Bitcoin 101, What You Have To Know.

john.smith

john.smith

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Introduction
It seems some of you have some concerns about Bitcoin. I am very familiar about it and using it for several years. Here is basic information about the why and how.

Bitcoin has been created by Satoshi Nakamoto whose identity remains unknown. The goal of satoshi was to create a way to transfer value on internet without permission. He comes from a libertarian background and was concerned about VISA/Mastercard/banks and the State having absolute power over your money.

The first market of Bitcoin was the internet black market, the silk road. Since Bitcoin allows to transmit money without permission on internet, then it was the obvious fit.

Why
Now, why is it relevant to sex work ?
As explained , Backpage only accepts Bitcoin, and this is not a choice, but a necessity for them. Backpage lost all their payment system because prostitution is illegal in the US and because sex work and human traffic fall in the same bucket for law enforcement.

-Backpage got payment shut down by moral police : http://www.chicagobusiness.com/arti...-sheriff-targets-website-in-trafficking-fight
-Backpage fought back : http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/07/21/backpage-sues-cook-county-sheriff/30469147/
-Backpage won : http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielf...estraining-order-against-cook-county-sheriff/

But I suspect visa and mastercard still block them because they fear big brother, so they are left only with bitcoin.

Some info from other escort girls : http://blog.liararoux.com/post/122962939033/using-bitcoin-for-escorts
Click to expand...

But Bitcoin is interesting in other aspect for sex workers :
  • No trace on your bank account nor bank statement (Your banker and wife can't know anything)
  • Nobody can block your money (if you used paypal, there is lots of horror story of frozen account)
  • Nobody can prevent you to be paid,
  • You can convert them in every country you want without paying exchange rates, nor raising red flag of fiscal police, (even if you are in your rights)
  • You can exchange them "hand to hand",
  • Nobody can know how much bitcoin you have or earn,
The hardest thing to understand for Bitcoin is about to buy them and sell them. (what we call fiat conversion) Using Bitcoin is easy. More easy than any payment system you ever used.

How to store Bitcoin ?
Exchange : (Don't do that)

Exchanges are regulated places where you can buy and sell Bitcoin safely for Japan you have :
Since they are regulated places, you have to give lots of personal information for KYC/AML regulation like proof of residence, passport, bank statement whatever...
The downside is the paperwork, the upside is safety and you will have the best price for Bitcoin.

Now, once you buy or sell Bitcoin you need to WITHDRAW THEM IN YOUR WALLET IMMEDIATELY. (I will explain what is a wallet soon)
If you store your bitcoin on an exchange, the exchange has your money and because of the high pressures by authorities, they may freeze your money on any suspicious about your activity. Or worse, they can be hacked with people loosing the money they stored on it. (What happened with Mt Gox one year ago)

Wallets
These are applications which allow you to store the bitcoin on your phone, as well as paying or receiving.
  • If you have iphone : use Breadwallet
  • If you have android : use Mycelium
  • If you have windows phone : Use Copay
Be very careful : on setup, they will explain you how to get back your money if you loose your phone, follow these steps seriously. Those are not hard. (you'll need to write down a code on a piece of paper and hide the paper somewhere safe)

How to receive money
On your bitcoin wallet, go to the "receive tab". It will show you two information:
  • A QR code
  • A stange looking character string
Both are called "addresses", if you want to get paid you need to communicate one of those two piece of information to the person who wants to send you money.

How to send money
Go to "send", fill how much you want to send, scan your partner's QR code, send.

How to Buy
With exchange
I mentioned exchanges earlier, actually one bitcoin is about 240USD, but you can buy up to 8 digit after the comma. (0.00000001 is called "one satoshi")
The exchange process is like that :
  • Give personal information
  • Make a wire transfer to the bank account they give you
  • Wait some days so they appear on the plateform,
  • Buy some Bitcoin
  • Withdraw to your wallet's address
So once you bought bitcoin on it, during withdrawl they will ask you your bitcoin address in text form. (The "strange looking character string" I explained earlier)
So fill out your address here, do not worry about mistyping, there is some safety checks.
That's all the information needed for them.

Person to Person
So with Mycelium wallet, I know you can see a map with people willing to sell or buy.
You can also give a try to localbitcoin.
ALWAYS go to a public place when doing the exchange.
The price of Bitcoin is always a bit higher by this method, for two reasons :
  • Because not giving your personal information is a feature
  • Because the seller or buyer need to meet you and it takes time
How to sell
With exchange
Same process as buying but in reverse, there is always a risk of being questioned or funds frozen by the exchange, but if you keep low profile it should pass.

Person to Person
Same way

Debit card
There is some services who allows you to fill an account : and get the money back at the any ATM.
The problem is that those are denominated in USD and EUR for now, so you get 5% of exchange rate + 2% for the fees.
Bitcoin ATM
Never tried, but there is one in Ginza : https://localbitcoins.com/ad/166742/bitcoin-atm-7-chome-5-4-ginza-chuo-tokyo-japan
ATM in Pink cow in Roppongi (http://www.thepinkcow.com/)

My advice
Bitcoin is not hard in itself, but converting to fiat is always painful and risky, so better keep bitcoin and spending in bitcoin as much as you can. The price of Bitcoin can be somewhat volatile, so it is up to you to gauge the risks and convenience.
In spain, I think a good part of ATM support bitcoin.
In Europe country, there is some move by politicians to ban cash, if it ever happen Bitcoin will be the only way to trade with a peer anonymously, and get around capital controls like what happened in greece, think about that.

I still like good old cash, but for paying on internet Bitcoin is the best way to do it privately, and it is also the best way to move money accross borders.
For the story, France made illegal payment of more than 1000€ in France in cash, this is the beginning.
We can imagine he escort agency to make the customer pay before appointment way more easily than with credit card.

PS
If I can pay an escort in Bitcoin, I would ! :p

Let me know of any questions, I'll do my best to help you.

Random links :

Bitcoin For Sex Workers
Girls gone bitcoin
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3dugfz/rbitcoin_sex_worker_open_house/
XOtika.TV: Bitcoin adult live streaming community.
 
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Yes, bitcoin is slowly taking market share though. Take an example, as a foreigner if I use Bitcoin to pay you I escape 5% of exchange fees with my bank.
Now, you, as an escort, if you want to pay backpage you need to buy and go through the ugly process.

BUT if you mention you accept Bitcoin to your customer, you can skip the buying process.
And me, as a customer, I also don't have to deal with the 5% exchange rate. Also you can be paid before showing up. (so if the guy does not show up to the appointment, you can decide what to do)

So if you need Bitcoin, you can try to ask customer instead of buying through exchange. If you don't want to hold a lot, then you can only advertise Bitcoin when you need them.

I understand that a lot of ladies got angry with the move of Backpage, and swore at Bitcoin. It's what happen when you want to get your job done, but a f****** sand pebble is blocking your wheel.
But this is not Backpage nor Bitcoin fault. :(
 
john.smith said:
Yes, bitcoin is slowly taking market share though. Take an example, as a foreigner if I use Bitcoin to pay you I escape 5% of exchange fees with my bank.
Now, you, as an escort, if you want to pay backpage you need to buy and go through the ugly process.

BUT if you mention you accept Bitcoin to your customer, you can skip the buying process.
And me, as a customer, I also don't have to deal with the 5% exchange rate. Also you can be paid before showing up. (so if the guy does not show up to the appointment, you can decide what to do)

So if you need Bitcoin, you can try to ask customer instead of buying through exchange. If you don't want to hold a lot, then you can only advertise Bitcoin when you need them.

I understand that a lot of ladies got angry with the move of Backpage, and swore at Bitcoin. It's what happen when you want to get your job done, but a f****** sand pebble is blocking your wheel.
But this is not Backpage nor Bitcoin fault. :(
Click to expand...
I don't like that being paid before you show up business.....that has "scam" written all over it.
 
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just4fun said:
I don't like that being paid before you show up business.....that has "scam" written all over it.
Click to expand...
I did not go deep into Bitcoin, but there is a possibility to do what we call "escrowing". Basically it means you send the money, but nobody can unlock the money without your authorization.

Basically it is why Bitcoin work on the dark web. In the dark web, there is lots of scammers, so what they are doing is :
  • The buyer sends the money to the escrow address
  • The seller sends the stuff
  • The buyer receive and confirm it has received
  • The money is sent to the seller
Once sent to the escrow address, both the seller and buyer need to agree to unlock it.

But I think this is overkill for sex work. I was more thinking using bitcoin with well established Escort Agency like AM, to which you are very confident to not get scammed. The girl is also safer because she does not carry any money.
 
Good post about bitcoin, however, Bitcoin is necessary not a liberterian project. Many liberterians are advocates from bitcoin, yes, but there is nothing in the original whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto that mentions liberterianism or politics as all. Nakamoto's intent was to create a a digital cash system that could survive without a central authority (company or bank), and that would be very resistible to manipulation (which is a requirement for a decentralized system to work). Most digital cash systems that had been tried previously have failed. In some cases because the company running it was shut down by authorities for not having a proper license, the company went out of business due to cash flow problems, hacks or lack of trust in the system. Nakamoto solved this with bitcoin.

Many liberterians believe that bitcoin will be the tool to crush government and render them useless, that is a fantasy and will never happen, also, it's not the best selling point of bitcoin.

Bitcoin is simply the quickest and easiest method to pay online, it's also global by design, so for travelers, it makes perfect sense. Sending money internationally is expensive and slow, bitcoin is both cheaper and faster. Personally I try to use international bank wires as little as possible, and use bitcoin instead.

When it comes to accepting bitcoin as payment from a client, I would recommend everyone to try. Very few clients would pay an escort with bitcoin, so the few bitcoin you earn can be saved as a high risk asset. Also, it's very handy to pay for Backpage ads. If suddenly 100% of your income would be bitcoin, I would recommend selling 90-95% of it. The price of bitcoin can drop several percent in just one day, and it may take weeks for the value to go up again.

When selling bitcoin, use a big exchange. Kraken is good if you want EUR (not JPY). If you bank in Asia, I would recommend Quoine since they have bank accounts in Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong. For those that have a bank account in Singapore or Hong Kong, this is a good choice.

If you need to sell bitcoin fast, but at a higher fee, you can use a bitcoin ATM. There is one in Ginza, at a co-working office called Snack, and there is one at Pink Cow in Roppongi.
 
@TAG Manager , can you add the ATM in Pink cow in Roppongi in my post ? I can't edit. I did not know about it.

Yes @Sparkplug, some people see Bitcoin as a weapon against government, but I don't think they should be called libertarian. Libertarian is about enjoying liberty without violating another's property, there is no "anti-*ism" in it.
A libertarian should like Bitcoin for the fact that it add liberty to him (moving money easily, without permission, privately and easy to store), not for its anti statism features.

Yes, I should not tag satoshi as libertarian. He was never talking about political or ideological principles, he was more a craftman with great ideas from what I heard.
 
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john.smith said:
@TAG Manager , can you add the ATM in Pink cow in Roppongi in my post ? I can't edit. I did not know about it.
Click to expand...

It is done. Please check it.

Users can edit posts for awhile after the first post but it cuts off after awhile to prevent abuse. (sorry about that)
 
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