Connecting Over Tor

Monero hides what is written into the blockchain, but your internet connection can still betray you. Every time your wallet talks to a node, your IP address is potentially exposed — and an IP can be tied to a real-world identity. Routing your wallet and node traffic over Tor closes this gap by hiding your IP. In this lesson you will learn why network-level privacy matters and how Tor fits into a complete Monero privacy setup.

The IP Address Problem

Monero's on-chain protections — stealth addresses, ring signatures, and RingCT — make the ledger private. But when your wallet connects to a node or broadcasts a transaction, the connection itself can reveal your IP address to that node or to network observers. An IP can point to your city, your internet provider, and with a subpoena, you. If someone links your IP to a transaction you broadcast, much of the on-chain privacy is undermined for that transaction. This is exactly the kind of metadata leak that good privacy practice aims to prevent.

What Tor Does

Tor (The Onion Router) is a free network that bounces your traffic through several volunteer-run relays, encrypting it in layers like an onion. The destination — a Monero node, for example — sees the connection coming from a Tor exit, not from your real IP. Used with Monero, Tor means:

The node you connect to never learns your real IP address.
Your internet provider sees that you use Tor, but not what you are doing on it.
Your wallet's queries and your transaction broadcasts are decoupled from your physical location.

Tor complements, rather than replaces, the on-chain protections and the Dandelion++ propagation that already obscures which node a transaction originated from. Together they form a layered defense.

Ways to Use Tor With Monero

There are several common setups, from simplest to most robust:

Wallet over Tor to a remote node. Many wallets (such as Feather and the official wallets) can route their connection through Tor. Your IP stays hidden from the remote node you use.
Connect to an onion node. Some nodes publish a .onion address, so your traffic stays inside the Tor network end to end.
Your own node, reached over Tor. Run your own node at home and connect to it over Tor when you are away, combining the best of both: your node, your IP hidden.

The official user guides include instructions for configuring Tor with the Monero daemon and wallet.

Practical Tips and Trade-Offs

Tor is slower. Bouncing through relays adds latency, so wallet sync and broadcasts take a bit longer. For privacy, that trade is usually worth it.
Keep software updated. Use current wallet versions with built-in Tor support, or a properly configured Tor service alongside your node.
Don't rely on Tor alone. It hides your IP but does not change your on-chain behavior; combine it with good habits from OpSec for Monero and Avoiding Metadata Leaks.
Match effort to need. How far you go should follow your threat model — casual users may be fine with wallet-over-Tor, while higher-risk users run their own node and route everything through Tor.

Tor and I2P

Tor is the most widely used option, but Monero also supports I2P (via projects in the ecosystem), another anonymizing network with a similar goal of hiding your network identity. The broader landscape of these tools is covered in Network Privacy with Tor and I2P. For most people starting out, enabling Tor in their wallet is the simplest meaningful step.

Putting It Together

Think of Monero privacy as a stack of layers, each closing a different gap:

On-chain — stealth addresses, ring signatures, and RingCT hide the transaction's contents.
Propagation — Dandelion++ hides which node broadcast it.
Network identity — Tor (or I2P) hides your IP from the node you use.

Skip the last layer and a determined observer can still tie activity to your IP, which is why Tor is the natural finishing touch on a private setup.

Routing your wallet over Tor is one of the highest-impact privacy upgrades you can make, hiding the one piece Monero's cryptography cannot: your IP address. Combined with a thoughtful node choice and solid on-chain privacy, it completes a genuinely private way to use Monero. From here, the privacy best practices course goes deeper into building a setup that matches your needs.