I’m not someone who blindly hypes up Bitcoin or other currencies but why do you say that? They seem useful in a broad set of applications

This from the Lokinet website

While Tor and Lokinet are both onion routers, they are very different at both the protocol and infrastructure levels.

Tor relies on a network of volunteer-operated relays and a set of central directory authorities, and this infrastructure introduces a number of weaknesses and limitations. Because Tor’s circuit moderation is bandwidth-weighted, you are much more likely to use high-bandwidth nodes than low-bandwidth ones, meaning that a large percentage of Tor’s 7000+ nodes are underutilised due to having insufficient bandwidth. Additionally, Tor relies on a limited set of directory authorities. When these directory authorities are compromised or suffer from technical issues, the stability of the entire Tor network suffers because the network is unable to agree on what the node set is or the roles of nodes in the network (whether they were guard nodes, exit nodes, relays, etc.).

Instead of relying on volunteers, Lokinet leverages the Oxen Service Node Network. Because Oxen’s service node operators are required to provide high-quality nodes — and are actively incentivised to do so — Lokinet’s relay network is consistent and reliable. Lokinet also inherits the market-based Sybil attack resistance of the Oxen blockchain, increasing Lokinet’s security against such attacks.

Instead of Tor’s system of central directory authorities, Lokinet stores the state of the service node network on the blockchain. Every service node has access to this list, and comes to a consensus on it, making Lokinet significantly more decentralised than Tor.

Lokinet is also more versatile than Tor — Tor operates on the transport layer and is only able to carry TCP traffic, while Lokinet operates on the network layer, meaning it can onion-route any IP-based protocol: TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc. This means Lokinet can be used for much more than just web browsing — it can also handle things like media streaming and video conferencing.