The in-app purchasing option in Orchid is a major step forward in terms of personal privacy.
For years, I've argued that cryptocurrencies have the capacity to either restore people's actual privacy or completely deprive them of it.
So I'm delighted to report that Orchid, the decentralized VPN marketplace, has made a significant step in the right direction with its new in-app purchasing functionality.
This functionality may be accessed by installing the Orchid app from the Apple App Store.
What's the big deal about this? There are two main reasons for this: By following the "breadcrumb trail" of the public ledger, Orchid has made it more difficult to track people's activities. They've also made it a lot easier for everyone, including those who aren't into crypto, to utilize an Internet privacy tool.
Math, not individuals, should be trusted.
There are two ways to be private in today's environment. We might entrust our information to others and hope that they are trustworthy. We may also trust math by encrypting our data and utilizing other technical tools to assure that no one else can view it.
Orchid's privacy network demonstrates how well math may be trusted. The method allows users to connect "hops" across different VPN providers, making it more difficult for anybody to observe their online behavior, even the VPNs themselves.
Furthermore, the network has included a very unique solution to the "breadcrumb" problem I mentioned before. Providers are compensated in "tickets" rather than cryptocurrencies using Orchid's probabilistic nanopayments. Only a small fraction of tickets are "winners," and suppliers are only paid when a winning ticket is received. Over time, the amount paid will be nearly identical to what would be paid under a traditional money-for-service model. However, because of the unpredictability provided by probabilistic nanopayments, it is more difficult to determine who is paying for what.
In-app purchases are a significant step toward addressing the second component of the privacy equation: encouraging more individuals to practice privacy. I was the first significant cryptocurrency investment, and I am confident in their ability to advance the cause of human liberty by removing central banks' and other authorities' coercive and discriminatory authority. However, I acknowledge that they haven't always been the most user-friendly tools. One of the most significant barriers to wider adoption of crypto technology has been how difficult and time-consuming it can be to join up and get started.
Orchid makes it simple to maintain your privacy.
Orchid's in-app purchases, on the other hand, indicate that it doesn't have to be this way. People may fund an Orchid account as easily as they would make a purchase anyplace else with this functionality, which is currently accessible in Orchid's iOS app. They've reduced a lengthy, multi-step procedure involving wallets, exchanges, and private keys to a single action without sacrificing security or privacy.
Orchid does this by pre-funding a specific number of accounts in a pool. When a user makes an in-app purchase, one of these accounts is allocated to them at random. They obtain a private key and the option to share or transfer their account, just like if they financed it with OXT, the Orchid digital currency. In fact, because, like burner phones, these pre-filled accounts are "disposable" and not permanently attached to any real-world identity, they are likely much more secret than genuine Orchid accounts.
For the sake of privacy, I'm blazing a path.
Orchid has always been a favorite of mine. It gives people the choice to share or not disclose their information on their own terms, rather than being forced to do so. It causes challenges for those who seek to govern peaceful people by violence, which I believe is a good thing. They've now enabled even more individuals to reclaim their privacy and, as a result, their liberty when using the Internet. The Orchid team deserves to be congratulated on this outstanding success.