How to pay a creator privately, and not get scammed doing it
The most private way to pay a creator is usually the boring one. If you pay in crypto, only shielded payments are private, and only the creator's own links page tells you the address is real.
Fans ask me some version of the same question: how do I pay you without it following me around? It's a fair question, and the answer has changed a little now that crypto projects are pitching private payments to creators. The short version: the most private way to pay is usually the boring one, and the riskiest way is the one a stranger using a creator's face asks you for.
I write every reply in my own DMs, so I see this from the receiving end, and this is what I'd tell a fan.
What's the most private way to pay a creator today?
Through the platform, in most cases. On OnlyFans, a charge bills under the platform's name, not the creator's, and I can't see your card number or your real name. I walked through the exact descriptors in what an OnlyFans charge shows on your bank statement. Other platforms differ in the details, so check before you buy.
Paying by card also gives you something crypto doesn't: your card issuer can usually dispute a charge if something goes wrong.
Is paying in crypto more private?
Only one kind of crypto payment is private, and it comes with conditions. With Zcash, a payment between two shielded addresses hides the sender, recipient and amount from the public. A payment that touches a transparent address is public, the way Bitcoin is. And buying the coin usually means verifying your identity with an exchange first. I went through what it does and doesn't hide in Zcash and adult creators.
The other catch: crypto doesn't come with a chargeback. Send it to the wrong address and it's gone, which is part of why scam requests favor it.
How do you know a crypto address really belongs to the creator?
The most reliable check: it's listed on the creator's own site or links page, the one their verified profiles point to. Not in a DM, not in a comment, not in a "new account" bio.
Security firm Bitdefender described these impersonation scams in detail: stolen content, animated photos and cloned voices, with fans pushed toward a peer-to-peer app, cryptocurrency, gift cards or another payment that's hard to reverse. Its red flags are worth memorizing:
- A quick move to a private messaging app
- A request for secrecy
- A demand for payment up front
- A voice you recognize, which on its own proves nothing anymore
I covered how to check a specific account in how to tell it's really me.
Does this creator take crypto?
Not yet. There's no crypto address on my links page today, so anyone asking you for crypto in my name is a fake. I'm planning to try Zcash myself and write about it as I go. If I add an address, it will appear on my links page first, and I'll update these posts to match.
The short checklist
- Pay through the platform when you can. It's private, and a card charge can usually be disputed.
- If you pay in crypto, use a shielded payment, and only to an address on the creator's own links page.
- Treat any request for crypto, gift cards or Cash App in a DM as a fake until the links page proves otherwise.
— Sly