Share this article

Tor Project Launches Membership Program to Boost Agility, Funds

After laying off a third of its staff in April, the project is looking for ways to increase the “diversity of funds" in its budget.

Updated May 9, 2023, 3:11 a.m. Published Aug 31, 2020, 9:32 p.m.
(Thomas Evans/Unsplash)
(Thomas Evans/Unsplash)

The Tor Project, the nonprofit group behind the privacy-focused Tor browser, launched the Tor Project Membership Program Monday in a bid to increase the diversity of funds in their budget. The nonprofit laid off a third of its staff in April amid the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters

  • Members can join at a variety of tiers. Founding members include Avast, DuckDuckGo, Insurgo, Inc., Mullvad VPN and Team Cymru, all companies focused on privacy or cybersecurity.
  • “For a while, we have been thinking about how to continue to increase the diversity of funds in the Tor Project’s budget and, more importantly, how to increase unrestricted funds,” said Tor Project Executive Director Isabela Bagueros. “This is a type of funding that allows us to be more agile with software development of Tor and other tools."
  • Members of the program gain access to the Tor Project’s “Onion Advisors” group, who can help integrate Tor into their products as well as answer questions about the Tor Project’s areas of expertise, such as privacy or circumventing censorship.
  • Whether it’s creating an .onion address for a member's site, setting up the Onion-Location feature for an .onion site (which lets users navigate domains more easily) or integrating applications into the Tor network, these Onion Advisors can help, according to Bagueros.
  • “We decided to create a program inspired by what Tor is based on, community,” said Bagueros. “Our goal is to build a supportive relationship between our nonprofit and private sector organizations that use our technology or want to support our mission.”

Read More: Start9 Labs Pitches a Private At-Home Server. And It Works

More For You

Protocol Research: GoPlus Security

GP Basic Image

What to know:

  • As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
  • GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
  • Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.

More For You

Jump Trading sued for $4 billion in connection to Do Kwon’s Terra Labs collapse: WSJ

Do Kwon (CoinDesk archives)

The administrator winding down what remains of Terraform is suing Jump Trading, accusing it of contributing to its demise while profiting illegally.

What to know:

  • The bankruptcy administrator of Terraform Labs is suing Jump Trading for allegedly profiting from and contributing to a $40 billion crash.
  • Todd Snyder, responsible for winding down Terraform Labs, seeks $4 billion in damages from Jump Trading and its executives.
  • Terraform Labs collapsed in 2022 after its stablecoin TerraUSD lost its dollar peg, leading to a market crash and the downfall of its sister token, Luna.