ATOR Protocol Announces Ambitious Plans, Aims To Be The Cornerstone of A Muilti-Trillion Dollar DePIN Sector by 2029
*LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / November 13, 2023 /* Some of you may be aware of a little known project called ATOR Protocol which is gaining incredible traction during this bear market and destined to be a powerful tool for The Onion Router network (Tor) improving scaling and adoption in the coming 2 years. In this article I'm going to explain where ATOR sits in the crypto space, and explain why its disruption will start a global shift in how people can surf online with anonymity and privacy over the next decade. As a result I will also be giving my reasoning on what the ATOR market cap will look like in 1, 2 and 6 years time.
*Introduction*
In the continuously changing landscape of technology and innovation, there is a new field within crypto that combines networks of hardware systems, blockchain and economics called Decentralised Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN).
*What is DePIN?*
The DePIN sector provides a transformative approach to infrastructure development thanks to the unique economic incentives that are built within its framework. DePIN networks, powered by blockchain technology and tokens, incentivise the deployment, growth and maintenance of physical infrastructure. This encourages greater decentralization and efficiency of networks allowing everyday participants to use hardware or software to contribute various forms computing power and earn passive income in real time through blockchain, autonomously.
*DePIN Flywheel*
The way DePIN projects work is by utilizing tokens as a medium to reward participants for their technological contributions with their metrics verified on chain. The more the participant contributes, the more they are rewarded with tokens which then helps the network grow and encourages more participants who contribute and so on. This economic on chain positive feedback mechanism results in a dramatic scaling of a network improving its productivity, operation, efficiency, speed and crucially it's reputation.
source: https://iotex.io/blog/what-are-decentralized-physical-infrastructure-networks-depin/
This alignment of motives by all parties involved opens up a whole new multi-trillion dollar market of hardware and software businesses, supply chain and exchanges catering to the 8 billion global population where any citizen can improve any network's efficiency and productivity and earn a passive income at the same time. Importantly, as projects within DePIN become more ubiquitous, our understanding and need for efficiency improvement in all aspects of life increases and this is all thanks to blockchain technology and crypto-economics.
The DePIN sector is young with great potential to be a huge growth area in the next crypto bull cycle, with some familiar projects already part of it.
Currently the DePIN sector has a market cap valuation of $6.26 billion
Messari is claiming this sector is set to greatly disrupt the $2.2 trillion Cloud, Telecoms, Sensor and Energy industries potentially growing to $3.5 trillion by 2028
The DePIN sector already peaked in 2021 at $15 billion MC
source: https://messari.io/report/infra-brief-the-depin-chain-wars
*The growth of DePIN and ATOR Protocol in this next cycle*:
Amongst the DePIN narrative, ATOR Protocol emerges as a distinctive force within online privacy, enhancing the capabilities of the Tor network and aiming to address its speed and security limitations by incentivising node operations, thus ensuring better anonymity, security and scalability. The future of DePIN, especially with contributions from protocols like ATOR, seems full of disruptive potential.
ATOR Protocol rewards relay operators with ATOR tokens in exchange for providing uptime to Tor using a consensus mechanism called ‘Proof of Uptime' (PoU). This incentivised mechanism addresses the issues arising from the voluntarily run relays on Tor, which currently result in a long latency and patchy data transmission. The potential of ATOR is further augmented by the fact that it aims to drastically improve the way users surf the internet anonymously and earn a passive income.
As can be seen, ATOR's positive feedback mechanism follows the DePIN flywheel perfectly. The economic incentive to support Tor is very strong, never mind the privacy needs. More specifically, the value that ATOR offers can be summarised into three parts:-
1. *Enhancing Tor Relays*: ATOR has built unique Tor relays, which will be mass-produced, providing a decentralized network of incentivised relays. This enhancement can pave the way for more people to use Tor for various online activities while retaining their anonymity.
2. *Anonymity with ATOR WiFi routers*: Users can surf anonymously bypassing their ISP restrictions and mask their IP addresses. This feature protects them from search algorithms and cookie trackers.
3. *ATOR's Onion Services*: Using the $ATOR token, a new marketplace will emerge within Tor, where users and service providers can transact with privacy and anonymity. This would lead to an increase in the usage of Tor, making it more popular globally and subsequently increasing the demand for the $ATOR token.
So with greater usage and participation on networks such as Tor, ATOR is set to grow exponentially over the coming 5 years much like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
*Linking ATOR with DePIN's potential*
Now, let's consider DePIN, which is set to be a major trend in the upcoming decade. DePIN leverages blockchain technology for real-world physical infrastructure and hardware networks. It enables globally distributed participants to build and manage infrastructure without centralized entities. One can argue that DePINs are the next step in the evolution of IoT and cloud services specifically for the Web3 ecosystem as well as prerequisites for many industries to proliferate.
*Why is ATOR one of the most promising of DePIN projects?*
As shown in the flywheel earlier, ATOR fits the classic definition of a DePIN project, exhibiting 3 key features characteristic of a protocol in that sector.
· *Infrastructure for Anonymity*: As DePIN grows, it will create more infrastructure networks like Wi-Fi networks, routers, and more. ATOR Protocol, with its specific focus on enhancing Tor networks, can integrate with these emerging DePINs. As these decentralized infrastructure networks grow, the need for privacy and security becomes paramount. ATOR, with its focus on Tor, becomes the perfect solution.
· *Tokenisation*: Both ATOR and DePIN rely heavily on token incentives. ATOR uses $ATOR tokens to reward relay operators, while DePIN ensures there is a framework that incentivises participants to contribute to infrastructure development. As DePINs become more prevalent, the requirement for tokens like $ATOR, which ensure privacy and anonymity, could see an increase in usage of Tor daily active users.
· *Increasing Demand*: With over 40 billion smart devices and countless sensors globally, the demand for decentralized infrastructure, like what DePINs provide, is bound to grow. As more networks emerge, the need to ensure that these networks are private and secure becomes critical. This is where ATOR can play a pivotal role, in particular with ensuring these devices can access Tor and other networks to surf with anonymity.
*Projected altcoin market cycle 2023-2025*
With any nascent market and especially disruptive by nature, it is common to see exponential growth over time. Cryptocurrency and blockchain have certainly seen such growth. Within that field the DePIN sector is set to grow from $6.26 billion (which is currently the bottom of the cycle) to $400 billion by the end of 2025.
*ATOR token value aligned with Tor metrics*
As Tor scales with more than 200,000 physical and virtual relays by the end of 2025, so too will the ATOR ecosystem. More relays results in greater bandwidth and speed and encourages alot more participants keen to surf anonymously using Tor. This won't be limited to individuals but also enterprises looking to send secure, private data from one site to another and from their business to another. Tor will likely be seen as a good option for anonymous surfing where more than 300 million users access Tor by end of 2025
By 2029 it's plausible to see Tor as the second portal of the internet, a more privacy centric, secure internet catering to more than 2 billion users with a thriving ATOR ecosystem underpinning it.
*Market cap projections by metrics and year*
Currently there are 4 million users on Tor supported by 8,000 relays and ATOR is valued at $1.27, 10,500 wallets, 1,700 registered relays and an MC of $110m. We can therefore speculate on what metrics we would see during certain periods and what values can be derived from those potential metrics:-
1. DePIN MC $100B
December 2024 - Tor relays: 20,000| Tor users: 40 million| ATOR wallets: 40,000| *ATOR MC: $1.8 billion| ATOR Token price: $20*
2. DePIN MC $430B
December 2025 - Tor relays: 125,000| Tor users: 300 million| ATOR wallets: 200,000| *ATOR MC: $21 billion| ATOR Token price: $233*
3. DePIN MC $3.8T
December 2029 - Tor relays: 450,000| Tor users: 2 billion| ATOR wallets: 630,000| *ATOR MC: $110 billion| ATOR Token price: $1,222*
(Circulating supply 90million)
These are all very realistic projections for a potential game changing project within a highly disruptive sector reaching hectacorn status in 6 years. In fact, ATOR MC would account for less than 2% of the entire DePIN sector in 2024, less than 5% in 2025 and less than 3% in 2029.
*Conclusion*
The upcoming era of DePIN brings forth numerous advantages. At the forefront, DePINs pave the way for a more streamlined infrastructure setup, eliminating intermediaries and fostering innovation. ATOR Protocol, with its focus on the Tor network initially, exemplifies this by providing a decentralised approach to ensure better anonymity and security online at scale. By using blockchain, ATOR promotes productivity, efficiency and trustless operation encouraging mass adoption of many types of decentralised networks.
ATOR Protocol's importance in the realm of privacy and anonymity is already evident, especially when considering its potential integration with other networks like Nostr too. In an era where decentralization is becoming the norm, the blend of ATOR's privacy solutions with DePIN's decentralized infrastructure approach can be a game-changer. Most importantly ATOR can ensure that this new interconnected world remains private and secure for everyone so what price would you put on that.
Further reading on DePIN can be done here thanks to the great insight Connor Lovely and the Iotex team
Contact: team@ator.io
Name: Mo Jones
Website: https://ator.io
Twitter: https://twitter.com/atorprotocol
*SOURCE:* ATOR Protocol
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