Meet the Ecosystem: Meile dVPN & MathNodes
The first installment of our Meet the Ecosystem series takes a deep dive into Meile dVPN and the development house responsible for it.
• The history of Meile's development embodies Sentinel's DIY ethic, collaborative spirit, and dedication to open source philosophy.
• It has become a cult classic among lovers of privacy and peer-to-peer software due to its transparent development, desktop support, and private payment solutions.
• Meile contains advanced features and settings which allow users to tune it to their needs. It also supports over two hundred crypto and fiat payment methods.
• MathNodes is a development, infrastructure, and PoS validation team which makes many contributions to the Sentinel Ecosystem.
• This article has exclusive info on future development plans, including new features and platforms and an interview with lead developer freQnik.
Continue to the full article below to find out more.
Introduction
Meile dVPN is the longest-tenured Sentinel dVPN client in active development. It has developed a cult fanbase due to its broad range of desktop versions, resolute support for privacy-friendly payment methods and cryptocurrency; and the inclusivity and transparency of its development process.
Meile delivers private, trustless dVPN service through the Sentinel blockchain and its globally distributed network of exit nodes. The software is developed and maintained by MathNodes, a blockchain development company and professional validator headed by founder freQnik and augmented by a talented cast of contributors drawn from the Sentinel community.
The Story of Meile
The word "meile" (pronounced may-luh) is originally from Estonian, and can best be translated to English as "to us" or "for us."
Meile was first launched by MathNodes during the icy 2022 bear market as a barebones command line client. A graphical interface was soon added, and by August of that year the first stable release (v1.0.0) of the software arrived.
"In January of 2022, after using sentinel-cli for a couple months I decided to spend my time building a better client. That's where Meile was born—originally a TUI for Linux users. After making the application run smoothly [...] I was approached by Sentinel to develop applications for the network. The rest is history."
- freQnik
The first supported platforms were Linux distributions, but the software expanded to MacOS just a month after v1.0.0 launched. By early 2023, Meile had become the first standalone Sentinel-powered dVPN client to launch on Windows.
Within the space of just twelve months, MathNodes' upstart effort at building a dVPN client had matured from an experiment into a full-featured piece of GUI software with versions available on every major desktop operating system. In 2024, the milestone v2.0 update rolled out and provided users with a totally revamped experience, including an overhauled UI, subscription plans, faster load times, node scores, and more.
Gallery: Meile's Evolution
Clockwise from top left: The first Meile GUI alpha (May 2022), Meile v0.9.3 (Nov. 2022), v1.4.1 (Jan. 2023), v1.8.0 (Jan. 2024), and v2.0.0 (June 2024).
Current Versions
Download at MathNodes.com
Today, Meile is available on Windows, MacOS (including variants for both ARM and Intel processors), and Linux distributions Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora. A version of Meile is also available for Arch Linux, albeit with less frequent updates.
The download portal can also be quickly accessed and shared with others using the handy and succinct meile.app address.
Functions & Design
Much like the blockchain on which it operates, Meile is completely open source. Its code can be viewed, audited, or forked at the MathNodes GitHub repository. Aside from Meile's source code, the GitHub is also home to many other repos, including Sentinel's Python development kit (SDK), a set of Sentinel "helper scripts," and other tools.
Though open source, Meile's architecture and user interface are completely proprietary, having been constructed from the ground-up over the past three years without the use of a pre-existing Sentinel dVPN development kit. The vast majority of its code is written in Python.
One of Meile's trademarks is its black, grey, and yellow interface, which will appeal to the sensibilities of anybody into hacker aesthetics. The message is clear: This is a cyberpunk tool for staying safe online in an increasingly cyberpunk present.
The nodes list in the lefthand pane displays thousands of dVPN nodes from Sentinel's distributed network, covering nearly every country and territory on the planet, from (A)lbania to (Z)ambia. The node directory is also fully searchable, and clicking on a node will provide you with a treasure trove of information about its protocol, pricing, speed, and other technical particulars:
✅ Once you find a node which matches your geographic specifications and connectivity needs, all you have to do is click the "Subscribe" button, enter your subscription preferences, and get connected.
Advanced Features
☁️ CloudWarp DNS
CloudWarp DNS is an extra VPN layer which is built on top of the 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver. WARP secures all internet traffic from your device, not just DNS queries, by routing it through Cloudflare's global network.
To activate and deactivate the feature, open the top right menu on the node map and click WARP.
More details: cloudflare.com/warp-client/
🔐 DNSCrypt / Resolver
DNSCrypt is a network protocol which encrypts Domain Name System (DNS) traffic and provides extra protection against man-in-the-middle attacks.
To activate and deactivate the feature, open the top right menu on the node map and click DNSCrypt.
DNSCrypt's backend settings can be configured under Resolver in the general settings menu.
Official website: dnscrypt.org
More details: dvpn.cc/resolvers
⚙️ RPC & gRPC Configuration
Change your Remote Call Procedure (RPC) endpoint when needed in order to maximize performance, stability, and censorship resistance (some RPCs are blocked in certain regions).
gRPC is a Google-created (but open source) counterpart of RPC.
More details: geeksforgeeks.org/what-is-rpc
List of Sentinel RPCs: sentnodes.com/public-rpc
⛓️ API Configuration
The API (Application Programming Interface) serves as the bridge between Meile and the Sentinel blockchain. It allows the software to query nodes, initiate connections, retrieve pricing data, handle payments, and more.
Changing your API setting can help resolve issues with connectivity in regions with internet censorship regimes.
🗃️ Cache Server Selection
Cache server infrastructure, a brand-new addition in the latest update, helps Meile improve the software's performance and reduce latency by temporarily storing data which is frequently retrieved from the Sentinel blockchain.
Meile's Future
In addition to continued improvements to Meile's current crop of desktop builds and expansion of its payment methods, MathNodes has provided dVPN News with some exclusive insight into future plans for the client, which its developers aspire to turn into a multi-facted, comprehensive privacy suite one day:
- New Platforms: MathNodes wants to bring Meile to smartphones and Android TVs; and is actively seeking developers who can assist them to that end.
- Multi-Hop: Lead developer freQnik is in the process of creating a proprietary multi-hop system for the client.
"All-in-all, privacy is the mission for Meile; whether that is achieved through dVPNs, decentralized cloud storage, or decentralized AI. All of it is possible in the future."
- freQnik
For more details on the developments, see our interview with freQnik later in the article.
Payments & Subscriptions
Though other Sentinel-powered dVPN clients have generally moved towards abstracting blockchain features and creating the closest user experience possible to traditional (centralized) VPNs, MathNodes makes no such pretenses and has developed a frontend for Meile which completely embraces cryptocurrency in all of its forms and glory.
You can connect any self-custody DVPN wallet to Meile and pay for service directly without any middleman. All you have to do is import your wallet's mnemonic phrase into the application when prompted.
Users looking to pay for service with fiat are still in luck, however—the application has a secure gateway for their payments too (details below). This flexibility has established Meile as the most versatile and accommodating platform for transactions in the entire Sentinel Ecosystem.
Fiat Gateway
Meile has a Stripe-powered fiat gateway which allows users to top up their balances within the app using U.S. dollars, Euros, or other fiat currencies. The service will then process those funds top up the crypto balance in your connected wallet.
To access it, open your Meile wallet, go to the top right menu, and click "Re-Fuel."
The gateway can be used to purchase DVPN, Secret Network coins (SCRT), or Decentr tokens (DEC). No user data is stored or saved by MathNodes from these transactions, though a small surcharge is added.
Subscription Plans
MathNodes offers two curated on-chain subscription plans within Meile (pictured above). Both the payment method and duration of the plans is configurable. Your subscription can be as short as one month, and as long as twelve.
The dVPN nodes included are hand-selected by the MathNodes team based on criteria including speed and stability, and subscribing to the plans will unlock unlimited access to them.
The premium plan offers ultimate versatility, with more than twice the number of nodes as the basic plan—which itself offers several dozen nodes spanning every continent—and residential nodes, which are perfect for circumventing airdrop geo-restrictions.
Crypto Payments
Note that these are just some of the available options, as the integration of BTCPay last summer rocketed the total over the two hundred mark.
⚛️ Cosmos Assets
- Sentinel Coins (DVPN)
- Cosmos Hub Atoms (ATOM)
- Osmosis (OSMO)
- Secret Network (SCRT)
- Injective (INJ)
- Decentr (DEC)
🔒 Privacy Coins
- Monero (XMR)
- PirateChain (ARRR)
- Zcash (ZEC)
- Firo (FIRO)
- PIVX
- BEAM
- Secret Network (SCRT)
💰 Other Digital Assets
- Bitcoin (BTC) incl. Lightning Network
- Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Litecoin (LTC)
- Solana (SOL)
- Cardano (ADA)
- Dash (DASH)
- Dogecoin (DOGE)
Marketing
Towards the end of 2024, MathNodes began to roll out mass marketing for Meile dVPN, collaborating with a professional advertising firm and forging partnerships with other Web3 projects.
Through these efforts (which are still in their initial phase) Meile has become the first third-party Sentinel product to independently market itself to the wider world.
Among non-DVPN assets, MathNodes have been the most active and outspoken in their support for Monero (XMR), the world's most popular privacy coin by market cap.
Meile became the first blockchain-based app in the entire Cosmos Ecosystem to accept the asset in summer 2024.
"In order to make Meile grow into the full-fledged privacy suite I envision, good marketing, support, and continuous updates are needed—and we are on that path."
- freQnik
Business Directories
As part of its outreach efforts, MathNodes have gotten Meile dVPN listed on several online directories of businesses which accept digital assets for payment (especially privacy coins). Toggle the box below to view them.
📖 Directories (A-Z)
- Cryptwerk - All digital assets.
- Firo Merchants - FIRO.
- Monerica - Monero/XMR.
- WeAcceptBitcoin - Bitcoin/BTC.
- XMR Bazaar - Monero/XMR.
The Meile Community
MathNodes maintains two X accounts—@MeileDVPN for announcements and promotions of the Meile software, and @MathNodes for developer and validator updates.
The MathNodes YouTube channel features educational and promotional content about Meile, decentralized VPN, and Sentinel.
Telegram & Discord
The MathNodes Telegram group is the second-most active third-party dVPN client community (behind only Independent dVPN) and by far the most discussion and development-oriented.
Similarly to their Telegram group, MathNodes also hosts a Discord server where Meile users can chat, seek support, and stay plugged into the software's development.
Community Events
MathNodes recently hosted a DVPN airdrop (divided into two phases) for their subscription plan customers and social media boosters over the holiday season. Qualified wallets have already received their allocations—so if you've purchased a Meile subscription plan or engaged with the airdrop announcement post in December, check your wallet!
The developers have also hosted other promotions and events for the Meile community in the past, including analytics challenges and XMR/ARRR bounties for code contributions.
Who are MathNodes?
A look at the dedicated developers behind Meile.
MathNodes LLC is primarily active in three professional fields: Development, proof-of-stake validation services, and blockchain infrastructure.
While they are quite active in spreading word about their products and fostering their user community, the company is rather averse to self-promotion and aggrandizement. Their website has no traditional "About Us" section. In fact, more space is dedicated on the site to biographies of famous mathematicians and scientists that they've paid tribute to in the monikers of their dVPN Nodes (such as Fibonacci and Erwin Schrödinger) than to the MathNodes team itself.
This is no oversight. MathNodes' dedication to privacy and respect for anonymity is authentic, as evidenced by both their long track record and self-presentation.
"From the deviant of mathematics, Georg Cantor, to the the most prolific of mathematicians, Paul Erdős, and to the most profound research question in number theory today by Robert Langlands; mathematicians all over the world have contributed significant amounts of time and energy in the pursuit of truth, usually sacrificing their happiness as a result."
This impromptu maths and sciences hall of fame is one of the most interesting corners of company's website.
freQnik: Profile & Interview
That ethos was spearheaded by freQnik, the company's founder and lead developer, a down-to-earth developer with deep roots in the blockchain privacy space. He is simultaneously affable and protective of his personal details (aside from an affinity for mathematics, family, coding, and cats).
To understand that this is no contradiction is to understand another core tenet of MathNodes' philosophy: Fighting for a world where being mindful of digital privacy is perceived as the default; not as the domain of outcasts and cranks. freQnik is an active and sociable member of many online communities and projects, and has appeared on several podcasts and X Spaces to plug MathNodes projects and discuss his views.
freQnik graciously provided some thoughtful answers to our questions about his background, and elaborated some of MathNodes' objectives for us—including many details which have never before been broadly circulated within the Sentinel community.
Q: What originally brought you to the Sentinel community?
Since 2020 I became really passionate about privacy in crypto, and started following the Monero community under a couple of different assumed names.
I had very little money at the time and was developing applications for Monero users; and in 2021 I also ran the very first Monero-to-Bitcoin Atomic Swap provider. It allowed me generate some profits from the XMR I stacked.
Through the Monero community a prolific member, CryptoTweetie, made a post about Sentinel in 2021. I always loved the idea of VPNs, as my risk model doesn't need to operate behind TOR for most things.
The post was in mid-November of 2021. I researched Sentinel and saw they'd started node incentives. I figured since I was already running a few servers, I could share the bandwidth and earn some extra income. That's where MathNodes was born (since I named all my nodes after a mathematician in the country of the server).
In January of 2022, after using sentinel-cli for a couple months I decided to spend my time building a better client. That's where Meile was born—originally a terminal user interface for Linux users.
After making the application run smoothly and having some [community] members use it, I was approached by Sentinel to develop applications for the network. The rest is history.
Q: Can you explain Meile dVPN's mission?
This is a tough one to answer, because as the network and technology progress so will Meile. But at the heart of it, the mission is quite simple: to provide uncensored access to the best decentralized virtual privacy network.
I would absolutely love to get Meile on all platforms. We already have all the desktop operating systems covered; and next in line is mobile and Android TV devices. This will require additional developers, which seem to be a challenge to onboard mostly due to lack of time and funding.
I want Meile to be a self-sustained application where there little to no requests for funding from the Sentinel Foundation. The last time MathNodes received funding from Sentinel was September 2023 (besides the subsidy for our subscription plans).
The Foundation has always made it clear to me that I can ask for funding. I try never to do this. If I could ever find an open source developer to help on the Meile project I would immediately ask for funding from the foundation for the developer's time.
The DAO has been very generous in providing resources to partners of MathNodes. In order to make Meile grow into the full-fledged privacy suite I envision, good marketing, support, and continuous updates are needed—and we are on that path.
I have plans to integrate a two-hop feature in Meile, where the first hop will be a series of nodes hosted by MathNodes (since I feel we are a trusted enterprise). The second hop will be a node chosen by the user on the Sentinel Network. This way the decentralized node is oblivious to the origin of the the traffic, [thus] solving an issue some have with trusting random strangers. The code for this multi-hop has begun, though I havent made it public on the GitHub yet.
All-in-all, privacy is the mission for Meile; whether that is achieved through dVPNs, decentralized cloud storage, or decentralized AI. All of it is possible in the future.
Team & Contributors (A-Z)
Over the past three years, MathNodes has become more than a vehicle for its founder. Meile dVPN and the company's other diverse endeavors has attracted a skilled staff of contributors:
AtmosferMuda
Bitveil
Bitveil is a trio (Nast0r, Mullet, & DarioB) of Italian coders and blockchain strategists who also validate Sentinel. They primarly serve as marketing partners for Meile, but Nast0r (who also created the Sentinel Python SDK) also makes development contributions.
"Working with Meile dVPN has been a seamless and inspiring collaboration. As a fellow [Sentinel] validator... MathNodes shares our commitment to privacy and decentralization. Meile's privacy-focused, open source approach resonates deeply with Bitveil’s core principles, making this partnership a natural fit." Mullet told us on behalf of the team when asked of the partnership.
Mullet also disclosed to dVPN News that they're currently working on an entirely new project intended for the broader Sentinel community.
Website | GitHub | X/Twitter | Validator
darkcube
darkcube is a systems and infrastructure specialist with several decades of experience. He manages MathNodes' global array of dVPN Nodes, and the Hong Kong-based RPC which helps users in mainland China access the Sentinel blockchain's services.
Ricardo
Ricardo is a sysadmin who administrates and categorizes backend infrastructure for Meile, including their dVPN Nodes. He is also the curator of the Metabase analytics platform.
Tkd-Alex
Alessandro Maggio (better known as Tkd-Alex) is an Italian full stack developer and Sentinel validator who serves as a community contributor to Meile dVPN. He was responsible for the creation of Sentinel's Javascript development kit (SDK) and the dVPN Node Spawner utility.
Website | GitHub | X/Twitter | Validator
"MathNodes shares our commitment to privacy and decentralization. Meile's privacy-focused, open source approach resonates deeply with Bitveil’s core principles, making this partnership a natural fit."
- Mullet (Bitveil)
Sentinel Contributions
MathNodes often makes contributions to the core development and backend infrastructure of the Sentinel blockchain; and provides resources and support to a variety of third-party development efforts around the ecosystem.
"[MathNodes] has made a lot of contributions [to Sentinel infrastructure] like the BTCPay server and XMRPay servers, as well as analytics related contributions," said Sentinel Foundation member ProjectAutonomy as he praised both the company and freQnik last autumn.
Here are just a few of the company's contributions to the ecosystem:
Metabase
MathNodes maintains a free-to-use proprietary database of Sentinel statistics and metrics called Metabase.
Though open to anyone willing to create an account, it is mostly intended for developers, backend contributors, watchdogs, and other community members seeking advanced data. Metabase is by far the most meticulous, versatile, and customizable solution for monitoring usage of the Sentinel blockchain.
dVPN in Decentr
Authors
All of our Decentr coverage can be found here.
Decentr, a Web3 internet browser with its own Cosmos SDK blockchain, has featured embedded dVPN functionality since 2022. In fact, it was the first application to ever provide Sentinel's dVPN service to Windows users. MathNodes is responsible for maintaining their dVPN infrastructure, and even curates a custom on-chain subscription plan for Decentr users.
Validator
The MathNodes Validator is a long-established presence on the Sentinel blockchain—at present the ninth most-powerful active set member by voting power. It offers its 160+ delegators a low commission rate of 5.14% as well as impeccable governance participation and uptime.
Other Infrastructure
- MathNodes is reponsible for creating and maintaining Sentinel's BTCPay and XMRPay servers. They are self-hosted, open source cryptocurrency payment processors which have bridged hundreds of new payment methods into the Sentinel Ecosystem.
- The Sentinel Foundation plans to put the Monero payment infrastructure to use in their upcoming XMR dVPN mobile application.
- MathNodes also contributes to the Sentinel Ecosystem by hosting a variety of dVPN Nodes around the world—as mentioned earlier, they are all named after renowned historical contributors to mathematics and the sciences.
- With sponsorship from the Sentinel Growth DAO, MathNodes operates an RPC Node in Hong Kong with a direct link to mainland China. The RPC allows Chinese users of Sentinel's dVPN applications to puncture through the great firewall and gain access to a free internet.
- For more information, see the article about the node on the MathNodes website.
Activities Outside of Sentinel
Aside from their aforementioned contributions to Decentr, MathNodes maintains nodes and infrastructure of various types for Bitcoin Core, Monero, Dash, Sia, Litecoin, Pirate Chain, Handshake (HNS), and LBRY.
Within the Cosmos Ecosystem, they also operate validators for BitSong and Sentinel Scout partners Jackal Protocol.
BEAM
Their main focus outside of the Sentinel Ecosystem is BEAM, a layer one proof-of-work privacy blockchain which uses the Mimblewimble and LelantusMW protocols to enable confidential, scalable transactions.
"My personal opinion of BEAM is that it is a couple years ahead of most projects with regards to decentralization and privacy; and I want to dip my toes in their network," said freQnik of the project last spring. "...[but] my primary focus will always be Sentinel. I love this place more than any other."
Further Reading
Authors
All of our articles about Meile dVPN and MathNodes can be found here.
Sentinel Docs maintains a live directory of all fully launched (non-beta) dVPN applications and software running on the Sentinel blockchain.
At dVPN News, every member of the Sentinel community is a contributor. Whether you're writing articles, sharing tutorials, or participating in discussions, your involvement is what drives our collective growth, and best of all it's rewarded! Together, so if you to contribute to the growth of the Sentinel Network, you are in the right place!
Connect With Us
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