Tor Digital Privacy Project Accepts Donations in Cryptocurrency

Tor digital privacy software is now accepting donations in various cryptocurrencies, as a new crypto donational portal appeared on the project’s website on March 18.

The site now accepts nine major cryptocurrencies, namely Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dash (DASH), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Monero (XMR), Stellar Lumen (XLM), Augur (REP) and Zcash (ZEC).

Tor’s crypto donation page encourages users to “stand up for the universal human rights to privacy and freedom and help keep Tor robust and secure.” The page also specifies that users can contact the project if they would prefer to donate in a cryptocurrency not listed there.

The Tor Project is a non-profit that offers free and open-source software made for onion routing, the technology of anonymous information exchange. In addition, Tor has two official versions of its browser: Tor Browser and TorBro. The main purpose of using the Tor Browser is to remain anonymous and circumnavigate censorship by disguising an IP-address.

At press time, the Tor Project has not responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment on the addition of crypto donations.

Countries wherein the internet has been heavily censored, such as Venezuela, Russia and China, have all introduced bans on Tor and similar tech, such as virtual private networks.

Earlier this month, the head of the Finance Committee of France’s National Assembly suggested a ban on anonymous cryptocurrencies, or so-called privacy coins, such as ZEC and XMR.

The Tor community and crypto community both share an ethos of privacy and decentralization. In 2017, Researchers from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada and Concordia University in Quebec introduced a blockchain-based system which uses onion routing techniques to facilitate anonymous deliveries.