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Blog - Decentralization

May 9, 2022

Author Matthew Leising on the evolution and use of decentralized tech

This week Derek E. Silva joins author Matthew Leising, and Co-founder of DeCential Media that focuses on telling the stories of the founders, builders and visionaries who are creating a new decentralized economy and internet experience. We take a deep dive into the fascinating early days of Ethereum to discuss Matt’s critically acclaimed book 'Out of the Ether' and his quest to solve the mystery behind the 2016 DAO hack.

Apr 18, 2022

Orchid’s Travis Cannell on VPNs, privacy, and online identity

Derek E. Silva joins Travis Cannell, Head of Product & Marketing at Orchid. A great conversation on how Travis first met Co-founder Jay Freeman at the College of Creative Studies in Santa Barbara, why Orchid’s VPN is different from other privacy tools, and his predictions on the future of the Internet.

Apr 11, 2022

Tim Beiko on the future of Ethereum

The Ethereum network has famously been undergoing its transition towards The Merge (formerly Eth2.0) for several years. When will it be completed? And what are the most important objectives?

Apr 5, 2022

Gas Fees Explained: a Deep Dive into Ethereum’s Transaction Fee Structure

Ethereum gas fees play a key role role in the functioning of the network. But they also pose scalability challenges.

Apr 4, 2022

Niam Yaraghi on ‘walking the walk’ in securing personal data

When it comes to fighting for privacy rights, most people are willing to talk the talk – but are they willing to walk the walk?

Mar 7, 2022

Author Isaiah Jackson on Privacy, Freedom, and Bitcoin

“I love Bitcoin, because every upgrade that we have takes us further into the future,” said Isaiah Jackson, best-selling author of Bitcoin and Black America. He was speaking on this week’s episode of the Priv8 Podcast, which features an exclusive talk between Isaiah and tech journalist Naomi Brockwell.

Feb 28, 2022

Ari Paul, Greg Osuri, and Christopher Jeffrey on Internet Privacy and Decentralization

Feb 9, 2022

A Post-Mortem on the London Hard Fork

Ethereum has long been considered the backbone of the decentralized application (dApp) world. As the first-ever blockchain with smart contract capabilities, it has the longest-lasting and most sizeable community of builders and users. And despite the fact that many more smart contract-enabled blockchains have appeared on the scene in the past several years, Ethereum is still the chain of choice for many dApp developers, non-fungible token (NFT) creators, and DeFi users. OXT itself is an ERC-20 digital asset, and we have previously outlined our reasons for choosing Ethereum.

Feb 7, 2022

“What Bitcoin Did” host Peter McCormack on encryption and government surveillance

“Encryption is a problem for states who want to run surveillance programs,” said Peter McCormack, host of the “What Bitcoin Did” podcast. He was speaking to Orchid’s Derek Silva on this week’s episode of the Priv8 podcast about the importance of encryption, the threat of government surveillance, and the necessity of privacy in democratic systems.

Feb 1, 2022

Welcome to Orchid, Polygon frens!

Orchid is now running on Polygon! The OrchidLotteryV1 contract is live and streaming Orchid’s Layer 2 system of probabilistic nanopayments on the Polygon chain.

Jan 24, 2022

Nodle’s Eliott Teissoniere on Privacy, Decentralization, and Public Safety

Eliott Teissoniere, Chief Blockchain Officer at decentralized Internet-of-Things network Nodle, knows that strategies for tracing and preventing the spread of COVID-19 have raised many concerns about the boundaries between public safety and personal privacy.

Jan 17, 2022

Jonathan Dotan on Decentralized Storage and Vulnerable Datasets

“Decentralized technologies are ideally suited for storing vulnerable data sets,” said Jonathan Dotan, founder of Starling Labs. He was speaking to Orchid’s Derek Silva on this week’s episode of the Priv8 Podcast on restoring digital trust and protecting human rights with Web3 technology.

Dec 20, 2021

Digital privacy in 2022: Orchid’s top 5 privacy predictions for the coming year

2021 has been a year of major cultural shifts. The movement toward remote work and online activity that began in 2020 continued throughout the year—ultimately culminating in a fascination with new digital concepts like the metaverse. And as people spend more of their time working, playing, socializing, and falling in love in online spaces, digital privacy has never been more important.

Dec 13, 2021

Looking back on 2021: Priv8’s top ten episodes of the year

2021 has been an important year for digital privacy. Controversial policy changes, divisive political situations, and technological advances have rung in a new age of challenges and opportunities—and conversations about digital privacy and human rights have never been more crucial.

Nov 30, 2021

What is a Multi-Hop VPN?

In a world of widespread Internet surveillance and non-consensual data collection, maintaining online privacy is more important than ever. Using a multi-hop VPN is one of the easiest and best ways to protect your personal information. These services encrypt data and route it through multiple servers to prevent tracking. In this article, we’ll explore more about what multi-hop VPNs are, why they’re so effective at maintaining privacy online, and how they work.

Nov 29, 2021

Onion Routing Inventor Paul Syverson on the Future of Internet Privacy Solutions

“When you look at the number of people working on Internet security and privacy, it’s easy to see that we are more aware of our privacy than ever,” said Paul Syverson. “It’s getting difficult to keep track of all the work that’s being done—and that’s a good problem to have. But by the same token, it's hard to be aware of all of the potential privacy concerns relevant at any given moment. It's a moving target.”

Nov 22, 2021

Decrypt Executive Editor Jeff John Roberts on How Web3 is Changing Society

“Discussing Web3 often feels like the parable of the blind scientists and the elephant,” said Jeff John Roberts. “It's just too big and too hard to see all of it. That's where we are right now—and it’s really exciting.”

Nov 8, 2021

Orchid CEO Dr. Steven Waterhouse Speaks at Web Summit 2021

On Thursday, November 4th, Orchid CEO Dr. Steven Waterhouse (Seven) spoke at Web Summit, an annual technology conference that brings together tech founders, thought leaders, and media outlets from around the globe. His presentation focused on the proliferation of digital currencies, and how people can safeguard their rights in the face of growing financial censorship.

Nov 5, 2021

Secret Foundation’s Tor Bair Joins Priv8’s Expanding Roster of Speakers

We are thrilled to announce that technology journalist Tor Bair will speak at Orchid’s Priv8 Virtual Privacy Summit. Priv8, a first-of-its-kind event focused on digital privacy, is a venue for experts to share their experiences, predictions, hopes, and advice with like-minded people around the world. Tor joins a growing slate of distinguished speakers, including journalist, analyst, and author Glenn Greenwald.

Nov 1, 2021

Author Gian Volpicelli on the Digital Yuan and the Politics of Crypto

Most people think of cryptocurrency as technological innovation. But Gian Volpicelli, Senior Editor at Wired UK and author of Cryptocurrency: How Digital Money Could Transform Finance, sees it as a political matter.

Oct 25, 2021

MobileCoin Founder Joshua Goldbard joins Priv8’s Growing List of Speakers

We are excited to announce that MobileCoin Founder Joshua Goldbard will speak at Priv8 Virtual Privacy Summit, a unique event focused on digital privacy presented by Orchid and Handshake. Priv8 is a venue for experts to share their experiences, predictions, hopes, and advice with like-minded people around the world. Joshua joins a growing slate of distinguished speakers, including journalist, analyst, and author Glenn Greenwald.

Oct 11, 2021

The Golem Foundation’s Julian Zawistowski on DAOs and Decentralized Governance

The technology behind Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, or DAOs, has been lauded for its ability to support the creation of user-defined organizational structures. But many questions remain about how DAOs can protect individual privacy while maintaining structural order.

Oct 4, 2021

Access Now’s Brett Solomon on Shifting Norms for Digital Rights

“The concept of digital rights has shifted,” said Brett Solomon, co-founder and executive director of Access Now, an organization that defends and extends the digital rights of vulnerable populations. He joined Orchid’s Derek Silva on this week’s episode of the Priv8 podcast.

Sep 28, 2021

Orchid’s Travis Cannell Speaks at Messari Mainnet 2021

Orchid’s Head of Product, Travis Cannell, was a featured speaker at Messari Mainnet, a premier event in the blockchain space. Travis led a workshop on the Orchid app and its user-friendly onboarding process on the third day of the event, which took place from September 20th to 22nd in New York City.

Sep 27, 2021

Noizd’s Jason Rieff on Decentralizing the Music Industry

The ethos of cryptocurrency has always included a broad anti-establishment streak. And for several years, the principles of decentralization have primarily been used to disrupt power structures in the financial sector. But this year, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) exploded onto the cultural scene, taking decentralization into a whole new area: the music industry.

Sep 20, 2021

Creaton’s Alexander Klus on Artistic Censorship and Privacy Protection Online

Independent creators have struggled to find ways to monetize their work in the age of the Internet. Earlier this year, some artists benefited from the emergence of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other decentralized technologies, but challenges inherent in Web 2 design — namely, censorship and lack of privacy — remain widespread.

Sep 17, 2021

The Revolution will be Decentralized: Privacy in the ‘dWeb’

Over the past several years, decentralization has rapidly emerged as a crucial force driving the future of digital technologies. Spurred on by the growth of blockchain applications in finance, gaming, collectibles, and many other sectors, decentralized technology is becoming more central to our economy and to the digital infrastructure that underpins it.

Aug 23, 2021

Privacy Advocate Dr. Gabriela Zanfir-Fortuna on Regulation Proliferation

"Everywhere you're looking on a globe, there is some tech policy or data legislation being passed," said Dr. Gabriela Zanfir-Fortuna, Director for the Future of Privacy Forum, a DC-based think tank and advocacy group focused on data privacy issue on this week's episode of the Priv8 Podcast.

Aug 9, 2021

IoTeX’s Raullen Chai on Privacy in the Internet of Things

In the future, “everything will become part of the Internet of Things (IoT)” said Raullen Chai, co-founder and CEO of IoTeX, a decentralized network that supports IoT technology.

Jul 28, 2021

Crypto meets the metaverse: the implications for privacy

The Internet is many different things to many different people. The Internet is a workplace; it is a source of entertainment and experiences. It is a source of connection – and division.

Jul 26, 2021

York University’s Kean Birch on “Rentiership,” the Data Economy, and Big Tech

“Assets are increasingly central to contemporary capitalism,” said Kean Birch, an expert in technoscience and professor at York University, to Orchid’s Derek Silva on this week’s episode of Priv8.

Jul 22, 2021

Orchid CEO Dr. Steven Waterhouse Speaks at ETHcc 2021

On July 19th, Orchid co-founder and CEO Dr. Steven Waterhouse (Seven) spoke at ETHcc, Europe’s largest annual conference on Ethereum’s technology and community.

Jul 14, 2021

Breaking Down 5 Widespread Myths about Crypto

In April of 2021, The New York Times declared “we’re all crypto people now.” It’s true – over the past year, digital currencies have entered the collective consciousness as never before.

Jul 12, 2021

John Gleeson on how decentralization enables better cloud storage

John, COO of Storj Labs, spoke to Orchid’s Derek Silva about the possibilities and potential of decentralized and distributed cloud storage services on this week’s episode of Priv8.

Jul 6, 2021

Brittany Piovesan on the Internet as a tool for human growth

“We want users to see the Internet as something that allows them to fully express [themselves] and live out their human rights,” said Brittany Piovesan of the Internet Society Foundation in this week’s episode of the Priv8 podcast.

Jun 29, 2021

What Does Ethereum 2.0 Mean for Orchid?

One of the biggest stories of 2020 in the blockchain space was the much-anticipated launch of Ethereum 2.0.

Jun 21, 2021

Gbenga Sesan On Digital Inclusion, Entrepreneurship, & Tech Policy

Paradigm Initiative was created by Sesan in 2007 as a pan-African social enterprise working on digital inclusion. The Initiative currently focuses on providing training for underserved young people, advocating for technological policy, and digital opportunities.

Jun 14, 2021

Akash Network’s Greg Osuri on Decentralizing Cloud Computing

The cloud computing industry is faced with a conundrum.

Jun 3, 2021

Everything you need to know about centralized, decentralized, and open-source VPNs

VPNs are an essential tool for Internet privacy. But not all privacy tools are created equal, and it’s important to understand the differences between them in order to make informed choices.

May 24, 2021

Electric Capital’s Avichal Garg on Programmable Money & the Future of Finance

“Over the next 20 to 30 years, [decentralization] will eat up everything that has to do with money and moving value around,” said Avichal Garg, managing partner at Electric Capital, a VC firm that focuses on early-stage blockchain, cryptocurrency, and fintech startups.

May 17, 2021

NYT’s Kara Swisher speaks with Audrey Tang on whether safety and privacy can co-exist

Kara Swisher has been described as Silicon Valley's "most powerful tech journalist.” Her opinion pieces appear regularly in The New York Times, and she is the host and co-host, respectively, of podcasts Sway and Pivot.

May 6, 2021

Edward Snowden joins Priv8 to discuss causes and solutions for a broken Internet

“The Internet is broken because it reflects a broken society.”

Apr 28, 2021

Orchid CEO Dr. Steven Waterhouse Speaks at Collision 2021

On April 22, Orchid co-founder and CEO Dr. Steven Waterhouse spoke at Collision Conference, one of the largest tech conferences in the world.

Apr 20, 2021

Bill Barhydt on ‘Cutting the Cord’ from Traditional Banks

Bill Barhydt is reimagining the future of banking.

Apr 12, 2021

Emin Gün Sirer on the Asteroid Heading for Technological Dinosaurs

As an expert in peer-to-peer and decentralized, blockchain technologies, Emin Gün Sirer sees a technological revolution coming.

Apr 5, 2021

Tor Bair on Building a Better, Private Internet

Tor Bair is on a mission to make privacy an essential part of the Internet by promoting decentralized technologies that focus on keeping information private.

Mar 29, 2021

Aibek Esengulov on Keeping Control of Your Money and the Power of Blockchain

Aibek Esengulov suffered the consequences of centralized financial systems – so he decided to fix the problem.

Mar 22, 2021

Marvin Tong on Battling the “Data Empire” with Privacy and Decentralization

Marvin Tong wants to revolutionize decentralized blockchain technologies by ensuring that user data is kept private on-chain.

Mar 15, 2021

Gregory Landua on Avoiding ‘Mad-Max’ and Totalitarian Futures by Incentivizing Healthy Agriculture

Gregory Landua wants to save civilization from disintegrating. How? By aligning short-term economic incentives with long-term ecological health.

Mar 11, 2021

NYT’s Kara Swisher will speak at Priv8

We are thrilled to announce that Kara Swisher of The New York Times will speak at Orchid’s Priv8 Virtual Privacy Summit.

Mar 8, 2021

Miko Matsumura on Creating “Immortal Software”

Miko Matsumura is passionate about open source software and its power to drive evolution by solving human problems.

Mar 1, 2021

David Henkel-Wallace on Open Source and Human Motivation

David “Gumby” Henkel-Wallace recalls how on multiple occasions he was called an idiot to his face because of his pioneering work on open-source only to be given a purchase order by the same people.

Feb 22, 2021

Lance Vick on Security Vulnerabilities and the Need for Privacy

Lance Vick has been fixing digital security risks since the age of 14. “At the time, I was just a teenager, and I didn’t have any experience,” Lance said on the latest Follow the White Rabbit podcast recounting his early exploration of program vulnerabilities.

Feb 15, 2021

Leigh Honeywell on Online Harassment and How to Protect Yourself

Leigh Honeywell wants to curb online harassment by helping companies protect their employees in a balancing act at the nexus of privacy and security.

Feb 10, 2021

Should you leave your VPN on all the time?

Using the Internet is never completely without risk, but some functions are more sensitive than others

Feb 8, 2021

Joe Toscano on Fighting Big Tech Bias With Data Science

Joe Toscano turned the adage "if you can't beat them, join them" on its head and decided to leave his work as a Google consultant and take the fight over data privacy to Big Tech.

Feb 4, 2021

Meet Orchid (virtually) at ETHDenver 2021

The event, which takes place virtually for the first time, will feature a talk by Co-founder and CEO Dr. Steven Waterhouse

Feb 1, 2021

John Redgrave on Building Iron Man Suits for the Janitors of the Internet

John Redgrave made a decision that he didn’t want his kids growing up in a digitally native society where online abuse was prevalent. So he set out to create the tools for content moderators to battle abusive online voices while balancing the principles of privacy.

Jan 25, 2021

Nathan Wilcox on How Privacy is Essential For Economic Freedom

Nathan Wilcox is at the center of the struggle between the opportunities and risks of technology, striving to provide economic freedom to people everywhere with privacy and decentralization.

Jan 19, 2021

Pioneer Filmmaker Jamie King on Disinformation and “Reality Wars”

Jamie King’s filmmaking career crosses the arc from his pioneering distribution of the documentary “Steal This Film” to his latest project that analyzes mass manipulation around false memes such as “Stop the Steal.”

Jan 13, 2021

Orchid Integrates with WalletConnect

Orchid now supports WalletConnect, a popular open source protocol for connecting decentralised applications to mobile wallets with QR code scanning or deep linking.

Jan 12, 2021

What is a Keiki, and what role does it play in the Orchid network?

Since Orchid launched just over a year ago, the network has made enormous strides. It has gotten faster, easier to use, and has added numerous partners and collaborations. Amidst all this progress, it’s worth revisiting some of the basic aspects of Orchid’s design. One of these is the keiki, the smallest unit into which Orchid’s digital asset, OXT, is divisible.

Jan 11, 2021

Franck Nouyrigat on the Future of Democracy and Decentralized Elections

Franck Nouyrigat literally used to spend his weekends helping startups launch. The non-profit he helped found more than a decade ago -- Startup Weekend -- eventually established a presence in more countries than Starbucks and helped build startup communities over weekend-long events.

Jan 6, 2021

Orchid honored with CNET 2020 Innovation Award

Our decentralized VPN service is ranked alongside four other winners, including mRNA covid-19 vaccines and Apple’s M1 chip.

Jan 5, 2021

Yaniv Tal on Organizing Data To Unlock the Potential of Decentralization

Yaniv Tal first understood how decentralization could help solve the world's economic problems, especially resource allocation, during the 2008-2009 financial crisis when many of his talented graduate peers felt like giving up on even searching for a job and being forced to let their potential go to waste.

Dec 17, 2020

Andreas Antonopoulos on Privacy, Society and “Special” Ethereum

Andreas Antonopoulos has one word of advice for anyone working in blockchain -- privacy.

Dec 14, 2020

Kurt Rohloff on 9/11 Inspiring a Path to Privacy, Encryption and Military Intelligence

Kurt Rohloff was at engineering grad school during the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 and quickly decided he wanted to play his “small part” in helping national security. It was not long before Kurt was working on projects to support the mission of DARPA, (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and leading teams in the first implementation of a new concept in encryption.

Dec 7, 2020

Anne Ahola Ward on SEO, Privacy and a Vindicated Science Project

Anne Ahola Ward may have received a C grade for a school science project when she sewed a watch onto a T-shirt but the CEO of CircleClick Media was vindicated years later when wearables entered the mainstream and boomed.

Nov 30, 2020

Roger Huang on Op-Sec, Human Rights and Fighting the Unwinnable War

Roger Huang is fighting the good fight by helping human rights groups and tech startups to up their operations security game. But he warns that, when faced with a state adversary, people are waging an unwinnable war.

Nov 24, 2020

Earn Orchid’s OXT on CoinMarketCap

We are thrilled to announce that the community will soon be able to earn the Orchid digital asset, OXT, through CoinMarketCap's Earn Campaign.

Nov 23, 2020

Brad Kam on an Unstoppable Mission against Corruption

Brad Kam, co-founder of Unstoppable Domain, fell down the crypto rabbit hole in a hacker house in San Francisco that was so rundown the hallways made a perfect set for filming horror movies. But that inauspicious start was where Brad had his epiphany and realized crypto was the best way to fight corruption.

Nov 16, 2020

Orchid’s “Follow the White Rabbit” Podcast is Hopping Onto Audius

We are thrilled that Audius, the decentralized, community-owned streaming platform, will start this month to carry our very own Follow the White Rabbit podcast.

Nov 9, 2020

Decrypt Reporter on Making Omelettes with Bert the Robot

Bert was talkative and expressive but he failed his audition to win a job helping to make omelettes. He dropped eggs all over the kitchen floor. Bert was actually one of three robots seeking employment as part of an experiment conducted by Adriana Hamacher during her Master in Science studies into machine-human interactions.

Nov 2, 2020

Latin America Looks to Blockchain to Improve Human Rights, Reporter Says

Felipe Erazo is an investigative journalist who researched the disappearance of 65,000 people during decades of civil war in his home country of Colombia.

Oct 26, 2020

Indian Crypto Exchange Founder on Financial Censorship

Neeraj Khandelwal co-founded CoinDCX, India's largest cryptocurrency exchange, in response to his own liquidity-starved trading challenges.

Oct 20, 2020

David Pan on China’s Impact on Blockchain and Human rights

David Pan is originally from China and moved to the United States three years ago for a masters degree in business journalism. That propelled him to becoming an international business reporter at the largest blockchain and cryptocurrency media publication, Coindesk.

Oct 14, 2020

How to make sure your VPN is working properly

VPN leaks can jeopardize users’ privacy. Here’s how to find them and fix them.

Oct 5, 2020

Oasis Labs CEO Dawn Song on Building the Responsible Data Economy

Dawn Song is ranked as the most cited scholar on computer security. So when the UC Berkeley Professor of Computer Science and CEO of Oasis Labs says she is helping to build a new data privacy paradigm, people pay attention.

Sep 29, 2020

Ex-FDIC Regulator On Trust And the Battle of the Social Media Videos

When Jason Brett first arrived at the FDIC, he was greeted with the joke that he should have brought a pillow to work at the sleepy agency. Little did he know that, within a week in that summer of 2008, he would have a front-row seat to what was the largest bank collapse in U.S. history.

Sep 22, 2020

Can Technology Be Compassionate? Developer Val Mack Explains How

Val Mack, a Software Architect at Quant Five, and founder of Festival Labs, believes cryptography and blockchain have the power to do social good by protecting privacy and allowing autonomy in what she calls “compassionate technology.”

Sep 15, 2020

Open Source Elections Pioneer on Helping Voters With Technology

Dr. Juan E. Gilbert, a professor at the University of Florida, can recall the disputed U.S. presidential election 20 years ago when fiascos over counting ballots in the Sunshine State left the country in limbo.

Sep 8, 2020

Pioneer Programmer Brian J. Fox on Championing Open Source

When Brian J. Fox, Co-founder of Orchid and the original author of the GNU Bash shell, started out as a pioneer programmer, it was the free exchange of creative ideas that drove advances in computer science.

Sep 1, 2020

Beanstalk Ventures Managing Partner Ken Seiff on the dark side of the Internet

With a special guest appearance by Orchid CEO Dr. Steven Waterhouse on this week's episode of Follow the White Rabbit

Aug 24, 2020

Richard Muirhead on Blockchain and the New Decentralized Economy

Richard Muirhead has been a Bitcoin believer since as early as 2013. That has provided the partner of Fabric Ventures with a valuable perspective on blockchain and digital assets.

Aug 17, 2020

Berkeley City Council Member Ben Bartlett on civil rights and defending democracy

This week on Follow the White Rabbit, Ben speaks with Orchid’s Alex Kehaya on the fight for freedom and civil rights in the context of his own personal journey.

Aug 5, 2020

How to earn OXT today

We know many of you are wondering what the best way is to earn OXT, Orchid’s native digital currency. There are currently a number of ways people can earn, with more planned for the future.

Mar 20, 2020

Orchid update: actions taken in response to COVID-19

Orchid is now available for free to all journalists, so they can further free speech and the flow of information no matter where they are.

Jan 27, 2020

4 Factors We Considered Before Choosing Ethereum

When we started out designing the Orchid privacy network, we faced the fundamental decision of which blockchain Layer 1 platform to build on.

Oct 9, 2019

Orchid: A New Approach to VPNs

We’re building a next-gen VPN market powered by probabilistic nanopayments, with a design emphasizing these core tenets: scalability, decentralization, usability, simplicity, and extensibility.

May 7, 2019

Orchid Labs May 2019 Update

Orchid Labs’ mission is to build open source software that keeps the Internet open and accessible — a natural resource for everyone, everywhere.