Pornhub's Premium Services Now Default to Crypto Payments, 13 Digital Assets Supported

During the first week of September, the world’s largest adult web portal Pornhub expanded its payment options by adding bitcoin and support for three other cryptocurrencies. However, after Mastercard and Visa severed ties with Pornhub last week, the company’s premium services payment processor now defaults to cryptocurrency only.

Pornhub is by far the largest adult website in the world, as the site provides pornographic video sharing services to billions of people across the globe. According to similarweb.com page ratings, the adult site is the 10th most trafficked site on the web and the company claimed to have 42 billion visits last year. Estimates say that 11,082 hours of video is watched per minute on Pornhub, and ever since the Covid-19 lockdowns traffic has skyrocketed.

However, the company has been dealing with financial issues, as the leading payment processors Mastercard and Visa cut off Pornhub last week. This means individuals looking to purchase the company’s premium services cannot use a credit card for payments.

Since the financial blockade by Mastercard and Visa, Pornhub’s premium services plans now must be paid with cryptocurrencies, as that is the only option available. If a user wants to purchase a plan that starts off at $9.99 a month or a yearly plan with a one-time payment of $95.88, the person has 13 cryptocurrencies to choose from.

Pornhub is leveraging the payment processor Probiller and the service supports bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), dash (DASH), ethereum (ETH), ethereum classic (ETC), litecoin (LTC), monero (XMR), nem (XEM), tether (USDT), tron (TRX), verge (XVG), waves (WAVES), and zcash (ZEC).

“Unfortunately, we are unable to accept credit cards at this moment,” the Pornhub premium services webshop page says.

On social media and crypto-related Reddit forums, crypto advocates were thrilled to see cryptocurrencies become the default payment for Pornhub. On the subreddit r/btc, a number of BCH fans discussed the revamped crypto support by the mega large adult video sharing site.

“One of the biggest news of the year for adoption,” one Redditor wrote. “I would say one of the biggest ever,” another person responded to the adoption comment. “Because in this instance, credit cards aren’t even an option.”

The individual added:

Pornhub is such a massive website. This is going to bring so many normies into cryptocurrency who don’t care or want to invest in it. They just need an uncensorable payment method.

In fact, Pornhub users who want to purchase premium services won’t just need an uncensorable payment method, they just need any payment method that works, and the only option they have is crypto assets. While Pornhub leverages the payment processor Probiller, users can also opt to use the Pumapay service too, which is basically just another blockchain provider that settles payments in crypto.

People who wish to pay for Pornhub’s premium membership with centralized services like Paypal, Mastercard, and Visa are shut out entirely, and it’s not likely the companies will reverse the financial blockade decision.