Decentralized systems such as Blockchain are already disrupting many industries and the sex work
industry won’t be an exception. The sex work industry is notoriously dominated by shady ventures
and often overlooked by digital innovators. The Blockchain has a great potential to increase the
privacy, safety and trust in the sex work industry like we have never seen before.

Harmful regulations

On the 11th of April 2018, a highly contentious set of laws were passed, known as FOSTA-SESTA,
deconstructed as the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act.
These acts ripped a hole into Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, otherwise
known as the “safe harbor” rule. Section 230 meant that websites and internet providers were not
responsible for the content that was produced by people using these services, FOSTA-SESTA
meant that this was no longer the case in relation to advertisements of prostitution. As a result,
numerous websites, most notably Craigslist, removed various parts of their websites, not due to
the promotion of prostitution but rather because policing this would be far to difficult.
With the scribble of a pen, sex workers and related online services were forced back into the
darkness. While websites like Backpage and Craigslist allowed sex workers to screen clients,
share blacklists and whitelists of clients and ensure that they could work in safe locations, if they
are pushed back to the street, all of these protections and more are lost.

Distributed escorting infrastructure that is impossible to shut down

HUSSY.io has foreseen an issue of this magnitude coming for some time. Since mid-2017, they
have been working on creating a decentralized due diligence and escorting infrastructure that is
safe by design. By storing all listings in a decentralised way, only the data owners have the full
control over data, nobody else is able to delete or modify them — not even the listing platforms.

While the distributed application (dApp) will not directly mediate payments between clients and
service providers, it does come with a built-in advertising framework that will serve as the main
revenue stream for HUSSY.io. Every service provider can choose an optional fee for the listing —
the higher the fee, the more often will be the offer shown to potential clients in a given time and
geographic location.

3rd party due diligence

But not only listings will be stored on the Blockchain. HUSSY.io will also utilize the Blockchain for
a screening feature where clients and service providers can verify each other in an anonymous but
trusted way. The trust is guaranteed by a 3rd party due diligence authority that is reponsible for
verification of all participants in the network. Participant that wants to be verified sends a selfie
with a passport and private data to the due diligence authority who will issue an anonymized
certificate to the Blockchain. The separation of due diligence and the listing platform ensures, that
the participants can stay anonymous but with the trust guaranteed by an independent 3rd party.

In a similar way, it will be also possible to verify health status of participants in regard of sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs).

No time-wasting or abusive clients

Clients are incentivized to make a security deposit before arranging a meeting. In case the client
behave inappropriately or abusively during the meeting, he risks that he will be reported, his
deposit will be locked in a smart contract and possibly burned.

Furthermore, service providers may require a client to make a booking deposit in order to filter out
time-wasting clients that make a reservation but never appears on a meeting. If the client won’t
come to an arranged meeting, his booking deposit will be burned.

Trusted reviews system

Another key part of the app will be the review platform. This will allow clients and providers to rate
the experience.

After the meeting, the service provider will issue a confirmation in form of a QR code with a the
HUSSY dApp. This confirms, that the meeting went well, it was consensual and that the provider
allows with writing a review. The client then physically scan this confirmation and issues so called
“Proof of Consent” to the Blockchain which enables both parties to write an anonymous but
trusted review of each other.

Token sale

The token sale of HUS tokens are planned for Q1 2019, after a working prototype will be deployed
to the Blockchain. Utility tokens will be used especially by service provider for advertising of their
services and as a guarantee of trust by clients.
Due to the fact that a large number of tokens will be held as a security deposit by clients and
some of the tokens will be even burned over time, it is expected that the price of tokens will
increase with the growing adoption of the platform.

Legal considerations

HUSSY as a company is legally bound to operate only in countries that allow advertising of sex services. However, due to the decentralized and open nature of the underlying Blockchain infrastructure, any anonymous entity might be able to open a listing platform anonymously. Such platform can be served for example behind a hidden a Tor gateway only with a very slight latency overhead. As governments opt to push the industry underground (with legislations like FOSTA/SESTA), it is a responsibility of HUSSY.io and anonymous listing entities to try to protect and support the people that engage in sex work.

Website: https://hussy.io

Whitepaper: https://hussy.io/app/assets/whitepaper.pdf

Pitch Deck: https://hussy.io/app/assets/pitch-deck.pdf

Twitter: https://twitter.com/hussy_io

Facebook: https://fb.me/hussy.io

Telegram: https://t.me/hussy_io

Medium: https://medium.com/hussy-io

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/hussyio/

The post HUSSY.io: Blockchain for the sex work industry appeared first on Ethereum World News.