Recently we met with Peter Tulala who is the founder of a new business entering the blockchain space called Hussy. The aim of this ICO is to “Create a decentralized due diligence and escorting infrastructure that is safe by design. The solution we offer provides anonymized but verifiable KYC compliance, professional health certification and Proof of Consent stored on the blockchain”

To summarize, this ICO is not trying to minimize risks associated with the exchange of consensual sex for a payment. They are aware that this sector – sex workers – carries a stigma and faces many regulation constraints worldwide. Their white paper discusses their general market research. However, their 3-year plan shown in Figure 1 indicates their initial chosen markets including the EU, which they will enter mid-2019 before targeting America and Asia in late 2019.

Figure 1 – Hussy’s 3-Year Plan. Source: White paper.

Hussy White Paper Overview

From an overview of their white paper, it is possible to see how Hussy’s business model consists of a few central features. These are:

Know Your Customer (KYC) Certificate – For their internal records they will have each sex worker send a selfie of themselves with their passport to verify that they are of legal age and the country of origin to use the service platform. This certificate confirming the eligibility for exercising of the sex work profession will be stored in the Blockchain and available for escort listing platforms.

For their internal records they will have each sex worker send a selfie of themselves with their passport to verify that they are of legal age and the country of origin to use the service platform. This certificate confirming the eligibility for exercising of the sex work profession will be stored in the Blockchain and available for escort listing platforms. STD Check Certificate – All sex workers need to have been regularly tested by a doctor or other certified health examiner. The result is checked by the due diligence authority and a certificate added to the Blockchain without exposing any sensitive private data.

– All sex workers need to have been regularly tested by a doctor or other certified health examiner. The result is checked by the due diligence authority and a certificate added to the Blockchain without exposing any sensitive private data. Proof of Consent (POC) – “Before providing the service, the service provider will issue an initial PoC in (the) form of a QR code with her mobile phone and signed by her private code. After that, the client will scan this QR code with his mobile phone and sign the PoC also with his private key. The final PoC (signed by both the service provider and the client) will be issued to the Blockchain and it serves as a confirmation, that the meeting occurred and that it was voluntary from both participants” This hopes to reduce the risk of false rape allegations by implementing a method of trust and traceability. Additionally, if a client is found to behave inappropriately their access to the HUSSY platform will be revoked.

Transaction Process on Hussy

Figure 2 – Hussy’s vision of the future of the sex work industry. Source: White paper.

Figure 2 above demonstrates the transaction process expected when the platform goes live. Post-purchase, HUSSY will offer a review platform for both clients and sex workers to review the other. This feature hopes to reduce the risk of abuse and increase trust between participating parties.

Hussy’s Business Proposition

Figure 3: Network Diagram of the HUSSY Platform

As discussed earlier, Hussy will offer a safe platform for sex workers to meet clients. They will utilise RAIDEN for payments (it is a recurring payment channel build on top of Ethereum blockchain) as well as IPFS for storing data.

Their white paper also goes into detail about the flexible fee schedule for sex workers advertising their services: “Payment mediation. A service provider (SP) that wants to advertise her services in a listings platform chooses an optional advertising fee and opens a Raiden payment channel with the LA (listing authority). In regular time intervals, a chosen amount of ERC20 tokens will be deducted from SP’s deposit in the Raiden smart contract. After closing the payment channel, the fee is settled with the LA and transferred to the Ethereum wallet of the LA.”

Revenue

From the above, this implies that HUSSY will generate revenue by charging sex workers for utilizing the service as an optional advertising fee. These fees will be collected by a smart contract and redeemed in ERC20 tokens. The tokens which are available for purchase over the course of 2018, “will be primarily used by service providers for paying the fee for listing offers in HUSSY platform”

Hussy’s white paper also states that they “have decided to provide the end-user interface in (the) form of a web application instead of native mobile application. The web application will be optimized for running in a mobile browser”

Sex Worker Sector: Hurdles and Competition

The sex sector is generally a very controversial and highly regulated space, and honestly a lot of attributes of blockchain could be help modernize it. However, taking the initiative means that HUSSY has a lot of hurdles to overcome, namely the variation in regulation, legal sex age between countries, and the stigma generally associated with this field.

There are a few other companies trying to enter the same market in different ways including INTIMATE, SexService.io and SpankChain. Though each of these projects is still in their infancy. Time will tell how easily Hussy’s service is adopted and utilized in their chosen geographic markets.