Lust Coin ICO - Decentralized Sex Marketplace
Decentralized sex marketplace which helps find their perfect sexual partner anonymously
Lust Coin
Period: August 18th to October 19th, 2017
Website: https://lust.agency/
Whitepaper: Yes
Team: Adrian Schmeling and co.
Scam or Scum?
ICOtracker.net gives Lust coin a Scum Alert rather than a Scam Alert.
Lust coin is built on top of the Ethereum blockchain and an intend to make use of Ethereum smart contract between participating parties.
I came across Lust Coin while researching Scams identified on ICOTracker.net and there a more sex-industry tokens in the works, such as: Sex service
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Blockchain-based Friendly Sex Dating Service
Lust Coin
Your Lust – Our Deal
A decentralized sex marketplace with a goal to enable all human beings on earth to find their perfect sexual partner anonymously. We want to build a free community where members can experience the innate pleasure of the world without worrying about censorship by religious or governmental authorities or third party involvements. With absolute anonymity and user satisfaction as our primary beliefs, we aim to eradicate the undesirable effects for all parties involved in the sex industry. Cause everybody needs sex, we create this vital tool to provide unstoppable reasonable services to anyone and anywhere in the world.
The aim of the service is to provide a worldwide ‘decentralized’ sex market to satisfy all customers and to ‘eradicate the undesirable effects’ inherent in the sex industry.
The Whitepaper sheds more light on the ‘undesirable effects’ the token hopes to eliminate through the use of their product.
There certainly exists a dark side to the global sex industry, issues of **human trafficking, sex slavery, sexual exploitation, sexual blackmail, and dangerous working conditions for sex workers immediately come to mind.
How does a sex token aim to eradicate the dark side of the sex industry?
We'll explore the Whitepaper and see if this gargantuan task is achievable or just a cover for a profit making platform.
Claims that a token has the ability to wipe away some of the most nefarious aspects of the industry is a lofty and admirable aim but perhaps it is equally unrealistic and naive.
Before we look at the Whitepaper, let’s have a look at the Team. The project is lead by an individual named Adrian Schmeling, the CEO of Lust.
Lust Team
Adrian Schmeling – Founder (CEO)
Simone Schwartz –Marketing and PR
Alex Holt – Community -manager
Mihail Rudenco – Blockchain developer
Evgeniy Karnishin – Smart-contract developer
Duncan Lemp – Distributed high-loaded systems developer
Vitaly Rubanov
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Finding information about the members of the Lust Team is easier said than done. Some information of the development team exists on Github but the profiles betray a fair amount of inactivity and very few followers.
Likewise, the founder of Lust, Adrian Schmeling, proves to be quite elusive. There's an Instagram account with the name Adrian_Schmeling but it's set to private. Aside from this Instagram account, Adrian only shows returns in relations to the very few reviews of Lust coin on several crypto sites.
When the history of the team is difficult to find, it's generally a bad sign.
Another warning is the inclusion of (sorry for the pun) a 'token' Vitaly. After viewing dozens of ICOs, I've noticed that multiple ICO teams have a member named Vitaly. Most likely this is in an attempt to dupe those who know little about cryptocurrencies but have heard of Ethereum's creator Vitalik Buterin.
(comment thread from - https://tokentops.com/ico/lust/)
Whitepaper
Link to Whitepaper
Lust’s Whitepaper is 14 pages in length and the developers include a roadmap of projected progress over the next several years.
The roadmap for Lust is 'conquering' Europe first in 2018 and expanding into Thailand and Japan in 2019 to corner a significant part of the sex trade industry throughout Asia.
The vision of Lust is wholly dependent on the power of escrow smart contracts.
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Since sex is necessary for everyone and it's embarrassing to keep silent about it,
we have created a vital tool for the reasonable provision of these services. This might sound complex, but as a user, it’s extremely convenient to find exactly what you’re looking for on our portal.
With accurate filters ranging from eye colour to desired body figures, you get a
large variety of workers to choose from according to your needs.
We have maintained complete transparency to ensure customer as well as seller
satisfaction with updated ratings, turnaround time and detailed parameters. Also, both seller and buyer are given a choice of whether they want to disclose any personal details to each other or not till the completion of the transaction. This makes it extremely easy for both the parties to join and cultivate funds from our portal securely.
In simpler words, if a client is interested in a worker on our portal, he will send her a request with the preferred time. If the request is accepted, a client will be able to access private information of that worker, like more photos, name or something worker decides, and vise versa. After double confirmation, this money will be held by smart contract and his wallet would generate an access key.
This key has to be scanned later if they make an agreement and meet otherwise
the contract gets automatically closed in 48 hours, and the client gets his Etherium tokens back in the wallet. The client can start with another try if she disagrees. Also, once the service is completed, both parties have 24 hours to leave a feedback to each other and gain reputation. Completely anonymous, transparent, secure and impossible to shut down, this decentralised marketplace is the new revolution of the sex industry.
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Does this really make sex workers safer?
I have serious doubts about this claim.
While the escrow smart contracts and a sort of peer to peer interface between seller and buyer (to use Lust Coin’s terms) could be beneficial in cutting out the middle man (pimps, escort services companies, brothel owners, etc.) it could actually make sex workers more vulnerable. As much as I despise pimps, at least there’s the chance that if a sex worker gets in to some trouble they may have some level of protection.
Furthermore, it’s possible that sex workers (girls) may have their accounts controlled by a third party (sex trafficker) much like how a trafficker may control a girl’s passport and force immigrants into prostitution.
Another scenario could be that sex workers are threatened by the John during/after their encounter. The John may be abusive but demand that the girl gives the John a high rating or worse forces under threat to return his payment by terminating the contract/agreement as unfulfilled.
I’m not alone on this point as there are many others who are skeptical of Lust Coin’s plan and some even believe that it has the potential to increase violence towards sex workers.
Here are some comments from -
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Potential issues
• Anonymity facilitating child prostitution
• Playground for sex offenders
• Crimes could be more difficult to trace
The ICO Pre-Sale is still ongoing.
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Conclusion
The question posed earlier was - Scam or Scum?
It's hard to ignore that Lust has a polished website that is appealing on different levels. There's a team, with titles, a 14 page Whitepaper, a product that has a giant market (42 million sex workers) worldwide and that sex and dating sites are very profitable.
Back to the question at hand. I'm no expert but I'm gonna go with BOTH. It's both scammy and scummy.
The Team itself appears to be a complete fabrication as information is hard to come by. Also, it seems unlikely that the product can deliver on it's promise to 'eradicate' unsavory elements in the sex trade simply by introducing a token with smart contracts.
A question that is also useful to ask is -
Is the token necessary?
Imho, I don't think it is. Individuals could simply use pre-existing cryptos to transfer payments, use existing SMS/dating sites to find one another and I don't see how a smart contract can improve the safety of sex workers on the whole.
Disclaimer: I'm be no means a cryptocurrency expert and this is not financial advice. I'm expressing my opinion based on the little information I could find relating to this ICO.
If you're after 'decentralised sex' just close your laptop and talk to people in real life.
I suppose it's an interesting concept; it could possibly allow sex workers to ditch controlling pimps (cut out the middle man), but the anonymity of it would surely give paedophiles and other sex criminals a field day?
problem is so many people can't talk to people in real life anymore, we're in a digital age now and ive even heard japan is having trouble with reproduction because people just aren't having sex.
I do agree it would be dangerous in the wrong peoples hands but bad people will always find a way to manipulate things. not saying i think lust is good or bad but yea.
thatsnumberwang,
wholeheartedly to your comment. Imho if you want to protect them - educate them,which would provide them an alternative income stream and with that maybe they'll reevaluate their options.
Right, that's exactly how I see it too. Maybe it will get rid of the middle man but it's not guaranteed. Also the anonymity may contribute to some very dark sectors of the sex industry.
I think there's a big difference between talking to people in real life, and meeting people, I am an exceptional conversationalist who doesn't struggle with sexual situations, but the initial meeting strangers bit utterly baffles me, especially considering the vast majority of people my age do so whilst completely trashed.
I don't know what to think about this one. The interesting thing is that the data seems to show if prostitution is legalized it does protect women more, but having crypto involved doesn't seem like it does anything on the face of it.
Thanks for commenting.
Exactly, there doesn't seem to be a need for a cryptocurrency and I also don't imagine sex workers in developing countries where a lot of sex tourism occurs to have knowledge about bitcoin/ether/escrow contracts/ etc..
I agree that the data shows that legalized prostitution would improve the safety for sex workers.
That being said, I was intrigued by this ICO and wanted to drill down a bit more to see if it had any redeeming qualities.
A thought-provoking read. The description makes it sound like a dating site for casual sex between consenting adults, rather than a site where one side is providing sex for money.
The phrase "friendly sex" certainly gives that impression.
On a related note, I wonder if organisations such as Cupid.com are watching this?
You may have a good point here. Established dating sights may be keeping an eye on this or already have a crypto in development.
On a side note: OkCupid/Tinder/Match.com / and many more are all owned by the same conglomerate - IntrerActiveCorp.
Same conglomerate as Lust Coin???
That would really tarnish those sites, IMO
Geez idk what to think of this one? I wouldn't put a cent into it but alot of ppl will. Seems like alot of these icos are just failures waiting to happen. Some maybe worth trying to get in and make a little in the upswing and cash out quick but not this one. I think they're banking on horny guys checking it out and investing in a moment of weakness. I wanted to thank you for checking out my posts v4v I appreciate it 😎
As somebody working in the sex industry and experience from over 12 years, ANY anonymity before meets ect, is extremely, extremely dangerous.
Utilizing sites where people have to pay- with credit card, ect, at least makes for some accountability/trace ability., proof of age.
Just my thoughts on it, anyway.
I don't see any good side to this,at all.
This gives me a sick feeling, you know 3rd party holding of accounts is impossible to prevent. Anonymity of johns is also a danger, as IRL encounters are a bit easier to track if violence is used against the "pro"... I see little chance of this helping a girl to be safer. Most johns treat them like a piece of meat only, or so I am told. I have known a few girls that do this and I have my doubts. :(
Most of these ICO's are total junk. More than 95% of them will be bankrupt failures and their token holders will lose everything!
I don't waste my time reading the white papers or even bothering to dig any further than a brief and summary scan of their ideas. Occasionally I do find an idea or proposition which is interesting, but even then I carefully scrutinize it, and then usually dismiss it due to risks involved, and also because of its chance of success being minimal.
It's good to see you shining the light upon these ICO's @v4vapid. This is because most of them really are a pile of shit and gullible investors, whose judgement is clouded by greed, need a wake up call.
I've looked at quite a few ICO's and existing tokens, and only a select few have true potential. If anyone wants to get into crypto, my opinion is to just stick to bitcoin.
I completely agree with you, well said. I don't believe that the majority of coins will succeed either and there's no need to do a deep dive on most of them. I just happened to find a few of them quite interesting and this one got me thinking ... 'is this possible?'
Again, the way you approach it is very similar to myself. I think that on a surface level people may think that a sex token would be successful just because of... sex. It's a powerful advertising tool, so people with dollar signs in their eyes may believe in this type of project.
Agreed, many/most new ICOs are "pump-n-dump" schemes.
Jeez mate, you've got to be kidding me!?
Your conclusion is dead on, there's no need for it as you can pay with any currency you like.
Definately scummy and quite possibly a scam.
I can't see imagine it'll do any good except for taking money from one or two idiots. Keep it up V, these posts have been a real eye opener.
I like your question: "Is the token necessary?"
One reason for crypto currency / decentralized money could be seen in freedom / not controlled by governments or anybody else stealing from the people.
But I cannot see the advantage of anonymosity that will disappear as soon as the 2 people meet. ... What exactly is the point that will be improved?
Good research...thanks for sharing!
Thanks for sharing!!!
good to know it