Use cases

Journalists and private investigators have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. While it is impossible to correctly say how many journalists are killed every year, according to data from Statista, for the past 20 years, at least 50 journalists were killed every year.

The heroic work of investigative journalists

This is mostly due to the nature of their job. Investigative journalists have to oftentimes go above and beyond to keep their identities anonymous or at least as safe as possible. Due to the inherent nature of their jobs, investigative journalists are often looking around data or information that people tried their hardest to hide.

However, their work can be seen as a service to the public. The failure to hold the powerful accountable is one of the oldest challenges of democracy. If it fails, government can fail too, which in many cases leads to corruption, discrimination, favouring of the richest, widening the generation gap and so on.

And these are just a few of many reasons why investigative journalists all around the globe put their lives in danger. To not only convict those who are trying to use their power for their benefit in an illegal way, but also to protect the poorest and the weakest from being exploited or used.

Yet, in many cases, the work of these people goes not only unnoticed, but is also poorly paid, considering how dangerous the job can get. And here is the first possibility of how Bitcoin can help. Thanks to relative Bitcoin anonymity, journalists can receive donations easily and, under the right conditions, also anonymously. This can prevent their governments or illegal actors in power to cut the investigative journalists from receiving their fair share of financial support.

How does Blender help?

But there is another component to this. Bitcoin, as we have already shown, does not protect the privacy of its users, unless the users actively do it themselves. So, if any entity, such as an investigative journalist, wants to hide their finances from the oppressive governments or authoritarian leaders, they would need to look for anonymous Bitcoin wallets, Lightning Network transactions, CoinJoins or other mixing mechanisms that would make their Bitcoin journey more private, but also a bit more difficult. Not everyone can spend hundreds of hours on education of how Bitcoin privacy or anonymity works in the crypto world, especially if they are spending most of their days with difficult investigative work.

Thus, an easy solution that would make transactions to their wallets or payments for other goods and services via Bitcoin more private, would almost without any doubt help them with their financial situations. And to provide for that Blender came with an easy-to-use solution.

Any transaction, from any wallet and sent to any wallet or address that is compatible with the Bitcoin standards, can be made anonymous through Blender. Solely sending through Blender adds another protective layer to the privacy and anonymity of both, the sender as well as the receiver, which is something that the investigative journalists can use in their favor.

Win for everyone

The improved privacy would not only make their financial situation safer, but through the usage of Bitcoin, could lead to donations and support that they really deserve for their work. Thus, it is without any doubt a win-win situation, since those who would want to support investigative journalists also do not need to fear any consequences. Their identity would not be revealed if services such as Blender are used in the transaction process.

Moreover, thanks to the borderless nature of Bitcoin, these journalists can receive the support or use BTC as a payment anywhere in the world without any bank account. And since it is not uncommon for journalists to move around the world, Bitcoin in combination with Blender would not only make their lives easier, but also more private.

Investigative journalists are not the only ones who can benefit from the improved privacy of their financial status. In this part, we have looked at activists and we have shown how the combination of Blender and Bitcoin can help those who are trying to fight against atrocities that oppressive governments impose on people all around the world.

As was recently portrayed during the Oslo Freedom Forum, Bitcoin has different use cases that can help people all around the world. One very specific group of people, who have been struggling to get the best out of the current financial system are activists. Whether these are human rights activists, environmental activists or freedom activists, their financial situation is on many occasions made difficult through the financial system.

The poorest, the least free, or the least educated people, all of those, who would know exactly how to change the system to benefit the masses, not only the few, have the hardest time setting bank accounts or even receiving any form of money other than cash. This situation then only amplifies injustice, inequality or social issues.

What is even more pressing is the fact that once people decide to do something about the problem, they meet with hurdles. Setting up a bank account is still unreachable for hundreds of millions of people all around the world. Using that account freely is just as complicated.

Moreover, since most of these bank accounts have to comply with KYC/AML practices, activists or freedom right defenders, who go against their authoritative leaders or governments have a very rough time trying to do anything that is connected to money. And without money, you cannot do many things in today’s world, let alone trying to “fight” against an oppressive leader or authoritarian government.

Problems all around the world - from Eritrea to Russia

This was for instance portrayed by Meron Estefanos. Meron is a human rights activist that is trying to help free the victims of human traffickers in Eritrea. The government of the country has almost full control over Hawala, the remittance system that relies on a network of people passing cash between countries.

Since the government of Eritrea is after Estefanos, she cannot use Hawala to send money to her mother using her name, making the operation risky. This is mostly due to her human rights advocacy, a reason why she is also staying in Sweden rather than Eritrea.

Similar problems, but on different scales, were portrayed by Leonid Volkov, Russian opposition politician and a manager of Alexey Navalny’s campaign. Volkov for instance not only stated the problem, but also its possible solution:

“After our movement was outlawed in Russia and we were forced to relocate abroad, we realized bitcoin is very important as we can use it to support our friends and colleagues back in Russia. Because otherwise, they would be receiving money from ‘terrorists.’”

Bitcoin solves the problem, Bitcoin mixer adds privacy

Both of them, and countless others, have turned their focus on Bitcoin. And rightfully so. The biggest cryptocurrency has everything they need and look for in a tool that should help with transmission of value across borders without any reliance on centralised entities or trust.

With Bitcoin, all they need are mobile phones and wallets that they can use to send money to each other. Thanks to that, they can not only send remittances to their families, but also buy goods or services needed not only for their activities, but also day to day life.

And if they wanted to do all of this in the most secure and private way possible, they can also use a Bitcoin mixer. Through a Bitcoin mixer, activists make sure that their satoshis or bitcoins are sent in a more private way without anyone knowing who has sent it and who has received it.

Moreover, it is as simple as scanning a QR code or sending an address, something that is the same for most of the cryptocurrency transactions anyways. Yet, thanks to Blender, an additional layer of privacy is added, without any need of having an anonymous Bitcoin wallet.

"Through this, all the activists can not only stay safe, but also use the emerging financial revolution of Bitcoin, to help with their own revolutions."

Libertarianism is described as a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. For supporters of this ideology, liberty is the most important value above all. They want to make their own choices, be free in the markets and in life as such, not constrained by any government or political institution.

This does not mean that libertarians want anarchy or chaos. Not at all. Libertarians are mostly concerned about being pushed to do things they do not necessarily agree with. Libertarians believe that others should not have the power to force them to make any decisions they do not want to make.

“Libertarianism says that the best way to interact with each other is without force, without top-down controls.”

And top-down controls, which are usually enforced by governments, are often believed to be the biggest enemy of libertarianism. Many libertarians therefore believe either in smaller states, where people would have opportunities to choose which state they want to live in based on whether they agree or disagree with the states policies. Others go as far as stating that there should not be any states or governments that are “ruling its citizens.”

How is this connected to Bitcoin?

While it might look like libertarianism and Bitcoin have nothing in common, this could not be further from the truth. In fact, many believe that Bitcoin is one of the best libertarian tools out there, since it allows one to opt out from the monetary system that is currently ruled by governments.

Some central banks around the world will claim their independence from the country or government where they are operating. However, as we all know, this simply is not true and central bankers, in the vast majority of cases, are somehow connected to the currently ruling parties or officials in power.

Thus, central bankers are nothing else than just puppets of politicians, who have power over monetary systems in the country, leading to almost totalitarian power over the people. To opt out of this monetary trap, libertarians can use (and are using) Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is a monetary network that is not ruled by governments or politicians. In fact, it is not ruled by anyone other than the code. One common saying in the crypto world even states that Code is Law, which only signifies how powerful the code is.

Not any single individual, government or political party, but code is in charge of Bitcoin. And since it is completely transparent and verifiable, everyone can check whether they believe in the code and if so, they can run their own Bitcoin nodes, becoming sovereign individuals who do not rely on anything but the piece of software running on their computer.

Sovereign individuals should have privacy - enter Blender

To step up the libertarian “game” even more, libertarians are often learning about Bitcoin privacy and anonymity. The fact that they want to opt out from the system means that oftentimes they also want to make sure that “the system” does not know what they are doing. And this is not because of a need to make illegal or immoral decisions. This is solely because they want to be autonomous, not ruled or pushed around by anyone. And in many cases, to do this, they need to stay anonymous.

The blend of Bitcoin and Blender helps with that. While Bitcoin provides the autonomous features where everyone is their own bank, Blender makes sure that this bank is anonymous. From sending Bitcoin privately to receiving, Blender makes sure that the identity of all the participants in this privacy solution is anonymous and as easy to use as possible.

Thus, by using Bitcoin through Blender, libertarians can not only be in charge of their own “monetary system,” but also be sure that their transactions are private and anonymous, thus not allowing governments to snoop around.

We have stated this over and over again, bitcoin is not anonymous. Thanks to its characteristics and features, bitcoin is pseudonymous, which means that it is traceable and can be connected to a real-life identity.

However, there are ways how an individual can stay “off the grid” thanks to using bitcoin. As of now, it requires not only a bit of skill, but also using proper tools which need to be improved. Moreover, education and studying of these tools is required, because they are rarely easy-to-use or intuitive, which oftentimes means that even privacy extremists can be discouraged by the usage of such tools. But what if there was a simple solution?

Is bitcoin for privacy extremists?

We, and many others, have analyzed the Bitcoin privacy related questions connected to bitcoin from many angles. We have looked at its features and inherent characteristics, which make bitcoin the transparent, distributed ledger that it is. We have also looked at some tools and techniques that can help enhance the privacy of bitcoin such as CoinJoin or anonymous bitcoin wallets that have privacy as one of their biggest concerns.

Yet, it still needs to be pointed out that if we leave Lightning Network out of consideration, there are no easy tools that would make life of privacy extremists easy when it comes to bitcoin. Yet, all is not lost for the people who are concerned with their identities and want to keep as much information for themselves as possible.

Especially in the digital age, where everything is online, mostly on social media, it is becoming increasingly difficult to have some form of privacy in life. When it comes to finances, people should be able to keep this information for themselves, if they want to. Obviously, if they want to take pictures in expensive cars or on holidays all over the world and boast about their crypto gains, they should have this option and face the consequences, which can sometimes be brutal. Sadly, this is not something rare as it has happened many times, such as in this case or in this case.

Nevertheless, it should be just as easy for people to stay anonymous if they decide to. Having their financial situation in secret and under control is something that the privacy extremists are all about. While they often try to completely hide their identities and all the activities they do online and some even offline, keeping their finances private is one of the most important parts of staying anonymous.

Blender offers an easy solution

And that is where Blender comes in. Privacy extremists have without any doubt already figured out that bitcoin is not the tool for them. At least not in its naked, simplest form. However, if bitcoin is used over proper services or platforms, it can become very private, technically untraceable.

One of these services is Blender, which offers anonymity to both, the sender as well as the receiver when it comes to the on-chain analytics. While many could argue that the Lightning Network can do the same, to benefit from Lightning, the users need to have a designated Lightning wallet and understand the differences between on-chain and off-chain technicalities.

That however does not apply to Blender. With Blender, you simply send on-chain bitcoins and satoshis to anyone who provided you with their on-chain address. All of this is done anonymously and can be enhanced if the communication between the sender and the receiver is either in person or through private messengers such as Signal.

This would make the transactions untraceable, unless the counterparty of the transaction does not fail the privacy agreement. However, that is very rare, if not totally unprecedented, since privacy extremists usually tend to cooperate with their peers, who are just as concerned about their privacy. 

This then makes the transactions via bitcoin over Blender completely anonymous and private, which means that privacy extremists can be added as another group of people who can benefit from this tool. 

Other groups, who can use this tool for their benefit to serve them just like they want to, are for instance activists, libertarians or adult content creators. This only proves that bitcoin on Blender has utility for many different groups, who have one thing in common and that is financial privacy in this overly digital age.

It is no surprise that cryptocurrencies have created many millionaires and billionaires. These people are commonly referred to as cillionaires a combination of words crypto plus millionaires.

These people could have increased their wealth through different options connected to cryptocurrencies, from investing and trading, mining, creating new businesses to education. However, the fact that someone earned a lot of money thanks to the cryptocurrencies does not mean that they wish for everyone else to know about it. In fact, many of them try to hide their identities mainly for security reasons.

Famous crypto cillionaires

There are obviously very famous crypto millionaires or even billionaires that do not try to hide their riches. Most of them do so mostly because it is impossible to stay anonymous in their position, as many of them are CEOs or main personas behind cryptocurrency exchanges or other platforms or service providers.

These are for instance people such as Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX exchange, the Winklevoss twins Tyler and Cameron, founders of Gemini exchange or Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase.

However, the fact that the identities of these people are revealed does not mean that all crypto millionaires or billionaires want the whole world to know that they got rich off the cryptocurrencies. That might however be more difficult to hide as it seems at first, since the distributed decentralised ledger of Bitcoin is transparent, which means that anyone can check any transaction that has ever happened on the blockchain.

Why to stay anonymous

This simply means that if, for instance, the owner of a non-anonymous Bitcoin wallet or an address with 1 000 BTC sends 1 BTC to someone else without maintaing any privacy measures, they can then look up how much the sender owns, thus connecting it to the real world identity. This can get really dangerous and it has already happened many times that people got into danger for their crypto wealth.

The abduction of people, who were very outspoken about their cryptocurrency riches or who were connected to some exchange or any platform with huge amounts of cryptocurrencies are sadly nothing new. Thus, one can only imagine that becoming a cillionaire does not solve all the problems. In fact, it can even create more problems that, unless the person is very careful, can lead to life threatening occasions.

Staying off the grid with Blender

Keeping your cryptocurrency riches to yourself is not only important for your safety, but also for the safety of your coins. Obviously, it is important that your family knows about the capital stored in the cryptocurrencies in case something happens to you. But that does not mean that your crypto portfolio should be everyone’s concern.

Many crypto millionaires know this and are thus trying to do their best to not only not share their crypto allocation with anyone online, but they are also very careful about how they spend their coins. Doing this in a private and anonymous way can increase the security of the hodlers and their families and can prevent everyone close to the crypto cillionaire from getting into danger.

The Bitcoin millionaires have few different ways how they can stay off the grid and Blender is one of them. Thanks to the privacy features used in Blender, there will not be any traces of the identities of the two parties stored in the blockchain. Moreover, the sender and the receiver do not even need to know each other’s real identities to send bitcoins, which means that if the sender is careful enough, their identity will not be revealed by anyone, thus improving the privacy of the cillionaires.

Moreover, thanks to Blender, cillionaires have a rather neat feature through which they can spend some of their wealth, without having to be extra cautious about their identity and privacy. Using Blender to send bitcoin is as easy as any other transaction, but it adds one more layer of privacy to it, which means that cillionaires do not need to fear paying for products using Blender. On the contrary, thanks to Blender, cillionaires can actually spend their bitcoins in real life, thus, using their riches for their personal benefit.

Conclusion

Activists, journalists or adult content creators can all benefit from Bitcoin and the improved privacy that Blender offers. But so can cillionaires, crypto millionaires and billionaires, who now have a way to spend their hard earned money without the need to fear for their security or safety.

Not everyone should know about everything that you are doing. While this might not be true for marriages or relationships (but can, depending on your values and worldviews), the first sentence mostly points out to the finances or activities online that should not be easily reached by governments or anyone else.

And while many believe that bitcoin is still mostly used by young people such as millennials and generation Z that does not mean that it is not meant for all adults. Anyone willing to play around with bitcoin should be allowed to do so, no matter what their incentives are.

Popularity amongst adults is rising

According to many surveys, popularity of cryptocurrencies, and especially bitcoin, has been steadily increasing in the past years. Moreover, some believe that this year countless newcomers will join this space. For instance, this survey by Insider Intelligence shows that around 34 million adults in the US will own cryptocurrency by the end of this year, with over 3.6 million using them as payments.

Bitcoin is by far the most popular option, since more than 25 million US inhabitants are already owning this cryptocurrency, which is more than 16% increase from the previous year. But what are the main reasons why adults are attracted to this type of investment lately?

Distrust of financial system

Probably one of the first or most concerning reasons why adults turn their heads to cryptocurrencies is the current financial system. With still increasing inflation and prices of food, energy or real estate, investors need to wonder, whether this financial system is trustworthy. And those, who believe that it is not, often look at the alternatives, which is where bitcoin stands out immediately.

Investment opportunity

Unsurprisingly, bitcoin has caught the attention of most people thanks to its returns. Bitcoin has been by far the most profitable asset of the past decade, which is something that all adults will always want to achieve. Thus, thanks to its price appreciation, bitcoin has earned a lot of attention mainly from the side of adult investors all around the world, who are willing to enter this volatile market.

Privacy

Another reason, and definitely one of the biggest ones, is the privacy that bitcoin can offer. While this may sound shady, bitcoin is actually pseudonymous, which means that unless the users of the bitcoin network are very careful, their identity will be revealed anyways, thus eliminating the privacy element.

Yet, if the adult users of bitcoin are careful, they could benefit from the privacy features of bitcoin. One of these features is also Blender, which allows users to send and receive bitcoin transactions without anyone else knowing. And why would anyone else want to do this? Well, there can be countless reasons.

Reasons to use bitcoin via Blender

Purchasing numerous products and services can be very private and personal information for adults. These can range from private pieces of land, cars, precious metals to anything like second passports, artwork or access to websites for adults. No matter what the intentions of the buyers and sellers are, the fact is that unless cash is used, in today’s world it is almost impossible to have privacy in the financial space.

And using cash especially for international purchases or transactions is incredibly difficult. Thus, enter bitcoin on Blender. Sending bitcoin is borderless, meaning that it can be sent from one place on Earth to another without any problems, usually in just a matter of minutes (or seconds in case of Lightning Network).

Doing it over Blender ensures that the sender as well as the receiver will stay anonymous and that the transaction will not be paired with a real-life identity. This means that the purchase of any good or service, whether that is precious metal, artwork, cigars, alcohol, even porn or whatever else, is no one else’s business, but the people on the opposing sides of the transaction.

Conclusion

Thus, bitcoin and Blender is not only for groups such as activists or journalists. No matter the purpose, whether a purchase, investment potential, distrust in the financial system or something else, using bitcoin should be private and anonymous for everyone.

It is, in the end, property of the buyer and unless they do something illegal with it, there should not be any reason for any adult to release information about their financial well being or whereabouts. That is why Blender was created.

Cryptocurrencies and the adult video content industry have been linked together for quite some time now. While this issue was definitely not the first one Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of Bitcoin, might have had in mind, solving problems for adult film makers or content creators is definitely something where cryptocurrencies can offer a solution.

And as was seen in the past few years through Pornhub or problems of OnlyFans, crypto definitely does offer a value to both the users of these platforms as well as the content creators. How is that possible?

The payment problems of adult content creators

On 15th of December 2020, Pornhub, the biggest adult video website, announced that it will be only accepting cryptocurrencies as a payment for Premium purchases and top ups. This included a list of 13 cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, Ripple, as well as the anonymous cryptocurrency Dash.

This was mostly due to the problems with the payment providers and credit card giants such as MasterCard and Visa. Both of these platforms stopped supporting Pornhub, which made paying for subscriptions at the website almost impossible.

Very similar problem was witnessed only last year, when OnlyFans, one of the most popular websites for adult content creators, announced that it will be banning “sexually explicit content.” This news was heartbreaking for countless content creators at the website, since OnlyFans has become their bread and butter due to improved and more efficient subscription models that connected adult content creators directly with their audience.

And why was OnlyFans planning to change its very successful model and strategy? Because they needed to comply with the requests of their banking partners and pay-out providers. While this decision was later reversed, during that time many have started to point out that the problems with adult content creation can be solved thanks to cryptocurrencies.

Where can Bitcoin step in?

With Bitcoin, you do not need to worry that it will somehow not accept your payment. Or that it will stop supporting the platform that you use either for creation of a content or to consumption of a content. Since Bitcoin is not concerned with what the users are paying for, but rather if they are complying with the very few rules on the network (such as do not spend more than you actually have in your, ideally anonymous, Bitcoin wallet), Bitcoin will not be the one to stop any content creator from receiving the payments from their audience.

And that is exactly why Pornhub has been supporting cryptocurrencies for almost 2 years now. It is also a reason why Bitcoin was always the first choice when it comes to adoption of the cryptocurrencies as payment methods. Due to its decentralized nature and immutable ledger system, no one will ever be powerful enough to change, reverse or ban transactions just for the sake of “terms and conditions” or other policy measures.

This is exactly what adult content creators need to not only be able to fully benefit from cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, but also to make sure that they will not be unemployed or without any income just because some platform has derailed from its original statement or purpose.

Blender and the introduction of privacy

Bitcoin can thus help not only with better stability, but also with an improved self-sovereignty. These two benefits can be improved upon by the introduction of anonymity, in case either the adult content creator or the consumer would want to keep their information private. While this would still need to be properly thought of as per how the subscription models would work (depending on the platform or software), Blender can essentially solve the Bitcoin privacy problem, just like it is solving privacy concerns for activists or libertarians.

Thanks to easy-to-use interface, Blender can make almost any Bitcoin transaction of smaller size anonymous and private, so that the identities of the receiver and the sender are anonymous. While this might lead to some complications at first, there are already teams around the world that are developing proper systems and solutions as to how to properly pair anonymous transactions of this kind, which means that it does not pose any real threat or concern.

Conclusion

Nevertheless, Bitcoin helps adult content creators such as those operating at OnlyFans to be not only in charge of their own subscription models and payment methods, but also helps with improved self-sovereignty. And in combination with Blender, it can also help with privacy as well.