2020 Has been a great start for the crypto markets and now there are some interesting data so far for privacy in the new decade. 

Bitnodes, a project that was developed to help estimate the size of the Bitcoin network, find the reachable nodes on the network and one of the methods they use is collecting data from IPv4, IPv6, and .onion The Onion Router (TOR) network. It has seen roughly a 15%-20% increase in nodes that are using the TOR protocol to the start of 2020.

Source: BitNodes

The Bitcoin network continues to grow as the total according to BitNodes is at 10,812 reachable nodes at the time of writing this.

Top 10 Countries Global Reachable Bitcoin Nodes Distribution

• 1. United States 
• 2. Germany 
• 3. N/A 
• 4. France 
• 5. Netherlands 
• 6. Singapore 
• 7. United Kingdom 
• 8. Canada 
• 9. China
• 10. Russian Federation

Their live map below indicates more nodes are routing through TOR.

Source: BitNodes

TOR technology is becoming everywhere.

The Onion Router

The Onion Router (TOR) was developed by The Tor Project that became a non-profit back in 2006. The idea of "onion routing" has been around for a while since back in the mid-1990s and it was a way to route traffic through multiple servers and encrypt the data along the way making the use of the internet more private.

TOR relies on a decentralized network which makes a perfect for the crypto ecosystem. As censorship issues across the globe are on the rise, TOR also helps make it possible to get around obstacles like government firewalls for those to have access to the open internet.

Source: GData

Nodes

Nodes are an important component in a decentralized peer-to-peer network. Especially with blockchain and cryptocurrency, nodes provide a way for devices to act as a storage for a public database that allows activity such as coin transactions like Bitcoin. It made sense for the TOR protocol to join the likes of crypto networks as restrictions have been happening in certain regions but the crypto networks still continues.

The growing number of Bitcoin nodes and Lightning network over TOR may partly be due to being able to run them on small single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi.

Source: PiNode

The number of ways to run a node on the network has gotten a bit creative as Tesla owners can run a Bitcoin node in their car and even do some trading on Binance.

Source: Reddit

Brave Browser

The original Tor browser is a modified version of Firefox but for those of you that aren't aware, the Brave browser also has TOR built-in as it has made it more simple for a user to have more private and uncensored internet.

Brave has always been a privacy-focused browser and utilizing the Basic Attention Token (BAT) and having the TOR feature make this browser packed with tools to keep your data private.

Source:  TechHelpKB

Bitcoin Wallets

Bitcoin wallets need to communicate with Bitcoin nodes over a network. Most wallets just use your ISP to broadcast a transaction over the network but now there are wallets that are keeping your privacy and crypto secure by having built-in privacy features.

Wasabi and Samourai wallets are a couple of ones that are growing in popularity as they integrate TOR. Now doing transactions with mixing protocols like CoinJoin and Whirlpool have another layer of privacy by taking advantage of TOR and users being able to benefit from it.

Source: Github

Wasabi implements trustless coin-shuffling using Chaumian CoinJoins over the Tor anonymity network. The CoinJoin coordinator cannot steal from, nor breach the privacy of the participants.

 

-Wasabi wallet

The Samourai wallet has its configuration for TOR in the self-hosted node and Dojo API that what wallet users interact with.

Source: CryptoNinjas

The Bitcoin full node is automatically configured to be accessible as an ephemeral Tor hidden service. The Dojo API - which your wallet uses to interact with your self hosted Dojo - is automatically configured to be accessible as a static Tor hidden service. A web based maintenance dashboard is accessible from any device using a Tor web browser subject to correct authorizations.

 

-SamouraiWallet

Also reported last month in December 2019 with CashFushion integrating TOR with their tool for the Bitcoin Cash network.

Source: News.Bitcoin

Decentralized Exchanges

Bisq is a growing decentralized exchange that has TOR built-in. Their Mission is to be a private, secure and censorship-resistant way of exchanging bitcoin.

Source: Bisq

With the reported data leak of Binance from 2018-2019, the need for platforms like Bisq prevents users data from being leaked and kept private.

As the number of devices that are accessing blockchain networks grows, it goes to show the importance of the TOR technology being integrated into crypto like how we are seeing now. You can find countless articles online on why privacy matters and thanks to American whistleblower Edward Snowden that leaked classified information on the National Security Agency's (NSA's) surveillance programs, we see the extent of how our privacy is violated and the importance of innovations like TOR.

While there are methods that deanonymize TOR, there are continually new updated methods to maintain the privacy feature that TOR is known for. There are also privacy coins and features that implement Confidential Transactions that continually add more layers of privacy for the end-user.

Privacy matters. Even though you aren't doing anything wrong, there are things you keep private in your life like emails and social media accounts that have passwords. Many of us don't do enough to take privacy seriously and it's great to see crypto apps and services take our privacy seriously for us by integrating privacy methods like TOR and other ways to continue keeping the crypto space a safe as possible for everyone.