MindGeek, the company behind adult-entertainment websites Brazzers and PornHub, will begin accepting the privacy-centric Verge (XVG) cryptocurrency. This comes as Verge and MindGeek announce a partnership. The anonymous Verge altcoin will be used to pay for a variety of different premium services and products, and the adoption marks an important milestone, as PornHub is not only the largest site for online pornography – it is also one of the largest sites on the internet as a whole.

At a first glance, it might seem perplexing that MindGeek has decided to adopt Verge, rather than a more commonly used cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. However, this is partly due to the anonymous nature of Verge, which uses both the anonymity tool Tor and I2P peer-to-peer routing to hide users’ IP addresses and identities. Moreover, Verge and MindGeek also revealed a more extensive general partnership.

The cryptocurrency community has been rife with speculation on who Verge partnered with, following the company’s recent crowdfunding campaign. Whilst rumors mentioned the hardware wallet manufacturing firm Ledger as Verge’s partner, it now appears that the real partner in no other than MindGeek. This makes the decision to choose Verge as the cryptocurrency of choice for users of PornHub, Brazzers and Nutaku even more logical.

Cryptocurrency payments will eventually be rolled out to even more services that are controlled by MindGeek. For now, however, users can pay for their PornHub Premium subscriptions, and eventually, all other services and products that are offered on MindGeek’s websites will be able to be purchased through the use of Verge.

Whilst it may seem logical that the porn industry would be eager to adopt cryptocurrency payments, due to their decentralized nature and especially privacy-centered cryptocurrencies such as Verge, they are joining other behemoths that already accept crypto. Some of these include Microsoft, Expedia, Newegg, and Overstock. Nonetheless, as PornHub is a massive website, almost as popular as Netflix, this will send a clear signal to other porn-providers and might very well prompt increased adoption of cryptocurrencies in the adult video industry.

It remains to be seen, however, whether the option to use cryptocurrencies as payment will make it a popular alternative. The possibility to use cryptocurrency is naturally a pre-requisite for its increased use, however getting people to actually use it is a different matter altogether. Be that as it may, the potential privacy benefits offered by the privacy-centric Verge coin makes it plain to see why some users might be swayed to pay using Verge.

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