Bitcoin Forum

Has something like tor, but using a blockchain to maintain the network, been attempted? The gist being that you spend tokens to route traffic through the network, and you can acquire tokens through being a node on the network, or from an exchange. It seems an obvious potential application but my google-fu is failing me.

I don't see exactly what you are asking about.  However; it is very easy and secure to access your wallets and coins using 100% TOR.    I never move, transact, or even check (watching wallets) my coin collection on clearnet.  You can very easily configure Electrum on port 9150 to connect ONLY via TOR.  There are several smokin hot onion servers on Electrum's system.  This means that if you understand networking you could remain just about perfectly anonymous in both directions.  By having Electrum configured this way you CANNOT accidentally access the blockchain via any clearnet sites, which may leave you exposed.  If you find you have picked up "dirty" coins its also easy to use onion services to tumble them to clean addresses and break the dirty trace.

There is the open bazaar project which sounds familiar to what you're talking about. It's just a platform but i'm not sure how it uses crypto. There are some other cyrptos that put a focus on security like Monero -- honestly though you'll have to be more specific with your question.

Check out http://deeponion.org website for info, sounds like what you are describing and their team is currently doing free weekly airdrops of this crypto.

Thanks for the replies, but anonymously transferring crypto is not what I mean. I mean actually creating a tor-like network, where the point is to anonymise traffic (you use it like you use tor). People spend tokens on the network to have their traffic routed through it, and those tokens are distributed to the nodes on the network that helped anonymise the traffic.

As far as I am aware, that does not currently exist. I do have a feeling that it should though. Hopefully somebody will pick this up.

Do you mean Mysterium???
https://mysterium.network/

it's sort of a VPN service with tokens. Problem is that all those who will accept their private connections to route traffic, can be sued for letting illegal traffic through

It looks interesting, but I don't think owning deeponion tokens incentivises being an active node on the tor network. I think when they claim it helps the network, it does so by the wallets adding to the pool of ips using tor. BTW that is some steep requirement for being in the airdrop, not that I can participate even if I did post a lot (my account is too new by a few days).

That is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for, thanks. Is this the only one, or do they have competition? Looks like they are early in the development process, but it's one to watch.

Its the only one i know of. I was thinking of buying some tokens, but skipped. It has a really great dev team, and the idea is brilliant. I still can't see how it can become a success when people running "exit nodes" could get sued for letting illegal traffic through.

They are going live in 17Q4 or 18Q1

I did a bit of research, and there was a coin from 2014 that tried to do something similar (VPNCoin, VASH), but it looks like the development is pretty much dead.

As for running an exit node, I'd assume (layman speculation) that they would have to make sure that an exit node cannot see what they are letting out of the network. So, probably encryption always, and possibly the network generates fake requests so an exit node has plausible deniability about who it is communicating with, if that is even relevant.

DeepOnion does use a mix of PoW and PoS. So technically you are rewarded with extra coins if you leave your wallet running.

wow that is pretty good idea, but i don't understand like what you will get tokens?

i will check some stuff there and trying understand

Yeah, as already mentioned deeponion is most likely the closest you can get to what you described!

that's wild! Are you serious? I wouldn't be terribly surprised I supposed as they have to keep their thump on the network to regulate it somehow. Police, gov't, public officials- the lot of em have an interest in making sure someone gets in trouble when the is broken online. It can be a good thing but often times it's a bad one when folks get caught up in it just trying to spread the networks' power.

I wasn't clear in the post you quoted. Yes you're rewarded for keeping the wallet active, but your wallet doesn't act as a middle relay (receive tor traffic and pass it on to another relay), which is what I meant by being an active node on the tor network.

Close but no cigar. I'm interested in DeepOnion because it focuses on anonymously transferring currency, using a proven system, and imo there is demand for something like that, but unless wallets are middle relays it doesn't fulfill what I asked for. It may seem subtle but it's a big difference. If instead of the usual PoW mining DeepOnion has, they had a PoW system of incentivising being a middle relay, then it would be what I described.

You could try to suggest that to the dev, he's been quite receptive about all sorts of input. Although I'm not sure if this can really be done in retrospection without screwing with the coin supply. Perhaps if it was funded through transfer fees? But that would require a larger network adoption, so perhaps that would become a viable option in the future.

I've made a suggestion thread on their forum (https://deeponion.org/community/threads/incentivising-middle-relay-participation.260/ ). I'm not expecting full integration of the idea to be possible, but even partial integration would be good.

If you keep the idea alive it will surely make it into the voting central once that's ready. Then it'll just be a question of getting enough votes.

You could also consider Spectrecoin (XSPEC). It integrates TOR and has Proof of Stake thus you are paid to secure their network when you leave your wallet open. I have been staking this and earning a fair return. I consider them a competitor of DeepOnion, albeit extremely volatile prices recently. To be fair I am more bullish DeepOnion hence the signature that I am carrying.

Here is the website if you would like to dig further. https://spectreproject.io

I'll admit i'm a little fuzzy on the details, but deeponion is doing some stuff with Tor

Force Network is doing just this... forcenetwork.io

Yes in-fact look up Substratum. They utilize 3 blockchains and it's a layered system like tor. Think of it as tor 2.0.

Reviving a dead thread,

Substratum is great as mentioned before.

A new project, Lethean is just starting to make some good progress as well, works like a VPN, uses a blockchain running the Monero/CryptonightR consensus, making it pretty much untraceable. Not as easy to use as Substratum as it is still in developing phase, but I'm keeping my eye on it.
https://lethean.io/

The Brave browser can work as an extra layer of security as well, just not really a TOR alternative like the above two.

Deeponion project is the only crypto coin that has something to do with TOR network you should check it out using search engine,subtratium and Lethean are good too but they are VPN kinda based coins