Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 665 posts

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

#201

Post by PragmaticPulp »

anonporridge wrote: post #178
CynicusRex wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No “pre-mine” doesn't mean fairly distributed. Bitcoin is a multi-level marketing pyramid scheme as well. Early adopters mine or buy large proportions at negligible prices while late adopters mine or buy negligible proportions at large prices.

By this definition, every company stock is a multi-level marketing pyramid scheme. In fact, company stock is WAY worse, because the majority of people are legally prohibited from investing in private companies unless they're an accredited investor (already rich). So, only rich people (other than founders and early employees) are allowed to buy in at super low prices before handing off the bag to the public.

This is incorrect. Stock represents actual ownership of a scarce resource (a company). That company would have value whether or not it was explicitly sold as a stock. The value doesn’t come from the stock.

Cryptocurrency removes the underlying asset and simply sells shares of artificial scarcity. It’s only as valuable as what people decide to trade it at, because it doesn’t represent ownership of anything other than itself.

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

#202

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

stonesweep wrote: post #189
hiq wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> distributed only in an unsigned insecure form or in a signed/verified manner only if you give up your privacy to install with Google Play or the Apple store. > Those that only run open source software like myself have no secure way to run Signal short of compiling every release by hand which is impractical. Nope: https://signal.org/android/apk/

You may be missing the subtle point - the APK provided is the same one from Google Play, which includes the Google SDK encumbered libraries (links? hooks? features?). If you run a libre device without the Google Play store (non-Google android build) then the software cannot function. The code for the client is open source, but the act of compiling it against the required Play store libraries encumbers the final binar…

You are being a bit too subtle for many people. I think most reading your post above are going to understand it as claiming that the Signal APK downloadable from Signal's website requires Google Play Services or the Play store in order to run. That is not the case, as any LineageOS user can tell you.

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

#203

Post by josh2600 »

otoburb wrote: post #198
josh2600 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of the MobileCoins are available for purchase for non-us persons at https://www.buymobilecoin.com right now.

The slashdot effect triggered Cloudflare’s DDoS protection and is returning errors for that page.

No, this is just what happens when you try to hit the page from a US IP address.

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

#204

Post by rapnie »

meowfly wrote: post #195

The comment from the article echos my own sentiments: > Speaking solely as a person who is really into encrypted messaging, it terrifies me that they're going to take this really clean story of an encrypted messenger and mix it up with the nightmare of laws and regulations and vulnerability that is cryptocurrency. Moreover, there are three other points I'd add: 1. I don't like "do everything" apps like WeChat or Line…

Amen to all your points. I find this really disappointing. The "yeah, but they are a non-profit so you can be assured they are good custodians of the product" no longer goes for me.

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

#205

Post by codethief »

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…

> Anyway Signal is itself pernicious by being tied to a phone number and to Google Play services

It's not tied to Google Play Services, you can download a standalone version from signal.org. As for phone numbers, the developers have been working on getting rid of them for a while now – there's already a good amount of code on GitHub.

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

#206

Post by otoburb »

qertoip wrote: post #194
orph wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even UK-only release in Signal means more people with cryptocurrency wallets than all other cryptocurrencies combined.

MobileCoin is not a cryptocurrency.

The Wired article that the CEO of Mobilecoin is implicitly endorsing in this thread specifically categorizes Mobilecoin as a cryptocurrency. At least, it doesn’t seem to be a distinction worth splitting hairs about (yet).

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

#207

Post by Forbo »

olah_1 wrote: post #140
hiq wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last commit 5 days ago: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server

This is either the mandela effect (I know for a fact that the server was stuck on "April 2020" for at least 6 months), or Signal intentionally hid development and then revealed it all when they realized it was bad PR.

I saw that not too long ago myself. Purely speculation here, but perhaps they opted not to publish any commits until they had a chance to have their MobileCoin implementation audited? Just wish they had been more forthcoming about why they were not pushing commits.

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

#208

Post by josh2600 »

hmsimha wrote: post #191
josh2600 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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? A: MobileCoin is as fast (or faster in some cases) than a bank payment in the UK with greater privacy. As far as settling back to Fiat, if that's what you're asking about, the velocity of that depends on on-ramp and off-ramp integrations which will come over time (but it look…

Heads up, it would be useful on HN if you were to disclose your affiliations / interests when posting, especially about something like a cryptocurrency you helped design. It gives readers a better sense of your ability to answer the questions accurately, in addition to letting people make assessments based on the potential conflict of interest. Also, responding here and inviting discussion on a technical level is pos…

Yes, this originally was a child comment to the thread where I identified myself as the MobileCoin CEO. Dang merged two threads and this got separated from the top-level comment.

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

#209

Post by CynicusRex »

anonporridge wrote: post #178
CynicusRex wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No “pre-mine” doesn't mean fairly distributed. Bitcoin is a multi-level marketing pyramid scheme as well. Early adopters mine or buy large proportions at negligible prices while late adopters mine or buy negligible proportions at large prices.

By this definition, every company stock is a multi-level marketing pyramid scheme. In fact, company stock is WAY worse, because the majority of people are legally prohibited from investing in private companies unless they're an accredited investor (already rich). So, only rich people (other than founders and early employees) are allowed to buy in at super low prices before handing off the bag to the public.

The stock market being crooked doesn't mean bitcoin isn't crooked as well. I'm critical of both.

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

#210

Post by josh2600 »

mbesto wrote: post #188
josh2600 wrote: post #2

Hi! I'm the CEO of MobileCoin. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask here. We've been working on this project for four years and it has been a labor of love. There's a lot of new technology here. We exist in a highly regulated space so it's possible some questions will require reaching out to lawyers to make sure we answer them in a way that's compliant so please don't feel offended if a response takes…

Why does a decentralized communication system need a defi based payment system that has the requirement of a CEO to run it?

I don't run anything related to the protocol. The protocol governed by the MobileCoin Foundation, an independent board of directors. The foundation makes recommendations about how the network might behave, but ultimately it's up to the node operators to decide what code they run.
Post reply on HN