Bitcoin currently accounts for roughly 5% of all sales at Porn.com, the adult entertainment company that began accepting bitcoin as payment in January 2014.
The findings come roughly one year after Porn.com began accepting bitcoin and as part of an interview with CoinDesk centered on the anniversary.
Porn.com declined to disclose the total sales completed in bitcoin, though vice president Phil Bradbury described these earnings as “substantial”. Notably, the 5% figure is down from the 10% estimate the company reported in February 2014.
Still, Bradbury called bitcoin a “great addition” to the website, one that he said has paid off in unexpected ways, stating:
”Initially, we were simply trying to capitalize on the fact that bitcoin allowed for somewhat anonymous payments, allowing people to join our site without having to give out their credit card information … Since then we have realized that there are many benefits that we had not thought of.”
Chief among these benefits, he continued, may be the increase in commerce the website sees when its name is mentioned in bitcoin news articles.
Bradbury projects that press coverage related to bitcoin acceptance has been an active driver of business, noting that bitcoin has accounted for up to 50% of the sites sales for periods as long as a few days.
The strong continued sales observed by Porn.com follow less encouraging metrics released by e-commerce giant Overstock, which also began accepting bitcoin in January 2014. Overstock earned $3m in bitcoin sales over the course of the year, which fell below its original estimates of $10m–$15m.
Bitcoin price an influence
While bitcoin sales have largely stabilized, Porn.com reports that there are factors that boost this metric, namely the price of bitcoin.
“We also see an increase in sales when there are large fluctuations in the price of bitcoin, both when the price goes up and when it goes down,” Bradbury said.
Though he didn’t provide month-by-month metrics, Bradbury noted that this 5% figure has been the norm “for some time” since the initial rush of enthusiasm for the program.
Porn.com also noted that is has seen an uptick in sales over the last few weeks, suggesting that sentiment that bitcoin’s price might not again rise is encouraging spending.
“My thoughts are that a lot of people who have been holding their coins, hoping for the price to shoot back up quickly, are starting to begin to spend them again, understanding that much of the price decrease was a correction and that their coins won’t be worth $1,000 again within a week or two,” he added.
The power of community
Besides the sales benefit, Bradbury also spoke to the strength of the bitcoin community, describing its fervent user base as a key driver of awareness.
“The crypto community is pretty tight,” Bradbury continued, “they stick together and they share information. Shortly after launching bitcoin payments on Porn.com, we noticed in communities like Reddit, that users weren’t just sharing the fact that they had joined using bitcoin, they were sharing their experiences with our products.”
Bradbury said that bitcoin users, for instance, would explain how to interact with the company’s live cam models using tokens. Further, he noted that bitcoin users were noticeably more active in commenting on the site and its related products.
“The community not only wants the value of bitcoin to stabilize and increase, they want new products and services to adopt bitcoin payments and there are happy and willing to support those products that help make bitcoin a viable form of payment,” Bradbury explained.
He further touched on the problem of consumer confidence in the adult entertainment space, and how this group, in his opinion, has helped provide benefits to all its customers.
In addition to bitcoin, Porn.com also accepts litecoin, dogecoin and wankcoin. Bradbury said that the company continues to consider other digital currencies for potential acceptance.
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