Mysterium

What is Mysterium?

Mysterium is a cryptocurrency and a decentralized open-source platform designed to democratize the world of VPNs (Virtual Private Networks). In their site, Mysterium describes itself as an open source network that allows nodes to rent unused network traffic while offering a secure connection to those in need. But the vision of the Mysterium Foundation for the network is even bigger.

The foundation targets to make Mysterium a big marketplace where both clients can easily buy VPN services from network providers. The mandate of the development team revolves around peer2peer operations, smart contracts, state channels, and blockchain operations. This is why they have settled on a progressively improving model to deliver greater value to users and outdo competitors.

The Mysterium project was founded by Robertas Visinkis, Paulius Mozulas, and Valdas Petrulis who wanted to promote a trustworthy and sustainable network that guarantees seamless access and protection for internet users. To make the goal a reality, Robertas and his team created the Mysterium Foundation that foresees the development of the network. Mysterium Network also partnered with other parties such as Bitcoin Suissie, TokenMarket, and MME to promote faster development.

The price of Mysterium dropped by more than 2000% between June 2018 and August 2018. Though this was the trend reported in the market by most cryptocurrencies, the Mysterium foundation has demonstrated its commitment to growing the value of the platform through new features development.

What is the problem that Mysterium Solves?

Poor privacy of most internet networks

Today, the internet has become the primary driver of most industries. From e-commerce sector to government departments, everything largely relies on internet connection. However, privacy has become a serious issue as online users’ information easily get leaked or stolen by third parties without seeking consumer consent.

• Many administrations progressively monitor the internet with the target of constructing political profiles. This monitoring and data manipulation has replayed in many situations with serious repercussions. For example, private data harvested from social media networks has been cited as one of the campaign pillars during the 2017 US presidential elections.
• Many internet service providers have become unhinged to one of the core goals of guaranteeing privacy to their users. The providers are also harvesting data on users’ communication habits and selling the data to every willing buyer.
• While the development of peer2peer technology and blockchain based platforms such as Bitcoin and Ethereum brought a lot of hope, it has emerged that it is still possible to pull out personal data. On Bitcoin, transactions are no longer private as cryptocurrency enthusiasts expected.

The looming cryptocurrency regulation

When the blockchain technology was born and popularized after Satoshi Nakamoto launched Bitcoin, most administrations felt that their powers were being usurped. Because the cryptocurrencies are decentralized, and transactions run on a peer2peer basis, the ensuing danger to financial transactions has caused panic. Now, many governments are crafting regulations targeting to get information about cryptocurrency users. This data could be used for tax, prosecution, and other third party related operations.

Note that while Mysterium is primarily aimed at enhancing privacy, it also targets to facilitate faster adoption of blockchain technology across all sectors.

How does Mysterium Solve the problem?

The Mysterium multi-layered architecture

To provide a reliable solution to the above issues, the Mysterium founders and development team opted for a layered architecture with the following components.

• Decentralized service infrastructure and database layers: These two layers are the foundation of the Mysterium platform. They use smart contracts to help nodes identify themselves, discover each other, and send payments on a peer2peer basis.
• The service provider layer: This layer comprises a network of Mysterium nodes that serve as VPN providers. They are the nodes that want to rent their unused internet traffic.
• The service client layer: This layer comprises of various client applications created on the Mysterium network and even third parties.

Advanced cryptography and the Ethereum blockchain

The VPN consumers search and pay service providers using the inbuilt smart contracts that predefine all the terms and conditions. The network relies on the Ethereum blockchain for transparent processing and distributed storage. Registered identities also help to enable the use of limited trust when offering the services and processing payments.

The VPN service and VPN service providers even allow negotiations on terms and conditions. When the negotiations are completed, they are captured and implemented by the smart contracts on the Ethereum platform. Both parties are required to deposit some MYST tokens as collateral, and payment is only effected by the smart contract when all the conditions are met.

To run the computational costs correctly and factor all the limitations of operating on Ethereum Virtual Machine, Mysterium uses keccak256 hashing, ECDSA signature verification, and identifier recovery functions. The advanced encryption has been crucial in keeping user information more private.

What makes Mysterium better than its competitors?

Mysterium was created at a time when the growth of cryptocurrencies had reached the peak. This implies it has to fight for space and market share in a market with more than a1600 other cryptocurrencies and blockchain networks. Here are the main components that make Mysterium better than its competitors.

• The platform utilizes smart contracts to run transactions: Smart contracts in Mysterium are designed to make processing of transactions easy and direct. Because the rules of the transactions are predetermined, and users have to agree with them, even complex transactions are inviolable.
• The Mysterium network has targeted the high potential internet traffic niche which that is drawing a lot of interest from different stakeholders. At a time when more people are becoming conscious of the need for enhanced internet privacy, Mysterium network’s demand is likely to grow exponentially. This could ultimately increase the value of the network and price of the native token.
• The Platform provides users with a secure and private method of making transactions such as sending value. This implies that you can now send funds across the globe using the Mysterium network without worrying about third parties knowing about personal details or even risk of seizures.
• By offering internet traffic on a peer2peer basis without involving centralized profit-seeking entities, users are assured of lower transaction fees. This is likely to draw more traffic to Mysterium resulting in faster growth of the network.
• The Mysterium development team has lined list of highly attractive features on its roadmap. Some of the features such as API for app developers and private end-to-end communication channel have become the pacesetters in the industry. More cryptocurrency networks are now following Mysterium for ideas on what to launch in their platforms.
• Mysterium provides users with an opportunity to sell unused traffic in the network. This is a great way for users in the network to increase their revenue from the network. They can also mine the network and cut transaction costs because all operations are peer2peer.

How can Mysterium be categorized?

Mysterium is a new blockchain network created to help redefine the internet services by promoting the focus on security. Its design and operations are helping to wrestle internet traffic from decentralized operators and empowering more users to become providers. As a decentralized network, it implies that all people can participate in determining the nature of the internet they want.

While some have argued that most top internet providers are likely to put up a spirited fight, the blockchain technology is an irresistible technology whose time has come. The incentives provided for maintaining the network and decentralized governance implies that more people will get involved in promoting the system to make it better.

The aggressive development team has demonstrated it is willing to go to every length to deliver greater value to users. This is evident from the high profile features that have been lined up for implementation in their roadmap. The community is gearing up for positive price and value shift of the Mysterium network

What’s Mysterium’s vision on Security?

Security of people’s data when operating online and their digital tokens has become an important factor in defining the design and implementation of decentralized networks. The Mysterium’s development team aims at decentralizing and making user data as private as possible. The founders believe that no one should access your data, whether personal or for business, without requisite consent. To guarantee users the needed safety and privacy, here are the main strategies used at Mysterium platform.

• Mysterium is based on the Ethereum network: While this design comes with some disadvantages because the network is not fully independent, it is capable of utilizing the advanced Ethereum network as an additional layer of security. For example, the Mysterium development team was able to advance applications of the Smart contracts for faster growth safely.
• The development team is very aggressive in identifying gaps in the core code: Even with its strong core code, the Mysterium development team appreciated the complex and evolving nature of internet security. Therefore, it progressively identifies gaps and addresses them to keep the network more secure. This is why no successful network attack had been reported on the network by August 2018.
• The token distribution model is not based on proof of work (PoW) or proof of stake (PoS): Rather, it is premised on the basis of the bandwidth that a node has shared on the network. This has been crucial in even distribution of the tokens to avoid the risk of 51% attack.

Examples of Mysterium’s use cases / applications.

Though Mysterium is one of the newest networks, the development team has been working extra hard to increase the value of the network via more use cases. However, Mysterium development team will have to work harder to win the market from industry leaders such as Ripple, Bitcoin, and Ethereum.

• Use Mysterium coin to pay for the network traffic on the Mysterium marketplace: Mysterium coin is the primary currency for paying network traffic in the platform. Note that you have the opportunity to negotiate for better conditions such as prices.
• Paying transaction fee when trading Mysterium on the markets: If you have more MYST and want to trade them in the markets such as Liqui and ForkDelta, the transaction fee can be paid using MYST. Note that the charges vary depending on the selected exchange. To enjoy lower transaction costs you should consider using decentralized exchanges such as ForkDelta that allow users to exchange their tokens directly from their wallets.
• MYST can be used to pay for products and services in the markets: Like other cryptocurrencies, Mysterium tokens can be used to pay for products and services in online marketplaces. If you have ample coins in the Mysterium wallet, you will only need to identify a platform that accepts the coins. Note that even when a store accepts another coin; do not consider it out of reach. You only need to change it for the accepted coin in the exchanges.
• It is a reliable way to save and invest your funds: Though the price of MYST has been was on a negative trajectory by August 2018, the community and experts are optimistic that it will finally take a positive trend. Therefore, people who want to save their funds only need to buy MSYT from the exchanges. Remember that the native coins are completely encrypted to ensure that no third-party can easily know about your details.
• The best way to send funds anonymously: As a decentralized blockchain network, users on the Mysterium network are allowed to send funds directly anywhere across the globe. The network helps users to bypass centralized networks to make the transactions faster and cheap. All that is required is for both the sender and recipient to be on the network.
• Creating a decentralized application to grow your business: One of the things making Mysterium network to attract a lot of users is allowing them to develop and plug decentralized application. Whether you are a developer or a business, this is a unique channel to advance the business. For example, a new store can create a decentralized application to help a business operate on a 24 hour basis.

https://coincheckup.com/coins/Mysterium

Mysterium Network

https://medium.com/mysterium-network

https://mysterium.network/whitepaper.pdf