Ironically, Lokinet creates perverse incentives towards centralization:

Take a look at Lokinet. They’re trying to create a Tor alternative based on “crypto” and “Web3” stuff.

Lokinet claims that adding a financial incentive will scare sybils, without realizing that some sybils (e.g. China, Russia) are big and rich enough while spying on everyone, whereas ordinary users are locked out from running nodes if they aren’t Rich.

Lokinet is basically a giant Carrier Grade NAT that uses “Web3” and anyone can connect to, and you can host inside the NAT. It’s harder to use than Tor, less secure as you use normal browser and choose exits manually, and doesn’t protect you from Big Data AI-powered advertising.

This is the same centralization Tor is avoiding by steering away from the cryptocurrency-based set of nodes run by a for-profit that calls itself aTor…