The HOPR protocol offers network-level and metadata privacy for all types of data exchanges. It utilizes a mixnet to safeguard the identities of senders and recipients by routing data through multiple intermediate relay hops that blend traffic.

Payments are facilitated through probabilistic micropayments, a custom layer-2 scaling solution built on top of the Ethereum blockchain.

Relay mix nodes are incentivized with HOPR tokens for their contributions. The proof-of-relay mechanism protects users from dishonest behavior.

HOPR creates economic incentives to sustainably operate a global privacy network at scale, while preserving privacy.

HOPR brings true privacy to web3 with its fully scalable and incentivized mixnet. With HOPR, any kind of data can be transmitted without having to reveal the metadata. HOPR doesn't have its own blockchain: node runners earn HOPR tokens on Gnosis Chain and Ethereum mainnet.

Developers can build their own dapps on top of HOPR, allowing everyone to decide who has access to their online and personal data.

The HOPR token launched in February 2021 and all proceeds from launch are controlled by the HOPR DAO. Development of the HOPR protocol is overseen by the HOPR Association, a privately funded organization separate from the HOPR DAO.

Decentralized approaches to digital services, finance and data transfer will usher in a new era of freedom, fairness and user choice. But without transport level privacy web3 is actually less private than Web 2.0, because exposed metadata can be used to disrupt, exploit and censor users and services, even behind a VPN.

HOPR provides scalable transport level privacy, allowing the creation of truly private, trustless and secure applications for web3.

Although mixnets such as Tor are a decades-old technology, HOPR has built the first scalable and incentivized mixnet, allowing the creation of private dApps at the scale needed for web3.

This is possible thanks to HOPRs proof-of-relay mechanism, a cryptographic system that rewards node runners only after they have successfully relayed data, all while preserving their privacy.

In 2023 Q1 HOPR launched RPCh, the first commercial product to use the HOPR network. RPCh makes crypto wallets and DeFi more private by obscuring all metadata associated with RPC calls, including IP addresses.

RPCh is already integrated into privacy wallet BlockWallet, with more wallet integrations coming soon. RPCh can also be used with almost any wallet on any EVM chain with minimal user effort.

The HOPR network is secured by proof-of-relay, a cryptographic scheme which makes it possible to incentivize a private mixnet for the first time. Node runners are paid in HOPR tokens only after completing their mixing and relay duties.

The HOPR protocol is designed such that no-one but the sender can know the details of their data and its route through the HOPR mixnet.

The HOPR token lives on the Ethereum blockchain and conforms to the Ethereum ERC20 token standard, which is by far the most widely used and interoperable standard for creating crypto tokens.

The token has three main functions:

• Customers can pay with HOPR tokens to send data through the HOPR network privately and securely.
• Node runners can earn HOPR tokens when they correctly relay data through the HOPR mixnet, thanks to the proof-of-relay mechanism.
• HOPR token holders can vote as part of the HOPR DAO.

Sebastian Bürgel is the founder of HOPR and president of the HOPR Board. He graduated with a degree in information technologies and electrical engineering from ETH Zurich in 2008 and then completed a Ph.D. program in biomedical engineering in 2010. In 2016, Bürgel co-founded SONECT, an ATM as-a-service provider company. He served as the chief technology officer for SONECT until 2017. Alongside working for SONECT, Sebastien Bürgel was also CTO at Validity Labs, providing education-related solutions via blockchain technology. In 2020, Bürgel left Validity Labs to start his latest blockchain project — HOPR.

Rik Krieger is the Co-Founder of HOPR and Head of marketing team. Rik has 20 years working experience in business development for various companies, from corporate to start-ups. He was one of the co-founders of Sonect which was listed under the FinTech50 in 2019 (next to N26, Monzo and Revolut) and has won numerous honors, including from LendIt Fintech, Banking Technology Awards, and Digital Economy Award as the Next Global Hot Thing 2019.

The top exchange for trading in HOPR is currently Uniswap v3.

UNISWAP

DAI - HOPR

SWAPR (Gnosis chain)

wxDai - xHOPR

DEX aggregator - CowSwap (Gnosis chain)

wxDai - xHOPR