Introduction: The Trust Problem
When you use a normal VPN, you are just moving trust from your ISP to the VPN company. You hope they don't keep logs of your IP address. Decentralized VPNs (dVPNs) solve this trust problem by ensuring there is no central company at all.
How It Works: Peer-to-Peer Proxies
In a dVPN (like Orchid or Sentinel), normal users around the world rent out their spare bandwidth in exchange for cryptocurrency. When you connect, your traffic is routed through the home internet connections of these random strangers. Because the network is powered by smart contracts, there is no central database to hack and no CEO to subpoena.
Conclusion
dVPNs exchange raw speed for mathematical guarantees of privacy. They are the ultimate evolution of the residential proxy network. Verify your anonymity level here.