El Tor is a high-bandwidth Tor network fork, incentivized by the Bitcoin Lightning Network. Users can host El Tor relays and earn sats for sharing their bandwidth. The urgency for such a network has never been greater, especially in light of escalating privacy threats globally—from Brazil's VPN prohibition to the legal challenges faced by Telegram's Pavel Durov.
El Tor aims to transcend the existing boundaries of the Tor network and to scale beyond its current limitation. The project was inspired by the need for a private internet and the cypherpunk vision. BOLT 12 offers (with blinded paths) are used for privately paying relays. El Tor not only helps with censorship resistance but also enables efficient Lightning and Bitcoin node communication. A higher bandwidth and more reliable Tor network can also lead to future services being launched as hidden services, by default, instead of clearnet KYC'd servers.
Read the spec here https://github.com/el-tor/eltord/blob/master/spec/00_spec.md and technical details on paid circuits here https://github.com/el-tor/eltord/blob/master/spec/01_paid_circuits.md
- eltor: A fork of the Tor network that incorporates paid circuit handling and the EXTENDPAIDCIRCUIT RPC protocol. GitHub Repository
- eltord: The primary daemon orchestrating El Tor's operations, connecting to wallets, monitoring payment events, and managing RPC calls. GitHub Repository
- eltor-app: A VPN-like client application enabling connections to El Tor and remote wallets. It offers a user interface for relay management and hidden service creation. GitHub Repository
- libeltor: A Rust-based fork of libtor, designed to embed a fully operational
eltorddaemon within projects, with fallback capabilities for standard Tor network integration. GitHub Repository - LNI Remote: The Lightning Node Interface Remote library provides a unified interface for connecting to CLN, LND, Phoenixd, and other implementations. It includes bindings for Rust, Android, iOS, and JavaScript (Node.js, React Native). GitHub Repository
- chutney: A fork of the Tor testnet that integrates El Tor's paid relay infrastructure. GitHub Repository
- launched a public directory authroity here Directory Authority Consensus file
flowchart TB
subgraph eltord[eltord daemon]
subgraph LNI[Lightning Node Interface]
CLN
Phoenixd
LND[LND - BOLT 11 blinded paths]
more...
end
subgraph watcher[Event Watcher]
rpc_calls[RPC - Pay,Kill, Extend]
lib-eltor
socks5_load_balencer
end
end
subgraph ElTorApp[El Tor App]
Wallet[Wallet Config]
vpn[VPN like client]
end
subgraph MobileApp[Android/iOS Apps]
eltord-uniffi
end
subgraph tornet[Tor networks]
subgraph tor[Original Tor Network]
EOS[Existing Onion Hidden Services]
EPR[Existing Relays]
end
subgraph eltor[El Tor Network Fork]
NOS[New Paid Onion Hidden Services]
NPR[New Paid Relays]
end
end
subgraph Browsers
Socks5
end
subgraph Chutney
Testnet
Directory_Authorities
Paid_Relays_BOLT12_AD
end
ElTorApp ---> eltord
eltord-uniffi ---> eltord
eltord ---> tornet
Browsers ---> socks5_load_balencer
Chutney ---> eltor