Japan has always been a world of its own, existing in both a distant past and far future at the same time. Its culture hangs onto conservative practices and age-bound hierarchies whilst its tech sector blasts ahead, creating modern-day efficiencies like high-speed trains and toilets smarter than your smartphone. This puts the Japanese adult industry in a unique position: it’s both daring and demure, organized and chaotic, curiously analog and fiercely digitized.
Porn categories like hentai, bukkake, futanari, gokkun and shibari originated in Japan and have spread in popularity across the world. National game shows display intimate play as farcical, often involving genital pain, humiliation and stimulation on fantastical sets for public entertainment. Looking from the outside in, “Japanese” is one of the top 25 most-searched terms on Pornhub globally. The country’s international influence in the adult industry is indisputable.
Though Japanese thrive in a very sexually-charged culture, much of what they indulge in is considered taboo and must be kept separate from their working lives.
A study done by the Yano Research Institute shows that the pornography market in Japan has held steady in value at around 105 billion yen per year since 2015 — almost $1 billion USD yearly. For Japan to have reached this fiscal height with a population under 130 million, it’s no wonder that Japanese culture has taken adult entertainment beyond what the western world might consider ordinary.
HOW JAPAN STAYS INNOVATIVE
In Japan, adult actresses are often treated like celebrities, with fans seeking to get their photographs signed as collectors’ items. Many masturbation products are modeled after not only real porn stars, but their hentai counterparts. Tech companies are chipping in, creating virtual reality experiences so customers can meet their models in pseudo-real life. Cuddle bars have popped up in major cities like Tokyo to fill an emotional void created by mounting stress at work.
All of the commerce surrounding the Japanese adult industry has led to a greater need for privacy in transactions and the minimization of fees taken by third-party payment processors. Cryptocurrency is at the vanguard of private, democratically distributed finance and Japan has taken note.
CRYPTOCURRENCY ADOPTION IN JAPAN
Once thought to be crypto-averse, Japan has seen an uptick in use of digital financial systems based on electronic tokens. In March 2021, the country’s national crypto deposits hit a record high of more than 1.4 trillion yen, septupling since the same month in 2020.
Adoption has faced an uphill battle as financial conservatives stick to traditional fiat currency. One of the original cryptocurrency exchanges, Mt. Gox, was shut down in 2014 at the very beginning of Bitcoin’s history, creating mistrust in the currency as a potential future financial force. This has not wholly dampened interest, however, as the world has seen crypto grow and become more useful for transactions like those required in the adult industry.
Top-trading Japanese companies like Nexon are stockpiling Bitcoin to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Bitcoin is here to stay — it’s even been officially legalized in Japan under the Payment Services Act, which declares that coins are property.
PAYING FOR PORN WITH BITCOIN
Though Japanese thrive in a very sexually-charged culture, much of what they indulge in is considered taboo and must be kept separate from their working lives. This means payments for adult entertainment services must be entirely discreet and credible. It can be difficult to get a Japanese person to trust a seller, as evidenced by the abundance of information, on websites and packaging, that spells out exactly what is being sold and why.
Porn websites that offer memberships and content paywalls are using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to bolster trust in transactions; since they’re seamless and anonymous, they’re thus deemed digitally clean. Even at Certus Finance, we’ve sought to harness opportunities for integrating Bitcoin payments with adult companies, as well as tapping into crypto payouts for content creators, given how it encourages these “clean” digital transactions across Japan.
Payment processors should consider handling direct transactions for cryptocurrency exchanges and taking care of payouts to cover everything necessary in crypto transactions, especially in a way that preserves customer privacy. If you’re seeking out a service, make sure the processor never divulges credit card information and that transaction rates are kept lower. This will ensure you make higher sales more likely as more money is going directly to creators and company balance sheets, rather than third parties.
As cryptocurrency adoption climbs, Japanese adult entertainment companies that connect Bitcoin payments to their sites early on will be better prepared for an influx of more and more customers paying with crypto in the future. An infrastructural investment now will pay for itself many times over, especially as Japanese cling onto each marketplace innovation that allows greater clarity and confidentiality in their transactions.
Ilya Firsov is the head of sales and marketing for Certus Finance. Certus has a long history in high-risk verticals, providing financial services, payment processing, cryptocurrency services and managed corporate services including entity creation, tax optimization and more.
