Mixnet protections between you and Ethereum with NymVPN

NymVPN has launched a new dApp mode to provide mixnet protections for transactions to the Ethereum blockchain. The mode allows you to stay connected to the NymVPN Fast mode for your general traffic while routing your wallet through the Noise Generating Mixnet. It’s like a little split tunneling for crypto, but via the world’s most anonymous network.

Learn how to set up your SOCKS5 mixnet connection via RPC nodes, and start making crypto private for once.

Bringing privacy to crypto

Privacy protections were never baked into blockchain technology. Crypto transactions remain visible on the public ledger, surveillance of metadata trails of users is rife, and data collection practices by wallets undermine the pseudoanonymity they are meant to provide.

It is for this reason that Vitalik Buterin laid out a roadmap for building in L1 privacy protections for the Ethereum chain and dApps. Notably, he recognizes the need for network-level anonymization provided by the kind of mixnet technology powering NymVPN.

The goal of network anonymity is precisely to prevent metadata leakage:

“Wallets should connect to multiple RPC nodes, optionally through a mixnet, ideally use a different RPC node per dapp.”

– Vitalik Buterin

Privacy protections aren’t just needed on-chain, but also at the level at which users interact with the chain (e.g., from their dApps and wallets). Even before permanently inscribed on blockchain’s public ledger, metadata reveals a lot about who we are, what we are sending, and to whom. This metadata can make us the target of unwarranted surveillance and cybercrime. As we’ll see, NymVPN changes all that.