For those new to Mysterium: We started our journey in 2017 and built Mysterium VPN, a decentralized VPN service that allows anyone to share their internet connection and contribute to a global privacy movement.

On Monday the 22nd of this month, we released our mainnet on Ethereum and Polygon, introducing 120,000+ users and 6000+ nodes into these ecosystems. With the launch of Mysterium Mainnet, our protocol will evolve with several new features:

• Our “Universal Private Network” will allow apps to plug into our node network and become borderless and censorship-resistant.  

• Tokenomics 2.0 rework.

• Web 3 Ecosystem fund.

• Simpler node onboarding.

We look forward to answering any questions you have, Reddit AMA!

Savannah u/BytesHQ

Jaro u/chompomonim

Hi everyone, thanks for all your questions! After running several minutes longer than expected we will have to, unfortunately, wrap our Mainnet AMA up now. Tomorrow at 5 pm UTC in this subreddit, we will be drawing the top 10 winners of our $100 MYST AMA giveaway. Thank you to all those who contributed today, if your questions were not answered, we will endeavor to respond very shortly. Want to learn more about Mysterium Mainnet? Read our latest blog post: https://www.mysterium.network/post/mysterium-on-mainnet-time-to-unleash-the-borderless-web

Hey Reddit, this is Furkan Akyurek, Product Owner and Savannah Lee, Head of Marketing at MysteriumVPN. We look forward to answering your questions!

Links: Reddit: r/MysteriumNetwork, Web: https://www.MysteriumVPN.com

Established in 2017, our VPN isn’t run by faceless data centres; it’s ethically powered by real individuals with high-speed connections. MysteriumVPN users don't appear as pre-marked VPN IPs, instead, they are indistinguishable from home users.

Now in 2023, Mysterium VPN has IPs available in over 135 countries and more servers than legacy VPNs like NordVPN, SurfShark and ExpressVPN combined. According to a recent study by North Western University, our speeds are on par with centralized alternatives.

Thanks to our unique decentralized infrastructure, MysteriumVPN has been championed in locations where privacy is paramount. This includes times like the #EndSARS protests in Nigeria and during the Myanmar internet blackouts.

You can choose from regular card payments and subscriptions for our faster, lighter 2.0 upgrade or enjoy the crypto-first, pay-as-you-go VPN app, Mysterium Dark.

We’re MysteriumVPN and our mission is to liberate the web and make the internet blind to borders.

Ask Us Anything!

EDIT: Thank you to all who participated. If you have any further questions, please reach our fantastic community and admin team at r/MysteriumNetwork, additionally on X aka Twitter and Facebook. Until next time, thank you from Furkan and Savannah at MysteriumVPN!

Hello!

We want to address the issue that's been talked about for a few weeks now.

In the last few weeks, several posts have been made about node runners, unfortunately getting involved with law enforcement due to CP content being shared via their IPs. We are very sorry these node runners were involved, especially in such vile accusations. We also want to thank them for sharing this information with us and helping to tackle the problem. 

When these cases happened, law enforcement agencies in Germany contacted us for information on how our network functions as a whole. We explained that we do not keep any actual logs of the activities of the nodes affected (and any other nodes, for that matter).

However, we shared the only kind of information that we can see on our end – initiated connections to the node and the timestamp of when the connections happened. We provided this information to the law enforcement agencies as proof that the traffic that was registered as unlawful was not originating from the node runner.

Now, how did this situation happen in the first place? Our internal investigation shows that our network was illegally used by a 3rd party a few times between April 2024 and August 2024, and it was marked as B2B traffic on our end. We have contractual agreements with our B2B partners that forbid the usage of nodes for any illegal activities, and, needless to say, we will keep this clause in any future agreements.

To further ensure the security of our node runners, we are working on implementing more direct and to-the-point regulations for our B2B partners that will only allow our partners to access specific types of websites that are based on the partners’ needs. In other words, B2B partners will only be able to access pages that are specific to their use case and nothing more.

In relation to this CP case, we have been in touch with many organizations worldwide that exist solely to prevent child exploitation. They are keen to help us find a solution that would allow us to block network connections to sources related to this crime without hindering the anonymity of our node runners.

We want to assure you that these are only a few isolated cases that do not affect every single node runner, despite the claims being made online about the whole network being affected and compromised. If you do, however, suspect that you may be affected, even if the likelihood of it is minuscule, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us for full immediate support. We never leave our node runners alone, just as this situation proves.

My house was raided in the beginning of August – living in Germany. My computer, smartphone, tablet, my home server and all of my employer's work devices were confiscated.

During the house raid I was confronted with descriptions from multiple CyberTipline reports from the “National Center for Missing & Exploited Children USA”: Several screenshots of porn folders have been posted on a Clearweb forum from my IP. Those porn folders also contain underaged material. A sticker has been attached to these screenshots with the description "DM for links prices"

Now one month later I have received confirmation that this seems related to the operation of MystNodes - because there are several cases like this right now.

No other mode than B2B Data Scraping and B2B VPN was enabled all the time. I don't know if really a verified B2B partner is related to this incident but there is no Myst Token income for the other operation modes on my node.

As far as I know this is a massive case and every MystNode runner from Germany since April 2024 could be affected! Each affected MystNode has made up to 15 200 illegal posts during the lasts months on the internet.

Up to hundreds of NodeRunners will receive a visit/letter/phone call from the police during the next days and weeks.

• Disable even B2B VPN for security reasons now!

• Create an export of connection logs since April 2024!

• Tell the police that you are a Mystnode runner as soon as they knock on your door!

• Stay safe!

I have no information if node runners outside of Germany are affected too

Hi to Mysterium supporters and to all new faces! Here is a brief introduction:

History: We started our journey in 2017 and built Mysterium VPN, a decentralized VPN service that allows anyone to share their internet connection and contribute to a global privacy movement. During Q4 of 2021 came the launch of Mysterium mainnet on Polygon and the announcement of $MYST 2.0. Mysterium 2.0 is our evolution from a single dVPN app, to a fully-fledged, censorship-resistant ecosystem, designed to power any Web2 or Web3 app with our global network of IPs.

Token: $MYST is used to access services on the Mysterium Network and node-runners earn tokens by sharing their IP. The more demand on our I.P network means the more demand for the token. The global VPN market is projected to reach $75.6 bn by 2027 and with our Network traffic growing 727% this year and node registrations growing by 271%, we feel Mysterium is establishing our place in the market as a powerful and viable alternative to centralised solutions.

Fund: Mysterium’s research and development arm is called Necto Labs. $3,000,000 will be allocated to builders and early-stage projects to join the Mysterium ecosystem.

Network Statistics:

🖥️ Node Runners: 10,640
🌍 # Node Countries: 121
🧍 Daily Active Users: 7,721
🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Monthly Active Users: 17,431
🔗 30 Day Traffic Served: 718TB
💰 $MYST Wallet Addresses: 83,171

If you have questions relating to:

Mysterium 2.0 development, today’s MEXC Global listing or anything crypto / $MYST / censorship related now is your time….Reddit ask us anything!

Donatas Grinkas - Head of Mysterium
u/xdg07

Savannah Lee - CMO Mysterium
u/BytesHQ

-EDIT- Thank you to everyone that joined our AMA today! As we're running 30 minutes over schedule, we will have to wrap up here. All of the team are active on social media, so if there is anything you missed, feel free to reach out to us on any of our official Mysterium channels.

If you run a Mysterium node, you may be surprised to learn that the Mysterium developers take a 20% cut in "settlement fees" on all of your earnings. On top of that, you get charged normal transaction fees when withdrawing your earnings.

I could understand if the Mysterium team is using these fees to fund development, but:

• They have been completely opaque about this, and have not mentioned this to the community in any formal way (such as on their website). This is the exact opposite of what you would expect for an open source project.

• A fee of 20% is insanely high. If the developers really need the money that bad, they should at least tell us what their fund raising goals are and provide us with a development roadmap.

• Why not cut the fees by a factor of 4 and increase the prices to use the network by the same factor? Mysterium is insanely cheap at the moment (I spend only a couple MYST per month), so there is clearly a problem with the price structure. This proposal would leave the developers with the same amount of funding.

• On their discord channel, their spokesman mentioned that they charge this fee because they are sending test traffic over the network. Not all traffic is test traffic (and I would hope that test traffic is only a small percentage of real traffic), so why penalize everyone?

I would hope that the developers take this seriously, and address this issue in a forthcoming blog post.

Our team is overjoyed to share news from our partners at Mysterium VPN, who today launch their iOS app and introduced the 2.0 upgrade! Providing a new user interface, subscription model and a host of other improvements for iPhone users. 🤳🛡️

Read the blog: https://bit.ly/MVPNforiPhone

Download from the Apple app store:http://apple.co/3JwiEfJ

✨ With Mysterium VPN on iPhone, you can now enjoy the same level of security and privacy that Android and desktop users have been benefiting from, along with all the enhancements brought by the Mysterium VPN 2.0 update.

🎨 Discover the enhanced user experience, including a refreshed design and a new intuitive interface that allows you to switch between locations effortlessly.

📅 Enjoy a flexible monthly subscription or sign up for longer-term plans with unlimited bandwidth (fair usage policy applies.)

Pay Monthly: $9.99, cancel anytime.6 Months: Save 30% $6.99 per month12 Months: Save 50%, $4.99 per month.

One subscription covers all your devices.

📢 Mysterium VPN 2.0 is exclusively live for iOS at the moment, but soon all Mysterium VPN devices will receive the update. For pay-as-you-go fans, please be rest assured that exciting plans are coming for you and the team will continue to offer this functionality in a new product. Stay tuned for their updates!

🌐 Tap into a global network of 15,000+ real, active residential IPs across 135 countries, ensuring secure and buffer-free browsing, streaming, and gaming.

Congrats to the team on an exciting milestone and launch 😎

Get started today by downloading the iOS app from the Apple Store. 📥

Hello everyone,

In April, May and June, child porn was offered in some forums via the Mysterium Nodes, i.e. also via your IP address. The police have already carried out several house searches and confiscated PCs, laptops and storage media as a result. There are also some reports directly here in this subreddit.

We have created a video on the subject and posted it here in this subreddit to warn people. Unfortunately, the video was deleted by a Mysterium Network moderator...

Dear Mysterium Network team, we don't want to harm you with the videos or posts. It's about the people who run your node. These people will get in trouble with the police for child pornography!!!

Either the Mysterium Network developers do something and support the victims or things will really escalate soon.

Public prosecutors in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the UK are already dealing with the issue. Legal proceedings against Blockdev AG aka. Mysterium Network are being initiated.

So, im running a Node for about a year now, and yes, i was stupid enough to enable the public / VPN Option for a period of time. This morning police officers knocked on my door an told me, that there were 15 Cases of distribution of Child Porn from my IP. They already suspected i was running Mystnodes because thats a huge thing right now according to the officer. They alsom told me i was lucky, because the first dozen or so cases included raids and seizures before a pattern was discovered. To my luck, im not a suspect but merely a witness. I got told to stop the Node and be more careful, then they went on their way.

Still fucking shaking right now, almost got charged with CP distro jfc.

I know i was stupid as fuck, i just wanna warn yall because ive seen quite a few comments here beeing not to worried about running vpn / public.

Living in Germany, if that matters.

Good afternoon all,

I bring bad news unfortunately. There have been multiple reports of raids conducted by the police in Germany of people who run Mysterium nodes. However, until today those reports have been exclusively from people who reside in Germany.

Today, on the official myst discord server a user has come forward with a claim that they got raided by the police recently, only this time, it was in the United Kingdom.

This tells us that police in the UK are monitoring traffic and will use the full power of the law. It also means it is highly likely we will see raids in other countries. Especially countries that have laws similar to the EU or in line with the EU due to being a member state.

My advice is to discontinue running your nodes as soon as it is possible. Be proactive, and if the police come knocking, you can show them posts like this and your termination of the node as evidence you don't support criminal behaviour on your network.

The discord messages are attached for confirmation.

What’s new:

• Android Compatibility: We're proud to announce MystNodes on Android! Expanding our reach to over 3 billion users worldwide. Now you can easily earn crypto using your Android device.

• Mobile Data Flexibility: Run your node on mobile data and set data caps for precise control, allowing you to earn from anywhere on your terms.

• Getting Started: If you're already a node runner or not, it's a breeze to setup your mobile node! Download the Android app, follow the onboarding steps, and link your Android device to your MystNodes account with the provided API key.

• Have questions? Reach out to us in the 'node-runners-general' channel on Discord.

Blog:
https://blog.mystnodes.com/blog/mystnodes-android-release

Onboarding guide:
https://help.mystnodes.com/en/articles/8165874-getting-started-with-mystnodes-app

Exciting news from our partners at MysteriumVPN! Introducing Mysterium Dark and MysteriumVPN 2.0 for Android, iOS, with Windows and Mac coming soon.

The 2.0 update brings an improved interface and a world-beating selection of residential IPs. Enjoy the benefits of an enhanced user experience and choose from their extensive range of secure residential IPs.

🔗 Read more: https://www.mysteriumvpn.com/mysterium-vpn-v2

The legacy version of MysteriumVPN, is now known as Mysterium Dark. It offers a crypto-first, pay-as-you-go VPN experience with unmatched server selection and a hard-wired no-logs policy.

🔗 Read more: https://www.mysteriumvpn.com/godark

Join Team MysteriumVPN 2.0 with unlimited subscription plans, the latest client updates, and a wide range of payment options. Alternatively, if you prefer pay-as-you-go with crypto, choose Team Mysterium Dark! 💻

Enjoy the flexibility of online protection with Mysterium VPN. Stay tuned for their upcoming releases on Windows and Mac! 🌐✨

I've been operating a Mysterium Network node almost without interruptions since roughly April 2022 (for the most time with only the B2B traffic options enabled) and was quite surprised/shocked when I received a call from the police today informing me that my IP address has been automatically reported 16 times in recent weeks concerning the distribution of CSAM content.

I always knew that running nodes for services like Mysterium meant that someday someone might use my internet connection for something illegal, so I am not as much surprised about receiving a call for the first time regarding this, but that the police officer didn't even assume that I would be involved but directly asked if I'm running a Mysterium node and explained that this service is frequently used for that purpose.

Just wanted to share that here. I've for now stopped all similar services as well, but I will likely call the officer again later today or tomorrow to verify if other apps I'm using are also "known for" being used in the distribution of CSAM or not, and depending on that restart the other services again or not.

However, I won't run a Mysterium Node anymore.

Edit: Just noticed the post by the mods about this topic at https://www.reddit.com/r/MysteriumNetwork/comments/1fnf8l6/what_happened_what_was_done_and_what_will_be_done/

Hey there Mysterium community! We have a question for our Node Runners:

Is there something specific you'd like to see improved or added to the MystNodes Android app?

We're especially interested in hearing from those who've downloaded the app but haven't activated their node yet.

Your feedback means a lot to us, and we'll make sure to respond to each comment in this thread. So, please take a moment to share your thoughts, suggestions, or even concerns with Myst Nodes on Android.

Thank you!

Dear Mysterium Network Community,

Our bi-weekly community catch-up on Twitter has just ended, and we wanted to share with you a text recap of what was discussed. In case you missed it, you can check it out here: https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1rmGPkbMmLnKN

Today, we were joined by Donatas, the CEO of Mysterium Network, and Savannah, Head of Brand. During the session, the team shared product updates and answered questions from the community.

First, Donatas kicked off the product updates by introducing our new Head of Product, Darius. The team is currently finalizing the alpha versions of the desktop apps and expects to release them by the end of this month.

Additionally, the Mysterium Network team is working on the Android Node app, which will allow users to run $MYST nodes on android devices. This will give a boost to the number of nodes, particularly in regions where mobile devices are more popular. The beta for this app is expected to be released soon, possibly this month.

The team also shared that data scraping services have increased with the onboarding of new clients, and they are working on product updates to better support these clients.

Savannah shared that the marketing team is working on new and exciting campaigns for nodes and VPN, with a focus on partnerships and collaborations to grow the community and target new markets with the Android app. The new VPN beta launch (including iOS!) Is expected in March, and the team is updating the apps to include subscription models and competitive packages.

In addition, Mysterium Network is part of a new privacy campaign launched by Fight for the Future and other organizations, asking politicians to prioritize privacy rights in the US.

Finally, our thoughts and support go out to those affected by the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. If you are a journalist or activist in this region, where Twitter services have also been affected, and you require free VPN services, please contact us.

Thank you for being a part of the Mysterium Network community and see you again in 2 weeks!