"U know, I bloody would adopt that technology, BUT the name.... I'm having doubts over the name to be honest... no non-adult business is going to accept it :/ - it's one thing to make an adult product... but name it like that and you can't expect anyone outside the industry to use it". Dang, there we go: A project assembles an awesome piece of technology, top-of-the-notch non-custodial counterfactual payment hub with hooks to attach fiat on- and offramps to - and there we go, people who need exactly this technology won't adopt because the names chosen might kill their project in terms of public interest.

What's the Tech?

I assume you have a basic understanding of what Cryptocurrencies are and how they work. A couple of things block the path to mass adoption, accessibility being one and volatility being the other: Even if I could easily exchange my hard-earned cash to internet payment tokens, I won't do that if it may happen that $100 I put on-line/on-chain may happen to buy me $20 worth of goods and services next week. That's good for traders but not for Average Joe.

On top of the Ethereum Network, SpankChain is building a two-token ecosystem to have sex workers' dignity improved; there's SPANK, a volatile utility token (used for staking and, eventually, ecosystem-specific governance rights) and a dollar-pegged payment token named BOOTY. BOOTY generation is handled by a smart contract named SpankBank, a payment interface named SpankPay shows up on the radar with the prospect of onboarding adult-industry credit card processors. All connected by a payment hub that allows for instantaneous, free and trustless transactions: Counterpart to the state channel is a smart contract that handles your payments to everyone else connected to the same hub, the hub collecting signed transactions and eventually putting new balances on-chain. For onboarding people of a very specific industry, having investors buy SPANK to receive BOOTY they can sell to customers, make customers tip performers with BOOTY and awarding people who put a lot of effort into onboarding new people Brand AmbASSadors: the naming is perfect, let's get the party started.

What's the Issue?

"Ok thats pretty cool stuff, still think they coulda went a bit more mass market on the token names, just no real need for that SPANK/BOOTY beyond it just being cool ... like u just gotta do extra stuff to hide that from non-adult businesses who wanna do it, if it was just called Atlas and Globes or something then would be fine."

History repeating itself (do read this article for some background knowledge). Can't use microfiche in serious banking archives while it's called microporn. The Smart Contracts building the Spank Ecosystem's base are accessible by the entire Ethereum Network, as long as you spend BOOTY in the Red Light District your processing system can be as cool as it may be; Average Joe won't use it to pay for his car insurance (would you sign an insurance contract labeled Safer Intercourse if the records show you have bought it in the Red Light District with a currency token named BOOTY?).

What's the Solution?

SpankChain Base aims to migrate to a token-agnostic contract once the BOOTY handling has been tried in the wild. The End User does not need to know about Ethereum and SPANK/BOOTY, all the user needs to know is that he's required to swap Cash for BOOTY and that there's ways of making BOOTY-aware sites interoperable. That may be done using MetaMask, in a less secure way it is possible to propagate funding control to another website in ways similar to current "Log in/Sign Up using your facebook/Google account". Average Joe doesn't care if he's putting his funds to the Ethereum network and may entrust a couple of sites with control over his hot wallet or if he's putting his funds up on PayPal: Is it cheap? Is it easy? Is it reasonably trustworthy? You've got a choice.

As such, putting a different label on your payment token may be one way of getting Average Joe to buy stuff using the Ethereum Ecosystem: The Ethereum standards allow to peg the value of a token to that of another token, look for the section "Customization" in this article on Hacker Noon: All you'd need is to set up a fund and smart contract that keeps the value of your token stable when compared to BOOTY. That might be a token named GLOBE for global payments, that may be any company setting up their own branded token - which may, or may not be swapped to/from BOOTY using a transparent ComeSwap integration.

Using Ethereum's Liquidity Network, you can add your token to the global decentralized supply while all your smart contract needs to do is manage the availability of your token to match that of BOOTY. Voilá, you've hidden the adult industry background from Average Joe's vision.

(Cover Image: © Demango23 | Stock Free Images)