Bitcoin startup 21 is making its new '21 Lists' product available to the general public today.Soft launched in February, the paid email platform enabled users to send surveys, tasks and requests to curated lists of individuals and professionals, incentivizing those actions with small bitcoin payments.Original users included what 21 described as "famous people", largely VCs backing the firm, including Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.Starting today, however, anyone can apply to join to create a profile page and join 21 Lists based on their preferred area of expertise.In a blog post, the firm heralded the move as one that would open the door for users to engage in "microconsulting" – a way to earn additional income by offering their expertise to individuals outside their social network.The company went on to explain: "Depending on the selectivity of the 21.co list that you gain admission to, the expected income for a given list’s annual stream of microconsulting work should be on the order of $10 to $1,000+ per year."

Further, some lists will be subject to periodic reviews to ensure the quality of responses does not degrade, 21 added.For example, the firm said individuals in lists that target specific digital currency users will periodically ask users to sign transactions to verify that they still qualify to receive tasks in this area.The move is the latest that finds 21, one of bitcoin's best-funded startups, evolving its offering from a focus on bitcoin mining hardware to one centered on disrupting social media networks through micropayments.ProtonMail, the world’s largest encrypted email provider, announced that the service is leaving beta and will be allowing open registrations.ProtonMail is also launching its free iOS and Android mobile applications globally in the Apple App store and Google Play store.ProtonMail  features end-to-end encryption, which makes it practically impossible for governments, or even ProtonMail itself, to gain access to user messages, ensuring the highest level of security and privacy.

The service encrypts and decrypts all data on-the-fly on the client side, which means that emails between ProtonMail users are never stored as plaintext, and therefore the government can’t force their release.“Strong encryption and privacy are a social and economic necessity.Not only does this technology protect activists and dissidents, it is also key to securing the world’s digital infrastructure,” says ProtonMail co-founder Andy Yen.“This is why, all things considered, strong encryption is absolutely necessary for the greater good.” The development of ProtonMail started in 2014 at CERN ‒ just like the development of the Web itself ‒ in response to growing concerns about governments spying on peaceful citizens’ email.“I am very concerned about the privacy issue, and I was wondering what I could do about it,” Yen posted to a CERN Facebook group.ProtonMail raised its first $550,000 with crowdfunding, followed by a $2 million seed round from Charles River Ventures and Fongit.

Today, ProtonMail is one of the fastest-growing companies in Switzerland with three offices globally, and was ranked last year by Business Insider as the hottest startup in Switzerland.The decision to open up ProtonMail is motivated by an increasing trend toward more and more surveillance around the world and growing efforts to undermine online privacy.bitcoin fee booster“We understand that governments have concerns when it comes to terrorism and encryption, but undermining our collective security by weakening cryptography is the wrong approach,” notes the announcement.elouera bitcoin“The best way to ensure that encryption and privacy rights are not encroached upon is to get the tools into the hands of the public as soon as possible and widely distributing them,” added Yen.bitcoin february 2014

“This way, we put the choice in the hands of the consumer, and not government regulators.The past decade has been marked by a massive erosion of privacy and we’re working to reverse this trend.Encrypted communications is the future and ProtonMail is committed to making online privacy a reality again for all Internet users.” Anyone can open a ProtonMail account without releasing personal information.Interestingly, the sign-up procedure ‒ like ProtonMail itself ‒ works well over Tor.“Creating your free secure email account takes less than 2 minutes in most cases,” notes the ProtonMail signup page.The free service includes 500 megabytes of storage, and paid services have been launched recently.The cheapest premium plan, at $5 per month ($4 per month if paid annually), includes 5 gigabytes of storage and a custom domain.Current payment options are credit cards, PayPal and Bitcoin.The Bitcoin payment option complements the anonymity of the signup process and the possibility to sign up and use ProtonMail over Tor.

Taken together, these features mean that anonymous users can have premium ProtonMail accounts.ProtonMail is a Swiss company with servers located in secure data centers in Switzerland, and is protected by privacy-friendly Swiss laws.In 2015, Bitcoin company Xapo relocated its corporate headquarters to Zurich to take advantage of the same privacy-friendly laws.Xapo’s primary deep cold storage vault was already located in Switzerland.This is one of many parallels between ProtonMail and Bitcoin.ProtonMail wants to put privacy back into the Internet, which is increasingly controlled by governments and corporations as shown by the current dispute between Apple and the FBI over encrypted communications.Bitcoin, which in theory permits private payments on the Internet, is also increasingly controlled by governments and corporations in ways that can void privacy.However, there are initiatives such as Zcash that promise to put private payments back into the Internet."ProtonMail and Bitcoin actually have a long history together,” Yen told Bitcoin Magazine.