OPENBAND
Any device. Any network. No ISP. No walls.
Any phone, router, or Starlink terminal becomes a mesh node. Peers relay automatically. Traffic exits through VLESS + Reality — invisible to deep packet inspection.
States cut the internet.
OpenBand is built to keep it on.
Governments have imposed hundreds of internet shutdowns since 2019, cutting hundreds of millions of people off from communication, news, and financial services. OpenBand is a decentralized mesh designed to route around every block. We are pre-beta — building the network openly.
View projected network mapThree steps to free internet.
One device connects
Any phone on mobile data, a Starlink terminal, or a 4G router — runs OpenBand and becomes a gateway node automatically.
The mesh discovers it
Nearby devices find the gateway via UDP multicast and elect the best one by signal, battery, and hops. Zero configuration.
Traffic routes invisibly
All traffic exits through VLESS + Reality — indistinguishable from HTTPS. State-level DPI sees nothing to block.
Built for the hardest conditions.
Stealth protocol
VLESS + Reality makes phone → exit traffic indistinguishable from an ordinary HTTPS session to a high-trust CDN. DPI cannot fingerprint it.
Any device is a node
Phones, 4G routers, OpenWRT devices, Starlink terminals. Mac, Android and iOS already ship; OpenWRT firmware is the next platform on the roadmap.
Self-healing mesh
Nodes elect a gateway in under 300 ms over local WiFi. When one drops, failover completes in seconds. No single point of failure.
Blind gateway
Phase 4 encrypts the phone ↔ gateway LAN hop with WireGuard and keeps the VLESS + Reality tunnel end-to-end to the exit. Gateway sees only opaque bytes.
Zero logs
No registration. No phone number. No email. No connection history. We cannot share what we do not store.
Earn USDC
Run a relay node and earn USDC on Base L2. Subscribers pay in USDC on Base too — free for users in regions under a state-level blackout.
Layered defense, published assumptions.
Every layer is meaningful even if the outer ones fail. Full detail at docs/SECURITY.md.
End-to-end Reality to the exit
ShippingPhone ↔ exit server uses VLESS + Reality, a TLS-in-TLS protocol that masquerades as an ordinary HTTPS session to a high-trust CDN. State-level DPI cannot distinguish OpenBand traffic from a legitimate HTTPS connection.
Blind gateway (H4c, in progress)
In progressPhone ↔ gateway LAN hop is encrypted with WireGuard (ChaCha20-Poly1305, Curve25519). The VLESS + Reality session runs end-to-end inside the WireGuard tunnel. A rogue gateway operator sees only opaque encrypted bytes — no destinations, no content, no TLS metadata.
Gateway-as-adversary threat model
DocumentedFull threat model published: five residual risks (timing correlation, selective denial, WiFi fingerprinting, active probing, long-term logging) each with documented mitigations. Assume the gateway is hostile; design the system so it still protects the user.
No accounts, no telemetry
ShippingNo phone number, no email, no registration. No connection logs on the client, no traffic logs on the exit. Mesh discovery rotates node IDs per session (planned); MAC addresses are randomized by the OS.
Multi-exit + bootstrap rotation
Next sprintNext sprint: 5–7 exit servers across 5+ providers in neutral jurisdictions, discovered via CDN-fronted bootstrap with DoH fallback. One IP burned loses ~1/N users, not everyone. Quarterly + block-triggered rotation.
Open specs, documented assumptions
ShippingProtocol specifications, architecture, mesh wire format, threat model, and residual-risk analysis are all public (CC-BY-4.0). The app source is proprietary — the security story rests on open specs + published assumptions + independent audit, not on source-availability.
Hardware node firmware.
Turn any supported device into a permanent mesh node. Flash the firmware, power it on. No configuration required.
macOS gateway app
Apple Silicon · IntelGateway + mesh node for testing. Runs sing-box with SOCKS5 relay today; WireGuard LAN hop in next release. The reference implementation for all other gateway platforms.
OpenWRT routers
GL.iNet · TP-Link · D-Link · NetgearFull mesh gateway package targeting kernel-WireGuard OpenWRT 19.07+. Scaffolding landed as a Linux Python daemon; OpenWRT packaging is next once GL.iNet hardware arrives.
Starlink terminal
Gen 2 · Gen 3 · MiniStarlink-connected router becomes a high-capacity mesh gateway. Operators running satellite-backed gateways get their monthly Starlink bill reimbursed from the donation pool.
Raspberry Pi
Pi 3B+ · Pi 4 · Pi 5 · Pi Zero 2WSingle-board computer node. Deploy as a fixed relay or portable gateway. Same daemon as the OpenWRT package once that ships.
Proprietary firmware · Open protocol specs · Built on OpenWRT 23.05
Self-funded today. Fair for everyone later.
Current state and future plan, honestly labeled. Full breakdown in whitepaper § 11.
Built by volunteers, for volunteers.
Right now OpenBand is funded entirely by the founding team, as volunteers. No donations taken yet, no subscription revenue, no investors. We pay the servers ourselves while the system matures to the point where we can responsibly accept support. The protocol specs and threat model are public; the implementation is proprietary while we harden it.
Free where it matters most.
OpenBand is and will stay free for users in any region under state-level internet restriction or an active blackout. No account, no payment, no KYC. Blackouts auto-detected via OONI, IODA, and Cloudflare Radar — subscribers elsewhere are automatically waived during a confirmed outage. This is a humanitarian commitment, not a marketing promise.
Optional subscription. Opt-in donations.
Post-launch, in free-internet countries (Canada, the EU, the US, etc.) OpenBand offers an optional subscription paid in USDC on Base — no corporate billing, no KYC, anonymous on-chain. Independently, we may also accept donations earmarked for serving users in censored territories. Subscription + donations fund operator rewards, exit-server hosting, and blackout-relief.
Share bandwidth. Get paid.
Anyone with a reliable uplink can run an OpenBand gateway — a laptop, an OpenWRT router, a Starlink terminal. Post-launch, operators earn USDC on Base per GB relayed, verified via Proof of Connectivity. Starlink- and satellite-backed operators additionally get their monthly satellite bill reimbursed, making satellite backhaul viable for volunteers.
No ads. No data sales. No "partnerships" with data brokers. Revenue exists solely to keep the network alive.
Mesh + relay
- ✓Android + iOS + macOS mesh discovery
- ✓Gateway election < 300 ms
- ✓SOCKS5 relay end-to-end
- ✓Zero-touch WiFi onboarding (H5)
Security hardening
- ·WireGuard LAN hop + nested Reality (H4c)
- ·Per-session node_id rotation
- ·MAC-randomization startup check
- ·Disable mDNS / AirDrop on VPN start
Multi-exit infrastructure
- ·5–7 exit servers across 5+ providers
- ·Cloudflare Worker bootstrap + DoH fallback
- ·Per-user VLESS UUIDs
- ·Automatic rotation on block
DePIN + subscriptions
- ·USDC on Base subscription bot
- ·Free during state-level blackouts
- ·OpenWRT router package (M1)
- ·Snowflake-style rendezvous broker
Free in censored regions. Privacy-first everywhere else.
No account required to install. No phone number, no email. Open protocol and published threat model; the app implementation is proprietary. Subscription is optional and only applies outside censored regions — details in How it's funded.
v1.0.0-beta · pre-launch · proprietary · open protocol specs (CC-BY-4.0)
Join the OpenBand mesh.
Free where it matters · DePIN · No logs · No single point of failure