I dove into their FAQ which explains it. I don't agree with their logic, but the core idea seems to be that in order to run their equivalent of a TOR relay you have to stake a certain amount of their crypto, and you periodically receive some of the crypto as a reward for running the node. The theory is that the more nodes there are, the less crypto is available on the market and the more expensive it will become to acquire enough crypto to create new nodes. It's all supposed to make it prohibitively expensive to control a significant amount of the network.

The fatal flaw in the reasoning is the assumption that anyone will actually care enough about their crypto to drive the price up. With no central authority setting a price for the crypto the price becomes whatever anyone is willing to buy or sell it for. Their fatal assumption is that scarcity automatically generates value. It does not. A thing needs some kind of value in addition to scarcity to become valuable.

From their blog:

As you probably know, Session is decentralised. There are currently over 2,000 servers around the world working together to deliver your messages. Each one of these servers is an Oxen Service Node, and together they make up the Oxen Service Node Network. These are specialised servers that stake OXEN cryptocurrency to register on the network; and nodes receive OXEN rewards for performing particular services like routing Session messages.

(They are now switching from OXEN/the Oxen network to their own to be able to better control the features of their hosting network)

My fraudy-sense is tingling… that said, I tossed $6 at some German company a few weeks ago and patted myself on the back.

Remember kids, you can donate to the Signal foundation… Moxie Marlinspike is an international treasure #changemymind 😉

I like briar, but I cannot use it on iOS. I did pay for Threema though.