In brief
- Nym’s token surged 12% after the UK began enforcing the Online Safety Act, triggering a 6,000% spike in VPN demand.
- The law forces age verification for online content, pushing users to seek privacy tools to bypass restrictions.
- Privacy advocates say the law enables mass surveillance under the guise of protecting children.
The Nym protocol token jumped 12% Tuesday after demand for a VPN in the UK spiked more than 6,000% in response to the Online Safety Act, which now requires age checks on adult and social media websites, according to a new report by VPNMentor.
NYM, the native token of the decentralized VPN and privacy platform of the same name, was trading at $0.05 on Tuesday, according to CoinGecko. The jump in value also follows the launch of NymVPN’s iOS app the day before.
“The reason there’s an increase is because the UK passed an ill-thought-out Online Safety Bill,” Harry Halpin, CEO and co-founder of NYM, told Decrypt.
The Online Safety Act mandates that adult websites, social platforms, and search engines implement age checks to block minors from accessing pornography and other “harmful” content.
Companies that fail to comply face penalties of £18 million (USD$24 million) or 10% of a company’s global annual revenue, whichever is higher.
“This push to force identity checks undermines the original promise of the internet: a free space for communication, anonymity, and open information sharing,” Halpin said. “People are understandably uncomfortable sharing their identity with governments, corporations, especially porn companies.”
To circumvent such restrictions, virtual private networks encrypt internet traffic and route it through remote servers to conceal users’ IP addresses and mask online activity.
As platforms began implementing restrictions, UK users are turning to VPNs to bypass them.
The UK spike mirrors recent trends in Europe, where VPN use has increased to evade online restrictions.
In June, Switzerland-based ProtonVPN saw usage in France surge 1,000% after the country blocked access to Pornhub. ProtonVPN reported a 1,400% increase in new signups, describing it as a “sustained” and more intense spike than during earlier restrictions.
According to VPNMentor, demand has now surpassed even the U.S., where similar age-verification laws in at least 15 states—including Florida, Oklahoma, Utah, and Texas—have triggered significant VPN spikes.
“We’ve been following VPN demand surges in the U.S., where the age verification law has been applied, noticing huge spikes, but nothing like this,” a VPNMentor spokesperson told Decrypt. “The highest they got was Florida with 1150% and Oklahoma with 1060%.”
This demand, VPNMentor said, is reflected in VPN services taking the top spots in Apple’s App Store in the UK, with ProtonVPN taking the number one spot, surpassing ChatGPT.
Despite this trend, Halpin warned that relying solely on a VPN isn’t enough to stay anonymous in an increasingly surveillance-driven world.
“True privacy takes more than a VPN—it means using browsers like Brave, ditching data-hungry software like Microsoft’s, and switching to encrypted messengers like Signal or Session,” he said. “It only takes an hour or two to set up, and if you’re using crypto, know that your transactions are traceable without privacy-focused tools.”
Halpin argued the law’s stated goal of protecting children masks a broader agenda of state surveillance.
“These technologies may be marketed as protective, but they’re tools of control. Politicians love to invoke “protecting children,” because no one wants to oppose that,” Halpin said. “But most lawmakers lack the technical understanding—or the imagination—to foresee the consequences.”
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