> “You get on an exchange for as long as you can, until they shut your ass down,” says Knox (an independent sex-worker). “You quickly [run out of exchanges], so you sit on a lot of useless money. The whole ‘crypto is permissionless and censorship-resistant’ thing is a bunch of bullshit.” (Knox suspects she has ended up on a blacklist at Plaid, a provider of technology plumbing to large crypto exchanges like Gemini, Kraken, and Robinhood, leading to the repeated bans. Freya Petersen, spokesperson for Plaid, says no such list exists, but that all firms that wish to use its services are subject to a standard risk assessment process, factoring in the industry in which they operate.)
The only way around this would seem for sex workers to have their own wallet with keys that they control, but that still leaves them with no way to cash out, and landlords, car loans, and grocery stores do not accept crypto.