I'm willing to bet the cost of a few servers a month that there are many great minds around the world being silenced due to censorship and lack of digital freedom. With that said, my setup has recently been updated to include a new Tor relay server that replaced one of my web tunnels on the network. It's an interesting hobby that I would liken to watching a plant grow, but in this case, it's the process of a relay server being integrated into the network and keeping it in a healthy state.

It essentially takes around two weeks for a relay to become fully adopted and allocated web traffic accordingly. Without diving into too much technical detail, the three primary types of relays include entry guards, middle relays, and exit relays. I wasn't sure if it was something I wanted to invest in at first, but then I decided that running a non-exit relay server was something I was comfortable doing on my own. By explicitly broadcasting to the network that I was unwilling to host an exit relay, my server would naturally become either an entry guard or middle relay. This process is accomplished through several tests and monitoring over the previously mentioned timeframe of about two weeks.

While this probably sounds about as boring as watching paint dry to most people, I found it interesting to see the metrics slowly start to develop. My server still has time to go and will continue to be used accordingly, but revisiting the metrics page here and there to watch things unfold has been an interesting process nonetheless. Here's a quick screenshot of some of the metrics and flags that have been added over a little more than a week, courtesy of the Tor Project itself. To learn more about the non-profit organization, you can visit them at torproject.org.

This week marks the one-year anniversary of my company's token launch on Base, the Ethereum layer 2 network founded by Coinbase, one of the world's largest centralized exchanges. While it may seem contradictory for me to support, or at least maintain neutral feelings toward such a company, I believe there's a valid use case for centralized exchanges. Beyond trading, publicly verifiable ledgers like Ethereum provide accountability and immutable data that can be invaluable for both corporate and personal use, depending on the circumstances. If this approach doesn't align with your values, you can always purchase different tokens or trade on decentralized exchanges.

That said, my intention was to explore relatively recent, or at least lesser-known, privacy-preserving updates to well-established cryptocurrencies. I'm sure I'll return to emerging technologies at another time. Overall, this general direction points to increasing demand for the ability to make transactions that can only be easily confirmed by the parties involved. Key reasons for this demand include privacy for investors, protection for those wishing to avoid being targeted as high-value individuals, and safeguarding individual freedoms for those living in oppressive regions. For brevity's sake, let's examine Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Monero as primary examples.

Bitcoin was once a common way to make transactions between individuals wishing to circumvent traditional finance, such as credit cards. Now Bitcoin is a household name. However, lesser-known but significant protocols have been slowly introduced. Silent Payments allow users to maintain a unique static Bitcoin address while generating new addresses as sub-accounts for each transaction. This makes each payment unique and more difficult to trace for those not involved in the exchange. This is similar to Litecoin's MWEB (MimbleWimble Extension Blocks) update, though the key difference is that MWEB extends confidentiality to transaction amounts in addition to providing sub-accounts within a single static wallet address. Although users must opt in to use this feature, it has received international scrutiny from major centralized exchanges.

Now let's examine Monero, the infamous, or perhaps not so well-known, privacy-focused currency. Monero has faced significant negative attention and is barely available on any centralized exchanges in the US. From its inception, Monero was created to enable private transactions between individuals and has maintained its reputation for this capability. Several countries have banned the coin or increased pressure to the point where it's been completely delisted from exchanges. This includes the US Internal Revenue Service posting bounties seeking knowledge of Monero tracing technologies.

Whether I agree or disagree with international efforts to restrict these technologies is beside the point. In my industry as a developer working primarily with Ethereum, its public ledger has increased our credibility via transparency and verifiable transactions. However, the reality of today's political climate is a reflection of the world we live in. Even years after the creation of privacy-preserving technologies, these developments continue to make privacy in cryptocurrency a relevant and evolving topic.

I came up with the concept of this blog during somewhat of a burnout period of coding. The obsession for tech was still there, but nothing seemed to excite me anymore. I had recently gotten accepted to grad school to get a Master's in Computer Information Systems and for some reason thought it was likely that I would actually start the program this summer. The reality was far from that and touches on subjects irrelevant to the purpose of these musings. That being said, I couldn't open a code editor without becoming overwhelmed with disinterest. However, as I mentioned, I knew my obsession with tech hadn't left. Regardless, I had to find it again.

I began by looking for a reason to keep learning, and at the time, I wasn't sure what I was even interested in anymore. I returned to Java and picked up a few new tricks before becoming just as bored with the Eclipse IDE as Visual Studio Code.

It's an odd feeling to know where you belong, but be mentally unable to remain present. I was in a position where searching for a reason to gain interest had become very difficult, but I carried on each morning. Eventually, while researching ways to make my work regain meaning, I came across the Tor Project again. While commonly associated with the dark web, I began to investigate its origins and legitimate use cases.

At the time of this writing, I'm now running three WebTunnel bridges. These are essentially a type of "bridge" that masks your web browsing via the Tor browser to mimic the typical type of traffic your internet service provider would expect to see. While Tor doesn't appear to have a large user base in the United States, in many parts of the world the internet remains censored and free speech doesn't exist as we know it.

Without being too long-winded, I wanted to express that these writings will deal with issues that exist on a global scale. Whether that relates to privacy, security, or cryptocurrency and their relation to freedom.

Privacy has become an endangered resource in our increasingly transparent world. As digital technologies permeate every aspect of daily life, our personal information flows freely through networks, databases, and algorithms. Yet privacy remains fundamental to human dignity, autonomy, and psychological well-being.

About NexusOcean

At NexusOcean, we'll explore the critical intersection of blockchain technology and privacy rights. Launching by the summer of 2025, this blog will offer:

• Practical guides
• Technical analysis
• Educational resources

For both developers and everyday users navigating the internet and crypto landscape.

What to Expect

Whether you're seeking to understand privacy-enhancing protocols, evaluate secure wallet solutions, or simply protect your digital identity in the Web3 era, NexusOcean will provide clarity without compromising on technical accuracy.