The Ator protocol aims to reward relay node operators who make useful contributions to the anonymous network by distributing Ator tokens. For supported protocols (such as Tor), operators can add their own relay nodes to the Ator system by registering an ETH address. After registration, these relay nodes can continue to serve the network as usual.
Afterwards, relay node operators can check the decentralized contribution indicators published on Arweave to understand their contribution to the network, and obtain the corresponding amount of $ATOR reward tokens accordingly. $ATOR itself is stored and issued through the ETH blockchain, and node operators who receive rewards can choose to withdraw $ATOR to their own ETH wallets.
In general, the Ator protocol effectively encourages more relay nodes to join through the token reward mechanism, thereby improving the service efficiency and privacy protection capabilities of anonymous networks such as Tor.
1. Research points
1.1 Core investment logic
The Ator Project aims to address the lack of privacy and anonymity for Internet users and promote mainstream adoption of the Tor network. The Tor network is a widely used anonymous communication tool that allows users to browse the Internet and access online resources without revealing their identity. It provided important support for the birth and development of early cryptocurrencies, protected the anonymity of users' transactions and communications, and became an important privacy infrastructure in the cryptocurrency circle.
The Ator project builds a more resilient Tor network infrastructure through blockchain technology and Ator currency, and rewards contributors in an anonymous and fair manner to promote the development and use of the Tor network. In Ator, similar to the relationship between Filecoin and IPFS, an incentive layer is introduced so that everyone can participate in the process of node incentives by purchasing repeater devices.
The Ator network has an excellent actual communication bandwidth (1660.283MiB/s). Compared with the bandwidth of other mainstream public chain nodes in the range of 50-500MiB/s, Ator has very good network deployment optimization capabilities. At the same time, the project provides tools for anonymous communication and online privacy protection, meeting Internet users' needs for privacy and anonymity. By using blockchain technology and the Ator currency, the project builds a stronger Tor network infrastructure and rewards participants anonymously and fairly. These advantages enable the Ator project to provide a more private and anonymous Internet environment and continue to promote the development of the Tor network.
However, the Ator project also faces some challenges, such as network security issues, such as insufficient nodes, vulnerable to DDoS attacks, etc., which may affect the implementation and feasibility of the Ator protocol. Although officials are improving the security of the network, investors still need to be cautious when considering investing in Ator, and pay close attention to the development and security of the project.
The future roadmap for the Ator project includes development plans for the protocol, outreach, services, and repeater hardware, and is expected to be completed by Q4 2023 and Q1 2024.
At present, the price of Ator has increased by more than 20 times since its launch, showing its huge potential and market appeal. However, for investors, when considering value investing, it needs to be treated with caution and conduct in-depth consideration and observation.
1.2 Valuation
Since the Ator project has just been launched and its characteristics are not completely traditional privacy tracks, but more of an incentive layer with privacy tracks, there is currently a lack of similar leading targets for benchmarking, so it is currently impossible to accurately estimate. As of now, the market capitalization of Ator is approximately US$41.9 million, and the market capitalization in full circulation is approximately US$56.86 million.
2. Basic information of the project
2.1 Project business scope
Ator is a decentralized network incentive platform. Its business positioning is to use blockchain technology to support and reward node contributors of open source decentralized network protocols. Ator's core is its self-developed blockchain protocol that allows node operators to register wallet addresses and receive reward distributions of Ator tokens based on their contributions to the open-source network protocol. This reward mechanism is currently serving the Tor network first, encouraging more Tor nodes to join.
The Ator project has also developed special low-power repeater hardware, which can be directly configured as Tor and other network nodes that follow the Ator protocol, thereby reducing the threshold for non-technical personnel to participate in node operations. On this basis, Ator has built a decentralized service market, allowing various applications and services to be deployed on registered nodes, and using $ATOR tokens as a means of payment. This provides a channel for node operators to earn revenue.
The ultimate goal of Ator is to transform into a decentralized organization fully governed by DAO. DAO will manage various open source network protocols in the Ator ecosystem and the corresponding token reward pools. The main business focus of the Ator project is to support networks that offer strong privacy protections and resistance to censorship, such as the Tor network. Through community participation and positive incentives, Ator hopes to attract more nodes to join and enhance the service efficiency of these open source decentralized networks.
2.2 Past Development and Roadmap
future route
Protocol aspects:
- Q2 2023
- Registration protocol for linking ETH wallets and Tor fingerprints
- Q3 2023
- Open source instructions for building a Tor man-in-the-middle hotspot
- Beta and official versions of Proof-of-Uptime launched, allowing Tor relay node operators to passively earn $ATOR
Outreach:
- Q4 2023
- Provides open source guidelines for building Tor relay nodes and distributing them through external sponsorship.
Services:
- Q1 2024
- Build and verify web3 transactions using $Ator on the Tor network via hidden services
Repeater hardware:
- Q4 2023/Q1 2024
- Pre-configured to passively earn $Ator for non-technical users
2.3 Team situation
2.3.1 Overall Situation
According to official information, the Ator team consists of 5 members responsible for the core management of the project, including full-time and part-time members. Among them, Slava is the CTO. Slava and the team Memetic Block have nearly ten years of work experience in the encryption field, and have been working with Arweave since 2017. Jim and Andrezj are the chief architects. On June 2, 2023, the team will join a new member, Hristo Piyankov, as a token economics consultant. The team size covers professionals in different fields, and there is also an education and social media team responsible for education and social media work, and a hardware team responsible for hardware-related business.
At present, the core members are all behind-the-scenes workers, and the relevant education and work experience have not been disclosed in detail.
2.3.2 Core members
is a professional with extensive experience in the cryptocurrency industry. He graduated from the New Bulgarian University with a BA in Economics and Statistics. Having worked on several top ten Altcoin projects, he has an in-depth understanding of what makes cryptocurrency projects successful. He is currently working full-time with FinDaS Ltd and has been with the company for 5 years and 8 months. He has many years of experience in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space and has expertise in finance and analytics. He is good at Tokenomics (token economics), built Tokenomics architecture for more than 220 projects, and raised more than $1 billion in funds.
2.4 Financing situation
The Ator project does not rely on venture capital and other institutions to raise funds in advance, and relies purely on performance to raise funds. On March 30, 2023, Ator Labs was officially registered as a limited liability company in Norway and obtained software and hardware production licenses.
3. Business analysis
3.1 Service object
1) Decentralized network node operators
This is Ator's core service object. Ator rewards individuals or organizations that implement open source decentralized network nodes through the blockchain token incentive mechanism, encouraging more nodes to join, such as Tor node operators.
2) Developer community
Ator welcomes developers to develop and deploy decentralized applications or services based on its network, and use Ator tokens as a means of payment. This provides developers with new application scenarios.
3) End users
End users can enjoy various advantages brought by the decentralized network, such as privacy protection, anti-censorship, etc., by using services deployed based on Ator nodes. This will increase user acceptance of the decentralized web.
4) DAO participants
The ultimate goal of Ator is to establish a DAO organization. Communities participating in DAO governance can influence the direction of network development and resource allocation.
3.2 Business Classification
Ator's business scope mainly includes:
1) Ator Protocol: This is an autonomous system that rewards relay node operators for decentralized networks. Operators can register ERC20 wallets and receive $ATOR as rewards for their contributions on supported protocols (such as the Tor network).
2) Ator relay hardware: This is a low-power computing device that can be configured to follow the Ator protocol, allowing non-technical users to participate in the decentralized Internet protocol and passively obtain $ATOR.
3) Ator Decentralized Services: This is a framework for providing specialized services on top of registered protocols and traded through Ator tokens. Services include applications managed by the Ator team, services designed to run on the Ator relay, and services provided by third parties. Service providers are paid from the bonus pool through a specially crafted payment system.
4) Ator DAO: transfer the agreement to decentralized management, and DAO manages multiple agreements and their reward pools in the ecosystem. The Ator token will be the main driver of governance while satisfying multiple use cases such as rewards, products and recognition.
5) The initial focus is on supporting the Tor network , providing rewards and identification for Tor relay nodes. In the future, it will expand to support other open and decentralized protocols.
In general, Ator's business scope is mainly focused on using blockchain technology to support and reward the construction of decentralized networks, especially protocols or services that provide anonymity and privacy.
3.3 Business Details
The Ator Protocol aims to recognize relay operators for their useful contributions to the decentralized web by distributing Ator tokens. For supported protocols (such as Tor), operators register their relays with an ETH address, and then continue to perform as relays.
Relay operators will then be able to view their contributions to the network via decentralized metrics published to Arweave, and receive Ator endorsement rewards accordingly. Ator is distributed on Arweave and backed by staking tokens on the ETH blockchain, which users can then choose to withdraw into their ETH wallets.
1) Tor network
To understand the Ator protocol, first understand the Tor network. Tor, short for The Onion Router, is a software for anonymous communication on the Internet. It does this by routing Internet traffic in an untraceable manner between a series of servers (nodes) around the world. When users connect to Tor, their data is encrypted and then passed through a selected series of Tor nodes, each of which decrypts one layer of the data to reveal the address of the next node. This process continues until the material reaches its final destination.
Each node in the chain only knows the address of the previous and next node, so it is very difficult for any intermediate opponent to trace the information back to the source. In addition, the anonymity of users is further enhanced by the way services are provided on the Tor network, that is, certain websites and services can only be accessed through the Tor network. This essentially allows consumers and services to benefit from Tor on both ends. These services use different routing mechanisms, where a website's address is encrypted and passed through several nodes to reach its destination, making it very difficult to locate the server hosting the website. The image below is a network view of the Tor network.
However, the Tor network also has some disadvantages, which can be solved by the Ator protocol. For example, Internet service providers can still capture data based on the timing and frequency of user requests, which may infer the user's identity. In addition, the current Tor network only has about 6000 nodes, which means that the number of nodes is limited, which may cause performance problems and scalability problems, especially when faced with millions of users, the network may become Not stable and efficient enough.
The Ator protocol addresses these scalability issues through relay mechanisms and device optimizations. The relay mechanism allows more nodes to participate in the network, thereby increasing the capacity and performance of the network. The optimization of the device helps to reduce the resource consumption of node execution, so that more nodes can support the access requirements of more users.
To sum up, the Ator protocol aims to solve some of the shortcomings of the Tor network and provide a more reliable and scalable anonymous communication solution to meet the growing user privacy needs.
2) Relay node (Relay): Get rewards through Ator
Ator enhances the Tor network with on-chain rewards. As a Tor relay node participant, you can contribute to Internet anonymity and receive Ator token rewards through the online time proof protocol.
- Increase network ambiguity
Ator's goal is to increase the number of active Tor relay nodes and strengthen the network capacity to accommodate greater user traffic.
- Proof of online time
Tor relay nodes, including Ator's own hardware, are rewarded with Ator tokens for their contributions to encrypting and transmitting packets.
- End-to-end privacy protection
Relay node registration is intentionally optimized for anonymity. Through the proxy registration method, registration without gas fee can be realized, and the user IP will not be leaked.
- Relay node registration
Relay node owners can register to join the Ator protocol. The device registers with the network by proving that the user has both an Ethereum key pair and a Tor key pair.
A secure communication system between the user and the network can be achieved using the master offline key.
- Relay Contribution Rating
Using the proof of online time system, the network will reward relays in the form of Ator tokens based on the length of their online stability. Rewards are calculated and distributed based on the actual online time of the relay, avoiding the situation where only large relays are rewarded.
The project party has also developed an additional incentive mechanism to give additional rewards to bridge relays, export relays, and relays in specific regions by setting an independent reward pool.
- Hardware
Ator relays are pre-configured hardware that provide Tor relay services and are approved by Ator without the need for user configuration.
An Ator router is a hotspot that allows consumer devices to connect to Tor.
Ator's tokens will be widely used throughout the protocol as a prerequisite for relay registration and as the main payment method for hardware purchases. Tor can be redeemed for Ator hidden services, including decentralized website hosting through the Tor-Arweave integration, and blockchain transaction routing.
Ator tokens can be used for governance and protocol-related voting, and can also be used to pay related proposal fees.
3) Proof-of-Uptime
Live time refers to the length of time that a relay node continues to execute and can be accessed. The longer online time means that the relay node is stable and reliable, and there is no frequent downtime.
Uptime is an important metric for the Tor network. The client will give priority to the relay with a long online time to establish a connection, because this means that the node is more stable. The directory server will also give a flag such as "stable" according to the online time of the relay, which will affect the choice of the client.
It is recommended to use the consensus weight of the relay as the standard for online proof of time. The ATOR system uses Directory authorities to collect information about nodes, such as their IP addresses, public keys, and bandwidth capacity. The directory authority uses this information to build a "network consensus" document that contains a list of all known nodes and their consensus weights. The consensus weight is affected by many factors, including the node's bandwidth capacity, online time, and egress strategy. The higher the consensus weight of a node, the higher its status in the network, and therefore the greater the probability of being selected. Specifically, these factors include:
1. Bandwidth capacity: The larger the bandwidth, the higher the weight because it can handle more traffic.
2. Online time: The longer the online time, the higher the weight.
3. Egress policy: The looser the egress policy, the more traffic is allowed and the higher the weight.
The directory server publishes the information and weights of all relays in a consensus file. The online time contribution of the relay can be judged according to the consensus weight of the relay, which can be used as the basis for issuing rewards.
4. Measuring performance: Directory authorities may consider relay latency, reliability, and other metrics when assigning consistency weights.
Using this information, a minimum threshold can be set for the current uptime mechanism. It is also important to note that the directory authority protocol is centralized. ATOR has taken this approach, building an alternative decentralized solution.
4) Registration (operational aspects)
- Support multiple signature methods for authentication
In order for the relay node to establish a connection with the ETH wallet so that the wallet can receive Ator rewards based on the contribution of the relay node, a dual signature system is required.
- ETH wallet signature declares relay ownership
The registration page on the official website allows ETH wallets to sign, which means joining the agreement and declaring ownership of specific relay fingerprints. Afterwards, the announcement will be verified by Ator or an authorized verification entity (oracle). Importantly, the registration page will be hosted on a decentralized storage network, preventing Ator or any single hosting provider from obtaining the IP address of the registered user. Plus, registration is completely free.
- Relay broadcast ETH wallet address
As part of the registration agreement, the relay node needs to include the Ator protocol top level and the ETH wallet address that registers the relay in the data package, so that it can continue to receive Ator rewards. Ator will analyze the raw metrics data to verify claims.
5) Verify
A registered relay node can earn Ator rewards based on its contribution to the network. The server will collect the data of the relay nodes, and then record it on the blockchain as a basis for judgment. Afterwards, the smart contract will issue Ator rewards based on these data.
- consensus weight
For the Tor network, the existing consensus weight is used to measure the contribution of relay nodes. The consensus weight will consider factors such as the bandwidth of the node.
- Arweave Profile
The collected relay node data will be released to Arweave's blockchain storage in real time. These data can be read by smart contracts to determine reward distribution.
- Smartweave Oracle
The Ator rewards to be distributed within a certain period of time (such as a day) will be divided according to the time interval between the last reading material and the current material. For example, if there is an interval of 70 minutes, the original daily reward amount will be distributed according to the ratio of 70/(24*60). One $ATOR will then be allocated on Smartweave, and the ETH contract can be read through the redstone oracle.
Generally speaking, the relay node data will be recorded on the chain, and the smart contract will verify and issue Ator rewards to the node based on these data.
3.4 Industry Space and Potential
3.4.1 Classification
The privacy track is mainly divided into four major sectors: privacy computing network, privacy transaction network, privacy application, and privacy currency.
- Privacy Transaction Agreement
The private transaction network mainly conducts privacy processing for on-chain transaction data (the currency type and quantity held or traded), and natively supports users to conduct private transactions through technologies such as zero-knowledge proof, without using tools such as Tornado Cash. It can ensure that your private data will not be viewed by the outside world, and at the same time support the development of more types of privacy applications in this protocol.
- Privacy Computing Protocol
The privacy computing protocol mainly protects privacy from data generation, collection, storage, analysis, utilization, and destruction. In addition to common scenarios such as DeFi and NFT, it also plans to deeply integrate with big data and AI industries.
Compared with other forms of privacy projects, the privacy computing protocol is a lower-level infrastructure. The specific transaction information (currency type and quantity, etc.) can often be viewed publicly through the block browser, but it is stronger for users to use Data Privacy. At present, the main privacy technologies include zero-knowledge proof, secure multi-party computation, learning based on modern cryptography, trusted execution environment (TEE), etc.
- privacy application
Privacy applications refer to applications built on Layer1 or Layer2 protocols that provide users or DApps with privacy protection functions in different application scenarios, such as transactions, payments, and emails.
- privacy coin
Privacy coins refer to cryptocurrencies that natively support privacy. The outside world cannot check the specific transaction type, amount and other information between the two parties in the transaction. It usually does not support smart contracts and related applications. Related projects were born as early as 2014.
At present, the general development of privacy coins is average, and the number of users and transaction volume are much smaller than those of smart contract platforms, DeFi and other track projects.
3.4.2 Market Size
Regulators are actively policing the centralized cryptocurrency market; analyzing companies for unauthorized possession and use of users' data; regulations on privacy coins and sanctions on Tornado Cash are examples of Web3 privacy that needs to be advocated.
According to the Web3privacy annual report on Github, more than 300 projects are building privacy solutions, committing to provide more than $1 billion in funding to projects and ecosystems in 2022, privacy applications have been downloaded more than 110 million times on Google Play, and the market There are currently more than 300 vacancies. The total number of Zcash addresses is 727,681. 4,300 contributions from 177 countries have participated in the trusted setting of Manta Network. The betting situation.
Venture capitalists have shown a keen interest in the privacy space. Aleo has raised a total of $270 million in 2022, and projects like Aztec or Espresso Systems have successfully closed new rounds even in a depressed market. Last year, NYM and Secret Network announced a partnership commitment to support developers in the privacy space. Savvy investors know that a strong ecosystem will attract more retail investors and utility token users to participate. According to the report, a total of $1.3 billion in venture capital and retail investors have jointly supported the development of privacy technology.
However, privacy-focused investments still play a relatively small role in the overall Web3 investment landscape over the past year – around 4-5%.
In addition to last year's annual report data, looking at the latest data at present, it can be found that the current total market value of privacy track tokens is about 5.45 billion U.S. dollars, and the daily trading volume is about 210 million U.S. dollars. However, despite the large market capitalization of the entire privacy track, the current three tokens with the highest gains, Dynex, Secret, and Circuits of Value, have the largest increase of only 9.3%. This shows that the current market of the privacy track is relatively stable. Investors need to realize that the market may be in a relatively downturn period, and at the same time need to carefully evaluate investment risks and project potential.
3.5 Business information
Operating data
According to the information on the official website, the current total number of users of the Ator project is 284, there are 449 verified relay nodes, and 161 active relay nodes. At the same time, on the blockchain network, the actual communication bandwidth between Ator nodes reaches 1660.283MiB/s. This information shows that Ator's configuration in the blockchain nodes is very high. Compared with other mainstream public chain nodes such as Cosmos and Polkadot, its network deployment optimization capabilities are excellent. Such a high-bandwidth configuration provides the Ator project with stronger network performance, providing users with a more efficient and stable anonymous communication experience.
social media profile
- Twitter followers: 15K
- Number of followers on Discord: 3205 people
- Number of followers on Telegram: 2367
As an Alpha project, Ator has shown a certain influence on social media. Its Twitter followers reached 15K, showing the community's attention and interest in the project. On Discord, the number of active followers reached 3205, indicating that there is active communication and interaction among community members. Although Telegram has a relatively small number of followers at 2,367, this does not necessarily reflect the potential of the project.
Price trend
Ator is an eye-catching project. Its opening price was $0.03, and its current price has soared to $0.56. Since mid-May, it has been rising all the way, an increase of 2184.27%. Such a strong performance has attracted the attention of many investors. The trading volume in the last 24 hours is also considerable, reaching 735,000 US dollars, showing the market's trading activity and investment enthusiasm for $Ator.
Technical Information
According to the data of Github, there are currently 12 people following the $Ator project, and 4 main contributors. However, it should be noted that the code submission is not very frequent, and the main active period is between 4 and 5 months after the launch. During this period, code commits peaked at a maximum of 21 commits a day. This shows that the project team had active development activity in the early stages, but then the frequency of commits decreased.
For investors, the activity and code submission frequency on Github are also one of the important reference indicators. An active project repository usually means that the team is constantly improving and updating, while a low number of commits may indicate a relatively slow development progress.
3.6 Project Competition Landscape
The privacy track is mainly divided into four major sectors: privacy computing network, privacy transaction network, privacy application, and privacy currency. Ator falls into the category of private computing networks.
Ator belongs to the node incentive layer of the privacy computing network, which is equivalent to a scalable blockchain solution. Next, we will introduce two expansion solutions for node incentives.
Project introduction
- Web MIXes
Web MIXes is an anonymous communication system based on MIX technology, proposed by Berthold et al. MIX is a privacy protection technology that hides the user's identity and communication content by obfuscating and delaying the transmission path of messages. In Web MIXes, users need to purchase tokens to use the network. This token-based incentive mechanism helps maintain the sustainability and stability of the network. Tokens can be transferred between different MIX servers and have an expiry date. In addition to basic anonymous communication functions, Web MIXes also provide some additional functions, such as content filtering and caching. However, the practical effectiveness and security of Web MIXes is unclear due to unclear implementation and deployment and lack of public evaluation results.
- BitTorrent
BitTorrent is a well-known peer-to-peer file sharing network, proposed by Bram Cohen. It uses a Bitcoin-based incentive mechanism that allows users to use Bitcoin to pay or receive file transfer fees. BitTorrent's incentive mechanism is designed to improve the efficiency and fairness of file sharing and prevent selfish or cheating behavior. However, BitTorrent is not an anonymous communication network, and users' IP addresses and transmission content may be exposed or monitored. It mainly focuses on the efficiency of file sharing and transmission, but does not provide special measures for user identity and privacy protection.
3.7 Token Model Analysis
3.7.1 Total amount and distribution of tokens
Token Economic Model (Tokenomics)
- distribute
Total supply of $ATOR: 100,000,000
45% added to liquidity (Uniswap Ator/WETH trading pair)
10% for basic circuit relay rewards (2-year lock-up period)
10% for the team (2-year lock-up period)
10% for development, promotion and centralized exchange (CEX) launch (locked)
25% is reserved in the contract for use during fundraising*
lock information
Locked tokens will be released weekly in a linear fashion for 2 years.
*The Ator contract initially reserves 25% of the token supply, and during the fundraising period, users do not pay any taxes, but the contract will be sold according to the proportion of the transaction volume, simulating a tax-like effect. Funds thus raised are used for protocol and hardware development. The fundraising period has ended in May 2023.
3.7.2 Token Value Capture
The $ATOR ERC20 token will play several key roles in the development of the Ator project:
First, the $ATOR token will facilitate the implementation of the Ator Proof-of-Uptime protocol; registered relayers will be rewarded with it. As such, the $ATOR token will provide a recognized means of tokenizing those who contribute to the relay.
$ATOR tokens circulating on Uniswap Automated Market Making (AMM) enable investors to assign market value to the entire protocol and hold a stake in its development and influence.
$ATOR holders will have access to the whitelist and early access to the first rollout of the project's custom hardware. Tokens can be redeemed for this hardware (see roadmap).
The $ATOR ERC20 contract is designed to facilitate time-limited fundraising; the contract swaps tokens in strict proportions based on transaction volume, up to a hard-coded limit, with no transaction fees for buyers and sellers. This allows the Ator Protocol to raise funds for development without centralization of venture capital (see Allocation).
Being a token on a pre-existing highly decentralized Ethereum blockchain, rather than a standalone blockchain, allows for rapid adoption and ease of registration.
3.7.3 Token core demand side
1. Relay node operators: $ATOR tokens will facilitate the implementation of the Ator Proof-of-Uptime protocol and provide incentives for registered relay nodes. Relay node operators will contribute to the stability and security of the network by receiving $ATOR token rewards.
2. Investors: $ATOR tokens are circulated on Uniswap Automated Market Making (AMM), enabling investors to obtain the market value of the entire protocol and hold a stake in its development and influence. Investors can participate in the development of the Ator project by holding $ATOR tokens.
3. Hardware (repeater) buyers: $ATOR holders will have the right to enter the whitelist and get the first batch of custom hardware sold. Tokens can be redeemed for this hardware, which is an additional incentive for token holders.
4. Preliminary Valuation
4.1 Core Issues
Does the project have a solid competitive advantage? Where does this competitive advantage come from?
1) Emphasize privacy protection and anonymous communication: The Ator project aims to solve the challenges facing the Tor network and promote mainstream adoption by Internet users. It highlights threats to privacy and anonymity from Internet surveillance, cloud computing, and big data processing. Project Ator has a competitive advantage in privacy protection and anonymity by providing anonymous communication and tools to protect online privacy.
2) Based on blockchain technology: The Ator project uses blockchain technology to build a more resilient Tor infrastructure and uses Ator currency to reward contributors. This decentralized blockchain-based system provides reliability to the Tor network while rewarding participants anonymously and fairly.
3) Ongoing Development and Sustainability: The document discusses the implementation and mechanisms of the Ator project to ensure the sustainability of the protocol. This involves $ATOR the design of a stable incentive mechanism for currency supply. The project also focuses on expanding adoption and adaptability with Tor relays.
What are the main variable factors in the operation of the project? Is this factor easy to quantify and measure?
The main variable factors in the operation of this project are "reliability" and "defensibility".
Reliability refers to the continuous execution time of a relay node and its contribution to the Tor network.
The defense capability refers to the relay node's ability to resist threats such as DDoS attacks.
These factors can be quantified and measured through "execution time" indicators, such as the continuous online time (Uptime) of relay nodes. By monitoring and recording the online time of relay nodes, its reliability can be evaluated, and weights and rewards can be assigned according to the length of online time. In addition, the document also mentions other factors for measuring relay nodes, such as traffic carrying capacity, performance indicators, etc.
Therefore, these factors can be quantified and measured, and can be used as the main indicators of project operations.
4.2 Main risks
This project has several risks. First of all, technically, the Tor network itself faces some challenges, such as insufficient nodes, vulnerability to DDoS attacks, and lack of incentives for individual executive nodes. These problems may cause certain troubles and risks to the implementation and feasibility of the Ator protocol.
Second, while the Ator protocol uses blockchain technology and the Ator currency to provide a stronger Tor infrastructure and reward contributors, this also brings some risks. For example, due to the performance limitations of blockchain technology, performance bottlenecks and scalability issues may arise. Additionally, blockchain technology itself may face security and privacy challenges.
In addition, the project also needs to address the security risks caused by centralized storage institutions. The rewards in the Ator protocol will be issued and stored by a centralized institution, rather than directly owned and controlled by users. This could make centralized institutions a target for attacks and could lead to trust and security issues.
Finally, as the project is in a process of continuous development and evolution, the final code and implementation may differ from what is described in the current white paper. Therefore, the actual feasibility and risks of a project may depend on its eventual implementation and deployment.
To sum up, the Ator project faces the challenges of the Tor network itself, the limitations and security issues of blockchain technology, and the risks of centralized storage institutions.
