Also you can use tornado.cash for example over Tor. Or any dapp via something like metamask (or another wallet) over Tor.
So if you are using a Tor operating system like tails, metamask is not available because you wont be using chrome or brave on that OS, installing extensions in tor browser firefox isnt readily available either
Other wallets are not easily compiled on debian and it appears to be a complete afterthought
Yes sending to a node that happens to be routing over tor should be easy
There are too many hurdles and fixing those hurdles will make this viable and more commonplace, where I gather the market doesnt actually want to switch between bitcoin and monero if many are already in the ethereum ecosystem
even on Osx/Windows, how would metamask be used with the Tor route?
I don't think you've ever done this, only replied
That's always bothered me. It also amazes me how much clients seem restricted to smartphones and Chrome.
You just go from fiat to Monero. And then over Tor you swap or morph Monero to the surveillance coin you actually want. The centralized swapping service wont know your IP address due to Tor, Monero uniquely doesnt have transaction history, and the address you provide for the surveillance coin will be a virgin one never used before.
So the swapping service and all the blockchain sleuths will be stopped cold. Actually they wont be stopped they’ll just be following transactions forever thinking it has the same beneficial owner. So a wild goose chase for people that think they have purpose in life.
And you get to transact in the digital asset you want.
Unfortunately if that is on the ethereum blockchain then you cant send additional transactions while over tor.
The desired use case: Anonymously funding a subspace of addresses using Monero (unstable value), receiving DAI and Ether.
Still over Tor, using the DAI (stable value) to donate to scihub. Using ether for transaction fees.
Downloading literature from scihub over tor. (Not using bittorrent)
BONUS: we can also get rid of ether transaction fees now, if the dai was issued directly on a layer2 system like zksync.
So there is a vibrant ecosystem that simply cant broadcast transactions over tor right now. Its a udp issue. Not irreconcilable, people just havent done it in the node software.
Most stablecoin activity is on the Ethereum network, and the clients have never prioritized Tor use.
Ethereum also hosts privacy that all fungible assets can inherit, using Tornado.cash people can trade notes of unknown amounts, redeemable any time. Using Aztec people can make any token private, and communities can consider doing private-by-default tokens including with stablecoins if the issuer started it that way.
So its not as simple as Bitcoin OR Monero. There is a looming large piece of the puzzle that simply is missing one piece - ease of use over Tor. Layer2 solutions on Ethereum also inherit privacy inadvertently, while solving scaling issues on layer1.
Of course, sci-hub doesn't NEED Tor itself for donations, being fairly benign, but as soon as that piece exists, many tech savvy people simply use that route. Monero will likely remain superior but technically lesser solutions can solve the actual market needs better, since the attack surface isn't that consequential.