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Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

wired.com

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Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#121

Post by dan-robertson »

edent wrote: post #9

The UK already has faster payments in all major banks. I can send and receive money instantly from app or Web. Will yours be as fast as that? The UK has a problem with authorised push payment fraud. Banks can recover funds which have been sent as a result of phishing / fraud. How can I reverse a payment on your platform if it was fraudulent? The UK also has receiver verification. If I try to send to an account and it…

This was my question too. I don’t really understand why the U.K. was chosen as the initial market. At least in the U.S. people are used to venmo and suchlike being services they might use. My guess is that either the cryptocurrency people are based in the U.K. or that whoever is in charge is viewing the country as something like America but easier to get started (anglophone but smaller market for testing or easier regulations or less competition) however I don’t think the U.K. is a good substitute for America in this case.

The one venmo-like thing people do use a lot in the U.K. is probably something like revolut for dealing with different currencies and international transfers (either for travel in Europe or for migrant workers sending earnings abroad for family or retirement). But a service that’s only available in the U.K. isn’t much use for that.

I also personally don’t really see the privacy use. I think I’m willing to give up a reasonably large amount of private information about the people on either side of a transaction if it is effective at reducing fraud and making transactions reversible.

Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#122

Post by miloignis »

ncmncm wrote: post #80
RL_Quine wrote: post #12

This is garbage, and shouldn't be part of Signal. Everything on the internet is being corrupted with adding cryptocurrency scams where they absolutely don't belong, it turns Signal from an obvious recommendation into something that makes me hesitate. There's something to be said for focusing on doing one thing well, and that doesn't mean turning a communication platform into a kitchen sink.

Agree. It would be OK to make Signal able to integrate payment systems and make this thing compatible with that or with any other comm that implements the interface. Tying them together is pernicious. Anyway Signal is itself pernicious by being tied to a phone number and to Google Play services, and by being very choosy about who gets ports. I had high hopes for Matrix, once they got E2EE, but they have flubbed that…

Just as a quick note, I run Synapse (the heavyweight server, not Dendrite the light-weight one!) for myself and a few friends on a modest 1GB of RAM VPS with a few bridges and have no problems. Looking forward to Dendrite getting feature-parity and swapping over to be even lighter.

Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#123

Post by tradertef »

Geee wrote: post #83

There are 250 million units of mobilecoin, and majority of them are owned by the founders. Only 37.5 million have been distributed. With current price ($65), they're worth $14B already. This makes the project a scam and impossible for it to work as a reliable money that holds value. Bitcoin had no pre-mine and has been fairly distributed from the start.

Thanks. Honestly, not surprising..

Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#124

Post by tradertef »

fourstar wrote: post #49
lvs wrote: post #21

Why this particular coin that nobody uses? This seems weird. Is this a monetisation scheme we should be worried about?

IMO Signal/Moxie "advises" this project, so to me this seems like their way of cashing out (I'm assuming they hold the majority of coins), given that Signal itself is a not-for-profit organization. At least that's what I'd do if I were Moxie.

They hold majority..

Geee 1 hour ago | unvote [–]

There are 250 million units of mobilecoin, and majority of them are owned by the founders. Only 37.5 million have been distributed. With current price ($65), they're worth $14B already. This makes the project a scam and impossible for it to work as a reliable money that holds value. Bitcoin had no pre-mine and has been fairly distributed from the start.

Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#127

Post by hiq »

RL_Quine wrote: post #102
bdcs wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Marlinspike notes, however, that neither he nor Signal own any MobileCoins." https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-payments-messa...

> "Moxie, as an individual, is a paid technical advisor to MobileCoin" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26715013 This seems incompatible with the spirit of the quote in the article.

That's significant in this space, because it implies that he does not benefit directly[0] from speculation on MOB, and so has less incentives to get involved in a pump and dump.

What I would still like to see for more transparency:

- legal commitment from the Signal Foundation that no employee owns any MOB

- disclosure of money transfers between MobileCoin and any Signal Foundation employee

Maybe some of this information could already be extracted given the statuses of the entities involved?

[0]: he benefits indirectly because if MobileCoin stays up, he'll probably stay as a technical advisor

Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#129

Post by hiq »

RL_Quine wrote: post #62
kf wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re being really cynical in a way that doesn’t reflect the reality of the situation. This doesn’t entail scam marketing, ICO offers, and airdrops just because that’s something that happens in a lot of the rest of cryptocurrency space.

You missed the point. Even if Signal doesn't do the typical cryptocurrency scam behaviour, I now somehow need to try to explain to people why it is different to every other thing in the space that does act like that. On the face of it, if we assume that the inclusion of MobileCoin in Signal is completely benign, it's something that's never happened before. Smoking causes cancer, but smoking these specific cigarettes…

> You missed the point.

You're making a different point now though, you're saying that people will associate it with scams which will hurt adoption. You initially wrote that the UX would be so bad that you'd have to convince users to bear with it anyway.

I don't know how they implemented it on the client side, but it's possible they kept it light, as they've been doing since the beginning. We'll see soon enough.

In terms of reputation, this is a long-term battle. Signal used to be quite unreliable in a lot of aspects, and hurt adoption. Now it's much better, making the migration from other messengers way smoother. If they're able to implement safe, private and convenient payments, that's one feature other messengers won't have to lure users away from signal.

Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#130

Post by hiq »

devwastaken wrote: post #29
RL_Quine wrote: post #12

This is garbage, and shouldn't be part of Signal. Everything on the internet is being corrupted with adding cryptocurrency scams where they absolutely don't belong, it turns Signal from an obvious recommendation into something that makes me hesitate. There's something to be said for focusing on doing one thing well, and that doesn't mean turning a communication platform into a kitchen sink.

If they didn't use some random 'coin' no one has heard of I'd be on board. They're trying to compete in a bad way. They should simply just use Stripe and be done with it. People want an alternative to facebook messaging and PayPal. They don't want superfluous cryptos.

I think the end-goal is to provide privacy guarantees you will never have with Stripe or other traditional payment processors.
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