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MobileCoin: A New Cryptocurrency from Moxie Marlinspike

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181–190 of 258 posts

Re: MobileCoin: A New Cryptocurrency from Moxie Marlinspike

#181

I think this is going in the right direction. You take a bunch of tamper-proof hardware devices from different manufacturers and then model attack costs to compromise them as part of a proof-of-stake scheme. Now you can build consensus algorithms on top of them that are highly secure and scalable compared to anything that exists today. I'm not convinced that Stellar consensus here is the right algorithm for doing thi…

You know it was hard enough for PayTV smart card developers to keep transistor level reverse engineers from getting inside their chips, and all that was at stake then was $35 content subscriptions. I can't imagine how putting personal banking inside SGX will fare. Or, I acknowledge I am probably missing something. Am i?

Re: MobileCoin: A New Cryptocurrency from Moxie Marlinspike

#182
post #161
post #25

To repeat an earlier comment, this scheme encourages a centralization of trust into a private key managed by processor manufacturers. You might say that by integrating SGX mechanisms into your security model, you create a set of 'feudal lords' [1] who can wield their power over you. A manufacturer may 'legitimately' establish an enclave in your most trusted hardware which you may not audit or even measure. And if tha…

Moxie has made it pretty clear through the way Signal operates than Moxie's worldview is one where our feudal lords know better than mere serfs can ever hope to. I'm not at all surprised that yet again trust roots are taken out of the hands of end users.

What I don't understand is why such a person resorts to a nickname, but does use a picture. The US government knows the real name of people like ioerror and moxie marlinspike. It seems pointless to consistently hide the real name to the public.

Re: MobileCoin: A New Cryptocurrency from Moxie Marlinspike

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin is a technological wonder Oh, dear lord. > ultimately not as advanced as its younger brethren. These must then be simply out of this world. Superwonder technologies. Double digit transactions per second!! /$ The hype around this piece of software is getting out of hand.

Perhaps you do not understand it's revolutionary aspects.

Bitcoin and other crypto coins are a neat idea until their underlying cryptographic primitives are broken. Then they will immediately loose all of their value. Every cryptosystem of the past has been broken at some time.

Re: MobileCoin: A New Cryptocurrency from Moxie Marlinspike

#184
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cash is cheaper for merchants, but people have only continued to use credit cards more. Further, if crypto becomes attractive from a cost perspective Visa will just be forced to bring down fees and stay competitive. It's pretty near impossible to imagine crypto with costs less than Visa's database.

A wire transfer fee to China would cost me ~$45. Sending it in bitcoin would cost ~$17.

How much was the exchange difference?

Re: MobileCoin: A New Cryptocurrency from Moxie Marlinspike

#185
post #59

> "Nobody actually transacts in cryptocurrency," Goldbard says. "So making something that people can actually use is our first goal. And then we want to find additional ways that people can implement it over time. But initially all we want is to make it so people can actually complete transactions." Amen. Too few projects have this focus.

This is secondary to there being no benefit to the average user for transacting in crypto vs Visa. What incentive is there for an end user to use even a hypothetically optimal crypto system? Then is that incentive sufficient to overcome network effects? The appropriate and interesting applications of crypto seem to be totally leaving p2p cash behind - it just doesn't seem like a good fit.

For me, it is privacy. Cash is too cumbersome to deal with, that is probably the only reason i use credit cards.

Re: MobileCoin: A New Cryptocurrency from Moxie Marlinspike

#186
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pseudonymity/anonymity, for one. You can freely transact across borders, for another.

That's really only useful to a small number of users, relative to the overall size of the economy, and many of them are doing things that aren't legal. Not a market I'd probably target if I was going for mass adoption.

Anonymity is something people give up without knowing. If all cryptos opted for default privacy, things would have been different.

With bitcoin, merchant you make payments to can potentially find your wealth, or another can deny transaction to you bwcause you donated somewhere.

These are not doomsday scenarios, this happens today and will happen more if we do not choose privacy.

Re: MobileCoin: A New Cryptocurrency from Moxie Marlinspike

#187
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certain states now require you to report bitcoin gains... so actually it is.

All states require you to pay capital gains tax on Apple stock...it must be a currency then

There are a lot of ways of defining what a currency is or is not. Taxing gains on it is one way. Another way is having an official body say so, which has happened in several US court cases.

Re: MobileCoin: A New Cryptocurrency from Moxie Marlinspike

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you're trying to imply that Lightning Network is vaporware, but there are currently three implementations that pass the integration tests: https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning https://github.com/ACINQ/eclair https://cdecker.github.io/lightning-integration/

Not vaporware but vaporidea. They never solved incentive model to open channel so it is more like real software no one will touch.

What's the problem with the channel-opening incentives? I'm out of that loop, I'm afraid.

Re: MobileCoin: A New Cryptocurrency from Moxie Marlinspike

#189
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. So it has the same privacy protections as Monero, the only cryptocurrency with a track record of being untraceable so far? I wonder if the Stellar network is "leakier" than a decentralized network would be, though.

>>So it has the same privacy protections as Monero, the only cryptocurrency with a track record of being untraceable so far? I wouldn't call Monero "untraceable" even though I am a very big fan of XMR. It takes work to put a lot of steps between you and the payee at more levels than simply the transactional one.

How do you mean? Why would you need to, if the payment is untraceable? Are you talking about what happens after you purchase something?

Re: MobileCoin: A New Cryptocurrency from Moxie Marlinspike

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not vaporware but vaporidea. They never solved incentive model to open channel so it is more like real software no one will touch.

What's the problem with the channel-opening incentives? I'm out of that loop, I'm afraid.

Special for you https://medium.com/@homakov/why-lightning-and-raiden-network...
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