course rock’n'roll.

Here we invite all of you sexy humans out there to step up and show off your bodies and all you wealthy bitcoin moguls to tip generously .

The internet underwent a similar early transition. In the public mind it was something used by computer hackers as all the stories during the early 80s focused on people breaking into public infrastructure through it.

Both groups enjoy Bitcoin, and internet freedom. Chateau deCrypto recently held a Wikileaks fund-raising drive, and Girls Gone Bitcoin actively encourages charitable donations to more worthy causes. For an unregulated forum, both groups display an unexpected level of sophistication and maturity when compared to the more conventional pornographic industries which are notoriously rife with exploitation, drugs and human trafficking. Bitcoin allows people to make money from pornography without any of the abuses of middlemen, financial or moral.

Many in society cannot see beyond their own inhibitions. Many do not see the more important ramifications, the grander picture.

Internet is for porn

April last year, I presented Bitcoin at a banker’s conference. This was the first time Bitcoin had any exposure towards the old world. Bitcoin was still a small niche currency that had not received any major press.

After my talk at the EPCA, a man in a suit came up to me. He commented, “Once Bitcoin is used for porn, that is when we know it is here.” He urged me to wait until pornography starts before investing in Bitcoin saying, “…that is when everything will kick off.”

It is undeniable that one of the drivers for the internet was the pornographic industry because people needed higher bandwidths to download images. Even today, a significant amount of internet traffic is devoted to porn. Pornography pushed the progress of the internet – an internet which would be responsible for opening governments, overthrowing totalitarian regimes and providing a global repository of raw potential with which to connect.

The internet underwent a similar early transition. In the public mind it was something used by computer hackers as all the stories during the early 80s focused on people breaking into public infrastructure through it. It was when Electron and Phoenix broke into NASA, that the Australian police started to pay notice and begin to work with policy makers on enacting rushed laws to combat computer crime (without understanding what the internet is).

As elaborated in Roadmap for the revolution: the future, one of the big uses of Bitcoin will be its potential to fund creative works ushering a new age of cultural revival over the internet.

We got a glimmer of this recently when Rap News announced that they were accepting Bitcoin donations. Within 48 hours, they had received over $500 in Bitcoin donations – pretty good for such a specific genre of music.

Chateau deCrypto and Girls Gone Bitcoin are a sign of bigger things. They mark an important turning point in the development of Bitcoin. A harbinger of change that is easily overlooked or trivialised (as seen in MSNBC and gizmodo articles).

When I wrote this article about Senator Chuck Schumer’s attack on Bitcoin, the story got picked up by The Observer, Gawker, Forbes and RT. But they totally missed the point. The point being that Schumer was looking to score political points by making loud public statements about the Silk Road – in effect providing them with the best free advertisement they could hope for.

Instead, these publications preferred sensationalism. In a sombre note, Forbes speculated at the ludicrous possibility of buying trafficked people online using Bitcoins. A game of Chinese whispers had unfolded.

The major media operates at a distance and in doing so routinely misses the deeper stories. We are seeing Bitcoin used as a mechanism here to fund digital creative works. This is distributed patronage. Without middlemen or pimps.

Amir Taaki can be reached at genjix@riseup.net

Forgive me for including this social media spam but it helps our dinky small site get exposure D:

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