Women in Web3: Empowering Adult Content Creators Through NFTs

Although some people are concerned that Web3 and cryptocurrencies are simply just a fad, others believe that this technology will be transformational in unlocking a decentralized economy that prioritizes individuals over institutions.

This is true for Crass Kitty, the Head of Product at Degenerate Ape Academy and the CEO and co-founder of Keyhole Club, an NFT platform dedicated to empowering adult content creators and their fans.

Building a safe space for sex workers

Crass Kitty is a former stripper and was previously employed at Fetlife, a social networking website that serves people interested in BDSM, fetishism and kinks. There she learned a lot about how sex workers were punished by traditional financial systems and payment methods.

“Any digital form of paying a sex worker is pretty much prohibited right now, and if they find out you are a sex worker, they can usually freeze all your assets and keep them,” Crass Kitty told The Org. “Not only that, but sex workers are often harassed by some of their subscribers and if you report them for harassing you, they end up getting fully refunded instead.”

Human rights organizations including UNAIDS and Amnesty International, have long advocated for the legalization of sex work to protect sex workers from rape, abuse, and other forms of violence and discrimination, and sex workers are often penalized for simply doing their job.

Although Crass Kitty wanted to help support sex workers facing harassment and payment issues, there was little she could do about it at the time.

She was later recruited by Near Protocol, a software designed for developers to create and launch decentralized applications, where she learned the ins and outs of how blockchain technology operated.

It was at Near Protocol that she really saw the potential of Web3 and cryptocurrencies and the potential they had in revolutionizing sex work.

“I am personally very against revenge porn and non-consensual porn, but to punish an entire ecosystem of sex workers as if this is all that it was is incredibly disheartening and horrifying,” Crass Kitty said. “Blockchain enables a world where sex workers can get paid indiscriminately, because once you send money to a sex worker it is finalized.”

Eager to bring her newfound knowledge to the sex worker community, she began talking to her friends who were still actively involved in the sex work space.

“I was just constantly on Zoom calls, teaching other sex workers, people of color and queer folks how crypto works, how to set up wallets and pieces started coming together in my head,” Crass Kitty told The Org. “I’d been wanting to build something for sex workers in the blockchain for a long time and so I did that.”

Removing the stigma around sex work

Crass Kitty eventually founded Keyhole Club, a private, safe and secure platform that allows users to purchase and mint adult content NFTs. To ensure that each creator she works with feels involved and directly profits from their work, Keyhole Club collaborates with one creator at a time.

“We work intimately with our creators, and each drop we do is really focused on that creator,” Crass Kitty said. “It’s very important that we’re creating this platform and as we’re evolving and pivoting and building on it that we are getting input from current sex workers.”

For Crass Kitty, her ultimate goal is to remove the stigma surrounding sex work, and she is aware that there is still a long way to go before it is normalized.

“Keyhole Club was shadow banned on Twitter for being a pornographic platform and several people who purchased our key chains refused to tweet about it or tell anybody about it because they were afraid of the stigma,” she said. “I think ultimately, there's a cultural worldwide phenomenal shift that needs to happen for us to accept sex workers as a society.”

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