There's another new addition to my project watchlist called Mysterium with a Phase-1 ICO happening at the end of May. It didn't seem all that interesting to me at first because I assumed right away that not many people care about VPNs. But I've reconsidered it and went through the whitepaper after @lpfaust's advice to do so. Indeed now I think the project has potential since it could begin operating as a gateway into the new Internet.

In my opinion, the cryptoeconomics of this project seems to be quite feasible as it can penetrate and decentralise already existing VPN services out there. Plus, the performance of a decentralised VPN marketplace isn't quite on the same playing field as the likes of iEx.ec and Golem where advances in cheaper and faster computations are merciless, cost-competitive. In fact, I think decentralised computing networks such as those are going to enable VPN provision much easier for anyone participating in the Mysterium network.

Keeping it short, here are two excerpts taken out of their comprehensive whitepaper:-

Mysterium aims to be fully decentralized, peer to peer based and serverless node network, designed to provide privacy restoring techniques to its users and financial incentivization to its node operators (providers). Mysterium achieves this goal by utilizing already existing technologies such as Ethereum blockchain, smart contracts advancing their features with state-channels and evolving mechanisms of promises, combined with censorship evasion protocols developed by the community acting as applications of the network.

Further reading

• Whitepaper: https://mysterium.network/whitepaper.pdf
• Website: https://mysterium.network

---

Upcoming ICOs on the watchlist

• https://eos.io (ICO / distro unclear)
• https://aragon.one
• https://bancor.network
• https://basicattentiontoken.org/