Here comes Tor in the NFT Universe!

There one was a time where just opening up a web page could install a Trojan Horse on your computer. To counter this, search engines such as Google and Yahoo began to curate the results they presented to Internet users. Everything was fine until the day Google removed the “Don’t be evil” slogan from its home page .

This move heralded the events to follow, the curation started to go one step further and some sites began to vanish from search results in favor of larger companies that paid to be among the top results. It was also during this time that several countries around the world began to increasingly monitor their populations through the internet.

From monitoring content or individuals to banning unwanted content by Governments, Tor has become the web browser of choice for anonymously using the internet and accessing content without borders.

Tor, Cryptos…and NFTs

Tor browser is primarily used by military personnel and also other professionals such as lawyers and journalists from around the world who need to ensure the confidentiality of their sensitive communications. Although the browser is probably better now known to the general public for providing access to sites where it’s possible to acquire drugs, false documents and sometimes even weapons…bought with crypto-currencies.

Tor’s goal is to guarantee freedom of access to the Internet for as many people as possible, it runs through a decentralized node system where anyone can participate. Therefore it’s of little surprise that the Crypto Industry and the Tor Industry came together pretty quickly!

But when it came to NFTs, the marriage seemed less likely…and yet, on the platform Foundation, you can view the profile of @torproject who recently auctioned a work produced by @ixshells.

The bids quickly went up over a few days ending with PleasrDAO winning and acquiring the work for 500 ETH ($2,003,000). 

It is important to remember the enormous support this represents for The Tor Project: According to Steven Murdoch, this amount would correspond to 41% of Tor’s budget in 2019.

Enough to continue the development of the software for a while, to the delight of our digital freedoms!