(April Fools) Cryptocurrencies, NFT and Smutbase

UPDATE 2022-04-02: This was part of an elaborate April Fools joke. You can find some clarification on the followup post. 

For years, SFMLab and Smutbase have been kept running thanks to our excellent uploaders and wonderful supporters. Operating a site is costly, and time consuming. And funding such an operation is a difficult task. Payment providers that deal with content for general audiences but also adult content do not exist. Mainstream platforms like Stripe have rules against adult content. This is why Patreon acts as a payment provider and funding platform, since their policy has been friendly towards adult creators. Their willingness to work with and mediate with creators who deal in fringe content has been exemplary.

Unfortunately, over the years, many creators on Patreon have still been forced to shut down due to arbitrary content restrictions. Some restrictions are due to Patreon simply complying by national and international law. But more frequently, this action is forced upon the platform by payment providers. Companies who only enforce these rules because they're worried about their bottom line. Adult content is too risky. Prone to fraud. It enables human traffickers. Revenge porn. The most unsavory class of person. People with which the payment processors would never associate themselves. People in finance are only the most reputable type. The financial institutions are well respected and serve to protect the people... Financial freedom only exists for the members of this international cartels. The globalist conspiracy that shall not be named. With "reputable" members like Jeffrey Epstein and Bernie Madoff. With their iron grip on the western world, in cahoots with the governments of the west. Seeking to rob hard-working smut-makers from their autonomy.

Every day, Smutbase and SFMLab are at risk of being shut down due to copyright trolls and the hypocritical prudes of finance. Patreon has been extremely accommodating for more than 6 years now. And even though we love them, we can not trust in the payment providers that back them. But how to operate a site without them? How to liberate ourselves from the financial shackles that we find ourselves in? The shackles that (((they))) put on us?

Cryptocurrency is the answer. As many of you know, I am a massive advocate for decentralized systems and against dependence on massive content silos from big-tech. Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology offer us a way to financial independence, in the same way that copyleft software and self-hosting offer us a way to digital independence and privacy.

While the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem is still forming, and Blockchain companies are still tackling fundamental issues with the technology, we are already well into the age of cryptocurrency. We are fighting back against the oligarchs, "entrepeneurs" and "elected" officials. To transact with cryptocurrency is to oppose the globalists. Patreon shutting you down? Well, nobody can shut down your Ethereum account. Sanctions? Just use a new wallet address. 

Cryptocurrency offers all of us unrivaled financial freedom. Freedom we haven't had since the time when people were only bartering goods and services. Furthermore, transactions are final and non-reversible* once they've been registered on the blockchain. Meaning that any mistake you make in a financial transaction is yours to make. No rollbacks* and no compensation. Money you spend is money gone. You get scammed, that's on you! And nobody else. Systems of lending, charge-backs, disputes... All in the past! But what about consumer protections? Well, consumer protections is just doublespeak for "I suck globalist cock and love the taste of J***** smegma!"

Knowing that, I will admit that cryptocurrency is not without its problems. Blockchain technology, Proof of Work specifically, has worsened the climate crisis. There's no way around that. But in all fairness, no-one could have foreseen the success of the technology, the computing requirements of the PoW algorithms , and financial incentives that would lead to its rapid growth in power consumption.

The Bitcoin scalability problem and the environmental impact of PoW only came to light after Bitcoin was even able to gain a scale significant enough for these problems to make themselves known. No amount of foresight other than the omnipotence of God could have revealed these issues. But due to the nature of PoW, the total electrical use and electronic waste of cryptocurrencies is clear and out there for everyone to see. The network is by its very nature, open and decentralized, so global usage can be estimated by simply observing the global hashrate. And this gives the crypto community new targets to hit for sustainability. There is a massive push for alternative consensus mechanisms that are more sustainable. And in due time, with community effort, the problem will correct itself.

Meanwhile, the financial markets, tech-giants and globalists (*spits*) don't want you to know how much energy their datacenters use. They go to great lengths to hide their consumption. And secure illicit deals with governments. Build hyperscale datacenters in unsuspecting small towns, bribing local officials and making little to no effort towards sustainable energy usage. They are parasites on our communities. Taking green energy that the solar panels on our homes produce, and slurping it up with their massive privacy violating content factories. The remainder of the needed energy comes from biomass energy plants. Where woodchips (shipped across the Atlantic!) are burned for energy. Severely taxing our environment and public infrastructure without investing in it. Tax free of course! And not a single bit of transparency to go along with it. Land deals are made secretly with ministries, regardless of governing law.

Naturally, we must be realistic about what matters most. Our freedom, or the "hypothetical" impact on the environment. This is why I have chose financial liberty for Open3DLab, Smutbase and SFMLab. Starting today, it will be possible to mint project pages, files and comments on the sites as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).

For this revolutionary project, I've chosen to partner up with the best, and most reliable cryptocurrency available. Decentraland ($MANA) - the Ethereum based virtual world crypto utopia. With their powerful tools, and Open3DLab's wealth of content, the one-sided co-operation was a shoe-in. Soon, you will be able to use and create interactive experiences with the content on the site, in any $MANA enabled application.

Try the functionality for yourself. It's really simple to use. Just head to any upload on the site, and click the "Mint as NFT" button. The process follows from there. The profit split for the minting and sale of the NFT is as fair as possible. With 10% of the final sale price going to the owner, 20% to the model maker, with the remainder donated to the site as a "generous donation" to keep the site running! 

I hope you're as excited about this new crypto development as I am. This project has been in the works for a long time now, and with the advances in technology, the ease with which we can use the technology in our browsers, the time is right for more crypto adoption.

Let me know what you think!

#hodlgang #lambo 

UPDATE 2022-04-02: This was part of an elaborate April Fools joke. You can find some clarification on the followup post.