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The co-founder of adult creator subscription platform MintStars announced she\u2019s leaving the platform and donating her ownership shares in the company to its creators and sex workers.\u00a0In an email to creators using the platform in late June, Jessica Van Meir wrote that 20 percent of her shares would be used to create a co-ownership pool for creators, while her remaining three percent of the company will be donated to SWOP Behind Bars, a non-profit that supports incarcerated sex workers and sex trafficking survivors in the U.S.\u00a0\u201cWith this step, which completes my personal mission to launch a company for and by adult content creators, I will also be officially moving on from my position as a Director at MintStars,\u201d Van Meir wrote in the email. Van Meir is a Harvard PhD candidate studying the sex workers\u2019 rights movement in Latin America, and also co-founded the Boston Sex Workers and Allies Collective three years ago. Van Meir and Daniel Sargent co-founded MintStars in 2021; Sargent will remain at the company as CEO.Setting up a share pool sets a precedent rarely seen on subscription sites, where creators are directly rewarded for the success of the platform, not just their own individual work.Van Meir said attacks on her academic work outside of MintStars contributed to her decision to step away. \u201cIn the past year, my PhD research has faced attacks from anti-sex work organizations that have attempted to use my affiliation with MintStars to undermine the credibility of my research,\u201d Van Meir wrote in the letter to creators. \u201cI would never want my work with the company to prevent my research and activism from benefiting sex worker communities, so it is time for me to pass the baton.\u201d\u00a0The pool of shares for creators will be allocated \u201cin proportion to their contributions to the platform,\u201d Van Meir wrote, adding that the platform plans to launch a points system to earn ownership. If the company is ever sold or pays out dividends to shareholders, creators will be paid in proportion to those points via phantom shares. Phantom shares or stock are a cash incentive tied to company performance that doesn\u2019t dilute the company\u2019s ownership stock or give holders voting rights, but do reward holders \u2014 typically executives or employees, but in this case, creators \u2014 for their contributions to the company\u2019s success.According to Van Meir, MintStars creators will be able to earn points in accordance to their earned revenue, how many referrals they\u2019ve made, and number of months they\u2019ve actively used the platform. \u201cThis means that you will share in the profits of the company\u2019s success, in a fair proportion to how much you\u2019ve contributed,\u201d she wrote.\u00a0Podcast: Why AI Porn Sucks (with Noelle Perdue)Noelle and Sam discuss everything from sexbots and AI porn to censorship, age verification legislation, and their favorite parody porn flicks.Many social media and user-generated content platforms have grown massive on the strength and support of sex workers who popularized it. Some of the biggest, like X and Instagram, grew thanks to sexual content; others, like OnlyFans, have been criticized for considering banning adult content due to payment processing problems and banking discrimination in the past.\u00a0Demonia, a financial dominatrix who\u2019s used MintStars since 2023, told 404 Media she\u2019s felt frustrated by unstable creator platforms and online censorship in the past, and hopes to put more effort into her MintStars presence following this announcement. \u201cI will be honest, I didn’t think I’d live to see such a revolutionary choice in a strictly capitalistic society and environment that promotes individualism to embarrassing levels, and I am elated to have chosen to be part of this project from its early steps,\u201d Demonia told me in an email. \u201cNot only cooperative enterprises are healthier environments to work in on a general level, but there is now a further level of security for the creators who decide to invest in the platform as a source of income, and a great deal of motivation to see it succeed.\u201d\u00a0AVN reported that the program for earning points will launch this month and take retroactive activity into account, and that MintStars will also introduce new governance measures including a Creator Advisory Board.\u201cThis co-ownership means to me that MintStars aims to empower sex workers on a practical level, recognizing their importance and their rights, without limiting our creativity and safety in the name of profit, and it will definitely impact my effort into making sure such an example lives to make the adult industry’s history, not only because it’s a better choice for myself only, but because it also shows to everyone that there is a better way to enjoy our kinky spaces without being afraid of being deplatformed, of our content being rejected or deleted, of our entire existence being put into discussion,\u201d Demonia said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis partnership is another important step forward in creating a complete ecosystem of care that is both for and by adult industry workers,\u201d a spokesperson for SWOP Behind Bars told 404 Media. \u201cWe’re excited to deepen our ties in the MintStars community and anticipate that Ms. Van Meir’s shares donation will enable us to better understand and meet those workers’ needs.\u201dMintStars uses the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin USDC to process payments. Fans and customers can pay as they would on any other website, with a credit card. Creators can receive payouts in fiat as well. Last month, MintStars announced a new partnership with Payy Network. “Creators face financial discrimination every day, bank accounts shut down, payment processors blocking transactions, and earnings delayed for weeks,” Sargent said in an announcement of that partnership. “Crypto solved access, but it didn’t solve privacy or safety. Nobody’s financial activity should be publicly exposed on a blockchain.” Settlements on the blockchain also prevent some of the most risky aspects of accepting payments as an adult site, including chargebacks, censorship, and banking discrimination.\u201cThe fact of the matter in the adult industry is that without the working women who make platforms all of their revenue, the latter would never succeed and we can now choose for what we believe in and choose who believes in us, MintStars has given us the opportunity to have our voices heard,\u201d Demonia said. \u201cI do hope more sex workers will put their safety and rights first and focus their energies where they will be undoubtedly rewarded, as it’s been proven over and over again since the beginning of this project.<\/p>\n