43-Year-Old Billionaire Dies; OnlyFans He Controlled Once Explored Crypto World

Author: Mahe Michael Source: X, @1912212eth

OnlyFans has purchased tens of millions of dollars worth of ETH.

On March 23, Leonid Radvinsky, the actual controller of OnlyFans, passed away at age 43 after a long battle with cancer. OnlyFans’ spokesperson only said he “died peacefully” and asked the public to respect the family’s privacy.

OnlyFans is a content subscription platform headquartered in London, UK. Creators upload exclusive content, and fans pay monthly subscriptions. While adult content creators are at the core, it also covers fitness, music, cooking, and other fields. According to the latest data in 2025, OnlyFans has about 377.5 million active user accounts, with creators increasing to 4.63 million. Currently, OnlyFans is valued at approximately $18 billion, making it the highest-valued private company among global subscription-based creator economy platforms.

Radvinsky is a Ukrainian-American who rarely appears publicly but bought a 75% stake in OnlyFans’ parent company in 2018, transforming a small UK-based platform into a cash cow with over $6 billion in annual transactions. When he took over OnlyFans in 2018, it was just a “paid Instagram” run by Tim Stokely and his family with £10,000. After his major acquisition, the platform shifted focus to adult content, experiencing explosive growth during the pandemic, with over $700 million in dividends in 2024 alone.

Leonid Radvinsky

Little is known about Radvinsky’s stance on crypto—he hasn’t publicly endorsed any blockchain but has explored the crypto world.

He has purchased millions of dollars worth of ETH and has donated to Ukrainian DAOs.

During his control, OnlyFans quietly launched a small feature in February 2022: supporting Ethereum-verified NFTs as profile pictures. The platform explicitly said this was “the first step in exploring the role of NFTs on the platform.” Creators’ NFT profile pictures would display a small Ethereum icon, which could be clicked to view details on OpenSea.

This seemingly minor feature allowed millions of adult creators to directly access crypto assets for the first time.

This move was early. That year, the NFT craze was in full swing, with Twitter launching NFT profile pictures, and OnlyFans quickly followed.

Unbeknownst to many, OnlyFans’ parent company, Fenix International, also purchased tens of millions of dollars worth of ETH.

2022 Financial Report

According to the company’s financial statement at the end of November 2022, Fenix purchased approximately $19.9 million worth of ETH and listed it as an intangible asset. Due to the crypto market crash in 2022, Ethereum’s price plummeted, and the company recorded an impairment loss of about $8.46 million, adjusting the ETH holdings’ value to approximately $11.4 million.

To date, OnlyFans has not enabled crypto payments; users still rely on credit cards or third-party virtual cards. Under Radvinsky, OnlyFans resembles a “traditional finance + adult content” hybrid, with a 20% commission and a remarkably stable cash flow.

During the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, a group of crypto enthusiasts and supporters quickly gathered to support Ukraine.

They auctioned an NFT depicting the Ukrainian flag. In a sale organized by the decentralized autonomous organization Ukraine DAO, they raised 2,258 ETH, worth about $6.79 million at the time.

Ukraine DAO Tweet

According to subsequent reports by Decrypt, adult site OnlyFans also participated in the donation.

Blockchain tracking platform Etherscan shows that on February 27, an address named only.eth donated 500 ETH to Ukraine DAO, now valued at $1.079 million.

Etherscan transfer screenshot

Zapper data indicates that the only.eth address was created in May 2021. Its wallet’s total value is less than $2,000, and the last transaction was three years ago.

However, the person who truly brought the OnlyFans spirit into crypto was its founder, Tim Stokely.

Tim Stokely

In 2016, Stokely founded OnlyFans. He resigned as CEO in December 2021 and shifted focus. In May 2022, he and former OnlyFans executive RJ Phillips launched Zoop—a Polygon-based NFT trading card platform.

Zoop is entirely “family-friendly”: selling 3D digital collectible cards of celebrities and influencers, allowing users to buy, sell, trade, and collect, with airdrops and benefits. Limited editions emphasize creator revenue sharing. Essentially, Zoop takes the “fans pay directly” model from OnlyFans and moves it into the Web3 collectibles space.

Zoop

In April 2025, Zoop, in partnership with HBAR Foundation (the treasury manager of Hedera Hashgraph), submitted a bid to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations. The plan was to Web3-ify TikTok: leveraging Hedera’s scalability to support TikTok’s NFTs, creator payments, governance, and overall token incentive system, aiming to directly share 80% of ad revenue with creators and users.

Ultimately, due to various reasons, the bid was not finalized. Stokely, who stepped away from the adult empire, carried the core logic into Zoop and Hedera’s TikTok bid—upgrading the “fans pay for content” model into a Web3 version.