LOS ANGELES — Penning an open letter to the broader crypto community, CamWithHer chief and SNR Productions’ President Steve Ranieri, recently took to Reddit to ask, “Could porn pave the way for cryptocurrency adoption by merchants?”

The missive was well-received by the Reddit community, making to the number three slot on the front page of r/CryptoCurrency, with a 91 percent upvote by the sub’s more than 600,000 subscribers, demonstrating significant interest in the topic among stakeholders and the public at large.

Ranieri’s site at CamWithHer.com accepts an alphabet soup of cryptocurrencies, including BTC, LTC, BCH, DASH, DOGE, ETC, ETH, LSK, NEO, QTUM, STEEM, XMR, ZEC, and XRP, and he is eager to encourage other merchants — adult and mainstream alike — to jump on the bandwagon, too.

“The adult industry paved the way for online credit card processing in the late 1990s,” Ranieri states. “Perhaps it can also pave the way for cryptocurrency payments online.”

Ranieri revealed his cam site’s pioneering role in accepting Bitcoin deposits in January of 2013 and how Shapeshift.io’s Erik Voorhees and Bitpay.com’s Tony Gallippi convinced him to dive deeper into crypto, soon after which he became a true believer in its market potential.

“Fast forward to today, cryptocurrency has come a long way, getting integrated more and more into everyday life and featured in major news headlines. However, there’s still a long road ahead in mass adoption, and this is where I think we can significantly make an impact,” Ranieri explains. “A vast majority of merchants don’t accept cryptocurrency and there’s absolutely no reason not to.”

Among the benefits of accepting cryptocurrency for merchants, Ranieri cites processing fees as low as half-a-percent from CoinPayments.net, which also offers a free PayPal option — compared to some adult processors that charge 15 percent or higher for accepting traditional payment methods, such as credit cards.

Another benefit for digital merchants is no chargebacks, which protects legitimate companies from thieves that download content and then reverse payment; and for merchants that are uneasy about keeping revenue in volatile cryptocurrencies, easy cash-out options are available.

For his part, Ranieri says that although he owns crypto and would like to see it go up in value, and is always happy to see more visitors to his cam site, his goal in this crypto-evangelism is more altruistic.

“Traffic is nice, don’t get me wrong, but I sincerely want to see crypto get to the next level,” Ranieri concludes. “I believe in the vision and want to see it succeed.”

To read Ranieri’s complete letter to the community, click here.