The Onlyfans empire is done..

The only fans empire is collapsing. Oh, really? Why am I not surprised? Currently, the media space has been dominated by how much some top earners are making on. But what hasn't really been discussed is how the company has lost billions of dollars in valuation in a very short amount of time. And things just got even more messy because is now in a very bad situation after the CEO passed away. So essentially you have one of the biggest platforms in the world especially when it comes to that profitability per employ. Oh my only fans is possibly the most the most revenue efficient company in the world and no one even comes close. Give me a minute before I'm ready for this. I I got to use the bathroom. That's ins That's a lot of [ __ ] money. God damn. All right. All right, relax. Calm down. We're back. I wonder why it's so revenue efficient. Who could guess? Employee metric that you've probably seen online. And they just lost the one person running it. And almost nobody knew who he really was and that he existed. So, the dude never gave interviews. There's really no real footage of him online. And one of the only pictures of him online was the one from his LinkedIn that uh had no ties to the platform whatsoever. So that's a little bit interesting. But for years he was quietly making billions running one of the most controversial platforms on the internet. But then in just the last month he passed away and left the entire business in limbo. So I mean to catch everyone up to speed here o I disagree with that. I think that there was probably a plan. The guy had terminal cancer. He knew that he was he knew he was crashing out. He knew it. He probably locked this in a long time ago. Like the people that were running it knew this was going to happen. He knew. Created in 2016 by a guy named Tim Stokeley. He was the youngest kid in the family from Essex, England. And he spent years trying to launch internet business after internet business and had a whole lot of failures. And the guy burned through a whole bunch of his own money and goodwill from friends and family to put it lightly. But his dad, Guy, real name by the way, he watched multiple projects go essentially nowhere and had funded more than a few of them. So when Tim came back with yet another idea, he went, "Okay, here's £10,000 and that's the last one I'm funding." Little did he know though that money became the seed funds. And the original structure was simple. Creators set a monthly price, subscribers paid it, and the platform keeps 20%. And I guess the creator walks away with 80%. Tim's original pitch wasn't necessarily focused on adult content, but the idea had been I think Yeah, that's also one thing that's true. People don't know this, but Only Fans used to be for like photography and stuff like that. It wasn't always for sex work. It's just that all the hoes came in and they just colonized it. Definitely. anyone who could build a paying audience, including adult creators since 2017. And from the start, it was a family operation in the early days with Tim's brother Tom running the operations and their father, Guy, handling the finances. Guy, I guess, was just their guy and father. And that one group, I guess they figured out the model faster than anyone else. And that showed up in some serious numbers because in 2018, the platform was getting traction, but running head first into some uh structural problems. the payment processors that made it possible to, you know, actually collect the money from the subscribers weren't a big fan of the adult side of their business. And obviously, I think that if you're a payment processor, you should not be allowed to decline payment for anything other than something that's illegal. I think it's ridiculous that you have payment processors that are acting like regulatory services determining what people can and can't do inside of a market. The problem is that like if for example Verizon or like not Verizon, Visa was okay with it and Mastercard wasn't, it would be okay because there would be a free market. But when all of the processors effectively act as a cartel, then I think they should be treated like one. I think they need to be regulated. They regulate the [ __ ] out of them. That's what I think. It's ridiculous. You know, no payment processing means no business. Full stop. So Tim sold it and the buyer was someone that almost nobody had heard of and nobody would really hear of him for many years to come. His name was Leonid Ravinsky who was born in Odessa, Ukraine in 1982. His family relocated to Chicago while he was still a kid and he studied economics at Northwestern University and graduated in 2002. And from that point forward, he essentially built an entire career at you know scaling internet companies while keeping his name almost completely out of circulation. And even after he became the owner of one of the most talked about platforms on the planet, a single photo of him made the rounds, the same one over and over, which was attached to a LinkedIn profile that described him as the president at le, you know, completely left o out of the picture. So essentially what we know about this guy is he lived in a $19 million waterfront property in Miami, but he gave zero interviews. He made no public statements. He was, I guess, for every practical purpose, someone who did not want to be found. What he was always doing, however, was running his own things. And he'd been building internet businesses since he was a teen. Imagine that. Imagine a guy that just likes making internet companies and running businesses. And he doesn't want to be a celebrity. He's like, "Okay, yeah, I just like doing this. This is a thing that I do." Yeah. [ __ ] based honestly. Teenager. And by his mid20s, he'd built and operated more than 10 websites, developing a deep understanding in, I guess, the uh mechanics of adult content or entertainment and how that whole payment structure works and how he can uh get that to work without getting banned. As soon as he understood how this industry worked, when he was presented with the chance to buy, he did so in 2018 for $30 million. And it's safe to say that was a phenomenal investment for him because look at the money gross revenue worldwide in billions of dollars. Look at that. Oh wow. 27 to two to four. Oh man, it's a lot of [ __ ] money. 2019 the platform processed around $300 million in total payments and cleared around $7 million in profit. Then a year later that gross payment volume hit $2.2 billion. Now, by 2021, it was approaching $5 billion. And none of these numbers were being announced, but the company files with the UK as required, but Leonid had no interest in turning any of these numbers into some massive press release like many other entrepreneurs would. But then because the moment that he does that, that's cuz he knows the thing is like he not stupid, right? He knows that what he's doing is like something that a lot of people don't agree with. So the more that you talk, the more that people know about you. The more that people know about you, the more people are going to be mad about you. And it's like eventually there's a good like whenever you're doing something that you're really not supposed to be doing, you should keep your head down. Keep your head down. Just just just, you know, don't don't [ __ ] with the gravy train. That moment that probably told you more about OF than anything else because in August of 2021, the platform announced that it was going to ban explicit content. Now, that was confusing to a lot of people because that kind of sounds like if Burger King announced it was going to stop selling burgers. So, why would they ever do that? Well, it makes sense a little bit later on when you get the full picture. But obviously, the response from the creators on their platform was immediate and very it was a ho uprising. It was clear. So, 6 days later, the ban was reversed. And I guess that just showed the creators that they're the product. they actually have the power here of this platform because at the end of the day the platform cannot exist without the creators. Well, what really happened is that people there were other alternatives. There's like fansly like there's like four or five other like places Patreon where people effectively sell content that's like Only Fans content. So like you don't really need Only Fans. Only Fans is simply a it's just a it's a middleman. So, like it's easy to switch middlemen if you're not really providing any sort of like a value added service. It's a medium. Yeah, exactly. Patreon is not porn. What do you think all those girls doing doing the cosplay Patreons? Well, you [ __ ] [ __ ] You some kind of a [ __ ] Like, what what's wrong with you? You have a [ __ ] brain. You need to unretarded yourself. Just stop it. Just stop stop thinking. Just listen. And the consumer's paying for it. So the reason all this actually matters becomes a whole lot more clear once you look at the numbers though because in 2024 they processed 7.2 billion in total transactions between the uh fans and the creators. OF's cut of that was about 20% and that came out to $1.41 billion in net revenue. That is a behemoth of a company but after expenses pre-tax profit landed at $684 million. The entire operation ran by only 46 full-time employees. 46 guys ran a seven. Dude, I love it. That is insane. And then Leonid's personal payouts track the platform's growth as you would pretty much expect because in 2021, he collected around $284 million. In 2022, he collected $338 million. In 2023, he collected $472 million. And then in 2024, he collected $71 million, man. Which works out to about $2 million per day every day for the entire year. Which means the total earnings pulled between 2021 and 2024 were just under $1.8 billion from a company that he paid roughly $30 million for. That might be one of the best investments of all time. But well, yeah. I mean, he did a great job managing it and growing the company. He did. He did an amazing job. It's obvious he did. At the same time, the distribution between the creators is wildly uneven because, you know, you have this whole notion where a bunch of people would start and make a whole bunch of money. But for the most part, that's not true. It It's very similar to how Twitch is in a way. Yeah, I I don't really like drawing comparisons between Twitch and but uh you know you like drawing comparisons between Twitch and Only Fans. Yeah, you're right. Because in a lot of cases, you go to the ASMR section, it's the same thing. It's just the way it is. What do you think all these girls are dancing around here for? What do you think's on that link tree? There certainly ain't Christmas ornaments. Tell you that. a handful of top streamers on Twitch that make a crazy amount of money and then the average streamer makes way below minimum wage. And that's the case with as well. But I mean, that's just a whole another topic for itself. But the thing is, by 2025, Leonid was looking for a buyer. And it didn't take long for him to realize, uh-oh, selling this platform is going to be a challenge because on paper, I mean, the investment is insane. Over $1.4 4 billion in annual net revenue, profit margins that most businesses would consider borderline unbelievable, roughly 380 million registered users, and fewer than 50 people on payroll. If you stripped the context and handed someone the financial statements, they would assume they were looking at some sort of tech unicorn that had figured out everything. However, the context is the biggest problem here because a large portion of the institutional investors, you know, the ones with the actual capital to do a deal at this scale, they operate under something called vice clauses, which are restrictions embedded in their agreements with their own backers that prevent them from putting money into certain categories. He's often this is like there's all kinds of morality clauses and [ __ ] like this inside of business. It's very, very common. It's super annoying. I hate dealing with it. Everybody's a [ __ ] And I mean these firms don't only use their own money. They have liquidity providers or people who invest money into them and they operate as a hedge fund and then they deploy other people's money with the end goal of you know beating the S&P 500 in an annual return. And a lot of people just don't want their funds to go into you know investing in these vice businesses. This is what a lot of the people just to add a little bit of context. This is what a lot of the people want to effectively add like supporting Israel onto one of these lists. Like just so you guys understand like kind of like you see a lot of people talking about like divesting and stuff like that. This is tangental to that. It's inside of that same spectrum in that world. Considers adult content um tobacco, gambling, and weapons. So regardless of the numbers, a lot of the most obvious buyers are essentially blocked from even writing the check. Then you have the operational risks which are, you know, Visa and Mastercard. They've already shown that they could, you know, threaten to cut off payment processing for adult platforms. And this is exactly what pushed OAF towards its failed 2021 ban. And since the platform is almost entirely reliant on subscription revenue, it has to go through payment processors that take somewhere between 5 to 10% in fees on top of the 2 to 3% fees from the most regular, you know, Visa and Master, which is far above the usual 2 to 3% that most regular businesses are charged from payment processors. So obviously that is a tax on their margins and now they're dependent which is unfair in my opinion unless they can prove that these people like they're effectively getting squeezed like this. This is effectively a 1930s mafia deal that has just been turned into a billion dollar industry. That's what's happened. Two payment processed. And not only that, but there's also a regulatory pressure. the UK communications regulator, they hit with a 1.4 million pound fine in early 2025 for a weak age verification practice, which you know might not be the biggest deal for them financially, but it's a pretty clear sign of where this enforcement is going. And then you have that exit problem because even if someone bought it, how do they eventually sell it? Like taking it public through a stock market listing, that's essentially impossible under the current conditions. And there's also no obvious second buyer standing by. and the insane financials don't resolve the fact that this is an asset most people in finance don't really want to be publicly associated with. And I mean, if I was to guess, that might be one of the reasons why they tried to stop allowing adult content on their platform back in, you know, 2021, plus the whole payment processors problem. So, the asking price of the platform started at about $8 billion, and no one was interested despite their insanely high valuation. But the firm that eventually emerged as I guess the most serious buyer was Architect Capital, a San Francisco based investment fund that got its start in 2020 providing credit to Latin American startups. And they had more recently become known for so they don't give a [ __ ] like that they're just gooners down there. I guess down in Latin America, bro, they just like Only Fans. Oh, wow. Do we get a discount now? tendency towards uh complicated situations because its founder James Sagon was one of the larger investors in Juul, a you know vaping and nicotine product that you guys are probably familiar with at this point and honestly that's just a whole another video because Juul completely took over the world like right before the pandemic and it definitely did extremely well during the pandemic and then it seems like it kind of got like banned at least most of their flavors got banned and then suddenly you had like Geek Bars and all these other like off-brand versions of uh jewel. I should figure out a way to sell drugs legally. I feel like cuz if I look at this like one of the things that it seems like a lot of people make a lot of money on is selling drugs and like if you can create like a new drug or something like that that would be like a pharmacy. Yeah. Like it' be like a pharmacy. Oh, I think this is a good idea. Arguably our worst that kind of took over everything. But the thing is that like you have to the thing is in order to be successful in selling drugs, you have to sell them to kids if you can't sell them and market them to kids. What's the point? Long story, but essentially Juul had its products pulled by the shelves by the FDA and they later settled more than a billion dollars in lawsuits over allegations that it was being marketed towards teenagers. So, I mean, it's safe to say that Architect's brand um has some tolerance for uh risky investments and the pitch sagon made to the potential backers. Well, I think that this will become increasingly more the case, right? Because like as more like you have different backers for this, but as a larger market for content that is effectively sin tax level contact, like not syntax, but like the tax for sin, like things like pornography, alcohol, etc. To the extent that those things have high returns, you can create an audience around making money off of them. It's just that historically there are structural disadvantages that make it harder to do right now in in the immediate future. Had two core ideas. First, diversify the platform, push it towards mainstream creator niches, and try to make it competitive with something like Patreon rather than positioning it as purely an adult content site. Obviously, OAF is primarily an adult content platform and the majority of the traffic and subscriptions and the money all comes from that and without that core, it would just be a minor player when it comes to like, you know, competing in the space with YouTube, Patreon, and Spotify. And now that Spotify also added long form content, this is like saying that uh KFC should go and only sell cookies. Just because you get a cookie sometimes whenever you get a meal there, that doesn't mean they should become a bakery. Like KFC sells chicken. That's what it is. They sell chicken. And I guess the same way they sell breast and thighs, so does Only Fans and in subscription models. But I feel like might even be smaller than Rumble if they tried to play in the uh non adult space. Also, fun fact, since I'm mentioning Spotify, I was kind of forced to make a Spotify because some dude kept stealing my content and re-uploading it to Spotify. So, if you want to enjoy my content on Spotify, you can do that as well. I'll leave a link down below so you guys know that uh it's actually me and not the dude impersonating me. So, if you want to leave a review there, that would also help me not get impersonated. But uh continuing the video, over the years, OAF has genuinely been trying to build a uh safe for work community on the platform, including chefs, athletes, musicians, comedians, and fitness coaches. And they also launched their own Safe for Work streaming service called OFTV back in 2021. And they've actively been trying to Okay, so that didn't work, right? How do I know it didn't work? This is the first time I've ever heard of it right now. And I literally do broadcasting. If I've never heard of this, there's probably a reason for it. Pursue other partnerships since but I don't really think any of it really took off. Though that is again still such a tiny portion of what actually is. Then you have, you know, the real competitors here, YouTube, Spotify, and Patreon. They don't allow any 18 plus content. And I don't see a world where OAF is actually able to compete with any of these platforms in the safer work space because, you know, the stigma that comes with the name. It's just like I don't know. I I just can't see most creators being very inclined to be like, "Hey guys, follow my unless they're paid like a massive bag." Yeah. It just doesn't make sense to me. But that problem will be something the new owner will have to inherit. And another step that they might need to do is acquire a banking license because even if they acquire OAF, what happens if the payment processors shut them off? That would be really bad. It's smart actually for them to do that. That way you're vertically integrated. You don't have you're not at their at their mercy. But I feel like that's really hard to do too. That's extremely hard to do. So your content on Spotify is you or an imposter. I have to look into it and see. Like it could be both honestly like for a complicated reason. So a potential solution for that would be if the platform could become its own financial institution. I mean in theory it could. That would definitely be a massive uphill battle for them though. But that would at least help them reduce the 5 to 10% fee burden. Currently the valuation on the table is $3.5 billion with Architect taking 60% of the equity in the deal. So in just a few years essentially lost $4.5 billion in valuation because no one else I would disagree with that. I think that the company didn't sell at $8 million $8 billion. So obviously the company wasn't worth $8 billion. If it was, then it would have sold for $8 billion. So just because like for example, like if I say this is worth $1,000 and nobody wants to, you know, like basically buy it for $1,000 and then I sell it for $10, it doesn't mean it lost $990. It means that it was an inaccurate valuation and the valuation was not comprehensive enough in order to be able to take into account everything that had to do with with like why the company would be valuable, right? I thought you was going to buy it. That's not going to happen. It's just it's not going to happen. I I guarantee you it's not going to happen. And so what I think really is going to happen with this is that and here's another thing with Only Fans is that you're getting to the point to where now AI content with Only Fans is getting so popular that even the girls on Only Fans, it's going to be harder for them to compete with that. Because when AI content is photorealistically similar to a real girls content, I think you're going to see a vast decline in the amount of revenue girls are going to make on the platform. And I think that especially like the thing is that if you're trying to attract gooners, that's great, but what happens whenever a gooner enters the game and they're playing it against you, right? Like what happens when the guy from Pakistan that you're trying to sell Only Fans to is the one making the girls? Like he does. He Now you're talking about they're cutting out the middleman. Now he's cutting out the middleman. [ __ ] [ __ ] paying the girl. Like I'm just going to make my own girl. I'm going to just 3D print this [ __ ] That's it. It's done. And so anyway, Uno reverse. Exactly. And so you see daddy issues in their eyes. You can you just AI you AI that. That's fine. And I've seen plenty I mean there's plenty of girls that are fake as hell in real life. Fake fake internet girls anyway. So I do think that and I've seen this on Instagram a lot that there's plenty of fake girls on Instagram. It's actually really popular. Like I'll click on one, right? I'll be like what the [ __ ] is this? And like honestly I'll be like damn this [ __ ] is hot. Be like I'll look at like the full screen cuz on the explore page and I'm like oh it's fake, right? And so some girl is like on there and it will have like 40,000 likes. It'll have thousands and thousands of likes. So the concept that like people need it to be a real girl. I think that there's definitely an element of that, but it's not the only element. And what's happening now is that girls are having to compete with guys that are way more enterprising. And whenever they have a girl that they're, you know, managing, it's like an AI fake girl. This AI fake girl doesn't age. She doesn't get drug addictions. She doesn't get body dysmorphia and need plastic surgery. She doesn't get older. I don't know. I think I said that already, but I think it's very important. Um, you know, she doesn't gain weight. You can just make her boobs bigger if you want to. It's simple. So, you're really competing on a very uneven playing field. And like they're going to they're literally, you could say they're botting, right? And I think that's what's happening. But the Wall Street Journal had originally reported a total deal value including debt at $5.5 billion compared to an earlier $8 billion valuation just one year before with slower growth and tougher sale process dragging the number down. And this number was apparently dragged down due to slower growth and just a tough sales process. But Sagun's $500 million fund wasn't nearly large enough to cover a deal of this size on its own. So he spent months going door to door trying to assemble the capital and the family offices turned out to be the most receptive audience largely because they don't really face the same restrictions that yeah they don't have the same restrictions like for example like Elon has I think he probably has same restrictions like Elon could never buy this I think because it might it might violate some sort of un sort of agreement that he has with like Tesla or like SpaceX ownership especially Tesla because it's publicly traded right and so like you really have to look at private equity in order to have something like this purchased based off of like the current law which is like I mean that makes sense of course it prevent more of the you know mainstream funds from joining and the deal was supposed to close by the end of March of this year but then Leonid passed away and everything just got way more complicated obviously I don't want to sound disrespectful here but uh terrible timing just when everything seemed to line he passed away and this happened on March 20th 2026 in Florida and the platform made an announcement with a brief statement saying that he had passed away peacefully after a long battle with cancer. But his family asked for privacy and no details were shared. But what came out in the following days were how few people actually knew about how serious his condition was. And sources told the media that Leonid himself had driven the urgency behind the sale because of his health. Because the guy was apparently trying to get a deal closed specifically because he was concerned about leaving his family in a complicated situation without clear ownership. And as a part of that, in 2024, he transferred his stake of the company into a private trust with his family being the expected beneficiaries. So obviously, if the deal with Architect Capital was already messy, no way that the girl that is married to the guy that runs Only Fans, her last name is Chudnowski. Oh my god, dude. Messy. It just got so much worse because the firm was still in the process of raising the equity it needed when landed passed. So, it seems like the money simply just wasn't fully there. And suddenly now investors who've been on the fence were dealing with a whole new layer of issues. Now you have estate laws, a different person now effectively in control of the asset and deal terms would now have to be renegotiated with a trust rather than the original seller. So the timeline that was already extended was pushed back once again and as of this video the deal remains open and the future of right now is genuine uncertain which is why it seems like and also like if I had the capital I would not buy it. I would not. The reason why this is something that like isn't probably discussed is that the owners of companies that have uh you know like a controversial image receive a lot of threats, problems, and issues and like safety safety concerns with their lives. So there's like a whole other added dimension to this that isn't even being considered. The empire is collapsing and the company has a current. His name is Kelly Blair, who has been running the day-to-day operations. But what's clear is there's a lot of money at stake, a lot of different interests, and a company that despite everything working against it, keeps printing cash at a rate that makes it very hard to ignore. So, I mean, it's safe to say whatever happens next will probably not be any more bizarre than the story of this company. I mean, the company's story is how a $10,000 loan from a dad with way too much patience suddenly turned into a $7 billion a year empire ran by some secret Ukrainian billionaire no one has ever heard of. I mean, come on. This is such a crazy story. And I feel like this is just a situation that no one's been talking about because every time I hear OAF in the news, it's about one of their stars making like a bazillion dollars a year. So, I just wanted to come here and talk about it for a bit. So, hey, if you're new here, my name is Atosi or A Toz and uh we talk about the laughably stupid stuff and the bizarre things that happen here on the internet. So, if you're new here, feel free to subscribe, drop a like if you enjoyed the video, and I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace. So, this is what I think. I think that Only Fans is a declining uh brand and I I think that the entire industry is declining. Let me link you guys the video cuz there was one other thing that I wanted to watch and it was that it was the review of the mouse pi. I promised this two days ago. I'm going to watch it today. We are going to look at it. Yes. Yes, we are going to look at this for sure and I'm going to save it. Yeah, full video went viral a few days ago. Um the clip that went viral a few days ago. Let me see if I can look at it. And uh what is this here real quick? Why you spamming? Well, give the video a like. That's why. I mean, obviously Israel is losing support even among Republicans. Okay. Yeah, I will look at this real quick. Why not? But, uh, either way, like I I do think that, you know, in general with AI and technology, I think that most people, not maybe most people, but a huge amount of people will be more than content gooning to AI girls that are similar visually that they can't really tell what the difference is between like this girl being real or not. And I think that the better that that gets, and it will get better every single year, um the more that it will be more difficult for real girls to make money on the platform. And it will it will lower the price because it will introduce so much more competition into the marketplace. It will. And I think that's where things are going to