Only1 has raised $5 million to build an OnlyFans clone on Solana, but will creators join?

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UPDATED: April 21, 2024, 7:10PM EDT

Quick Take

Only1 has announced the closure of a strategic investment round of $1.3 million, led by Newman Group, bringing its total funds raised to $4.8 million in order to build an adult content platform on Solana.
I asked a crypto-skeptical professional OnlyFans creator for his thoughts on what it would take to bring him onchain.

The adult content platform OnlyFans, to crypto fans, seems like a Web2 company ripe for disruption. The platform charges a 20% fee on all creator earnings, generating billions in revenue for the company. A creator's content, followers, and earnings, though, are locked to the platform, meaning it's tough to leave once you've built a following. Plus, there was that time banks nearly forced OnlyFans to ban all adult content on the platform, according to its CEO.

Enter Only1, which today announced a $1.3 million strategic raise led by Newman Group to create an OnlyFans-type adult content platform on Solana, bringing its total fundraising to $4.8 million. Only1 also teased a slate of creators which will soon be joining the platform with ten million followers shared between them.

But are professional OnlyFans creators ready to jump ship and move on-chain? Professional OnlyFans creator Lucas Moreno says Only1's platform presents some compelling features, especially its resistance to censorship decisions like those made by OnlyFans in the past. "[It would be a big draw] not only for me, but for everyone else, because this keeps happening...every bunch of months they will come up with a new article to say what they're banning."

However, as a gay creator surveying Only1, which appears to be a platform dominated by feminine creators so far, Moreno has some concerns about Only1's decentralized content moderation strategy, where token stakers participate in voting on flagged content. "On the one side, it sounds like something that's fair, having the community decide, it seems more democratic," said Moreno. But joining a site with predominantly straight creators would leave room for discrimination, Moreno says. "Not necessarily [discrimination] would happen, but there would be room for it to happen."

While Moreno, who considers himself crypto-skeptical, was particularly drawn in by Only1's promised 0% fee on tips and subscriptions, he also foresaw challenges in getting his following to adopt a new platform. "Even if it's a great idea, there's a lot of education needed and a lot of demystifying and unlearning about things that might have gone wrong in other areas in crypto that might give a bad reputation to crypto," said Moreno.

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About Author

Zack Abrams is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, New York. Before coming to The Block, he was the Head Writer at Coinage, a Web3 media outlet covering the biggest stories in Web3. The story he co-reported on Do Kwon won a 2022 Best in Business Journalism award from SABEW. Other projects included a deep dive into SBF's defense based on exclusive documents and unveiling the identity of the hacker behind one of 2023's biggest crypto hacks — so far. He can be reached via X @zackdabrams or email, [email protected].