Overview
NABU VPN is a tool that hides which websites you visit from your internet provider, and uses a Cardano wallet as your account instead of an email address and password. You connect a wallet, pay for usage time in ADA, and download a small profile file that encrypts your internet traffic and replaces your real device address with the server's. There is no signup form to fill out, no email to verify, and no card on file to cancel.
NABU VPN is built by Blink Labs, a Cardano infrastructure team that maintains open-source tools for the network. The website, the automated rulebooks (smart contracts) that handle payments, the on-chain reader, the server image, and the cloud setup are all published across five public GitHub repositories1.
Key Features
- Your wallet is your account. Sign in by connecting a Cardano wallet and signing a short message. There is no email, username, or password, so the only thing the service ever sees about you is the wallet you choose to use1.
- Pay only for what you use. Top up VPN time in ADA straight from your wallet rather than committing to a monthly subscription. You can stop at any moment, because there is no card on file to cancel and no recurring charge to chase down2.
- Built to keep no logs. The VPN servers run with logging turned off. The part of the service that watches the blockchain for payments does not record device addresses, and the front-of-house servers and storage are set up to keep no access logs either3.
- All the code is published. The website, the payment rulebooks, the on-chain reader, the server image, and the cloud setup are visible across five public repositories under the Blink Labs GitHub organization, so the no-log claim can be checked against the actual code instead of taken on trust1.
- Standard profile you control. After payment, you sign a quick wallet message to prove ownership, then download an OpenVPN profile file. OpenVPN is a widely used VPN format, and you import the file into any OpenVPN-compatible app on your device3.
What to Expect
If you are a casual user, NABU VPN starts on a homepage that asks you to connect a Cardano wallet, the same kind of wallet you would use to hold ADA or visit a browser wallet page elsewhere on Cardano. You choose how much VPN time you want, sign a transaction to pay in ADA, and the site generates a profile file for you to download.
If you are a curious browser, NABU VPN does not offer its own iPhone or desktop app. Instead, you import the profile file into an OpenVPN-compatible app on your device. The install guide walks through OpenVPN Connect on Android from Google Play, and other platforms can use any OpenVPN-compatible app to load the same file.
The privacy policy spells this out alongside the no-log posture for traffic data2. Once the connection is up, NABU VPN behaves like any other VPN. Your traffic is encrypted between your device and the server, and your real device address is hidden from the websites you visit.
