PayPal Inc. is blocking transactions at Pornhub, a move the adult-video site says will halt payments to “over a hundred thousand performers who rely on them for their livelihoods.”

PayPal took steps to stop the Pornhub transactions after a review of the situation, the online-payment giant said. “We have discovered that Pornhub has made certain business payments through PayPal without seeking our permission,” it said, without elaborating on the nature of the transactions.

Pornhub decried the move, saying it would “do nothing but harm efforts to end discrimination and stigma toward sex workers.”

“We are all devastated,” Pornhub Vice President Corey Price said in an emailed statement. “The payments PayPal is referring to are only the payments that were being made to models in our Model Program. Pornhub’s growing Model Program was launched in order to empower content creators within the adult industry by providing a secure, highly visible, sex-positive space on our platform to sell and share original video content and earn a large share of the advertising revenue on their free-to-watch videos.”

Pornhub bills itself as the leading free, ad-supported adult-video streaming service, with more than 5 million videos and 120 million visitors a day.

Price said the site is now considering other options for paying models, including cryptocurrency.

“While we still have several payment methods for our models available, we will continue to add more sex-worker-friendly ones and explore cryptocurrency options in the near future,” Price said.

— By Nick Turner and Julie Verhage (Bloomberg)