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Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

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

#221

Post by PragmaticPulp »

hiq wrote: post #164
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…

Hi, I still have to read the docs more thoroughly, but given that these HN threads die out quickly, I'd rather ask now that I have the chance, so forgive me if some of these are answered in the docs: 1. how does MobileCoin make money? 2. how many coins do you / does MobileCoin own? 3. related to that, are there mechanisms in place to prove that this is not a pump and dump? Or simply, how do I know it's not one and it…

> 1. how does MobileCoin make money?

MobileCoin pre-mined the coins and is selling them to users. According to other comments, they hold 85% of the coins.

The CEO is commenting in this thread with a link to buy the coins. They make money by selling these coins.

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

#222

Post by hiq »

brodo wrote: post #24
qrbLPHiKpiux wrote: post #8

Is your backend open source, or not? Haven’t seen the git updated in a while.

Effectively not anymore. Here is a very recent german article about it: https://www.golem.de/news/crypto-messenger-signal-server-nic... No updates in the repo for over a year and no answers from the team. The whole crypto currency thing is also a red flag for me. Matrix seems to be the better option by now...

Old news: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server

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

#225

Post by codethief »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #190

1. MobileCoin premines 250m coins 2. Moxie gets paid for being on their advisory board 3. Moxie directs his non-profit to integrate MobileCoin in secret 4. MobileCoin offers 1/5 of their premine for sale. 5. Signal announcement spikes price to $60 How accurate is this? via: https://twitter.com/lrvick/status/1379536536459431937

> 3. Moxie directs his non-profit to integrate MobileCoin in secret

The fact that Moxie is collaborating with MobileCoin has been known for years.

EDIT: See links in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26718488

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

#226

Post by Anon1096 »

mikeiz404 wrote: post #55

For those wondering about volatility... > MobileCoin also remains even more volatile than older cryptocurrencies, with constant price swings that will significantly change the balances in a user's Signal wallet over the course of days or even hours—hardly the sort of issue that Venmo users have to deal with. (Since March 27, MobileCoin's value has shot up nearly 600 percent, possibly due to rumors of the impending Si…

Are there any tax implications of sending someone cryptocurrency that has appreciated? Say you owned 1 million in mobilecoin a month ago that is now 6 million, can you just send it to someone and avoid the capital gains tax? And if not, do apps like Signal have to report these earnings on transfer from mobilecoin to USD? (since signal plans to facilitate it in some way)

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

#227

Post by MithrilTuxedo »

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.

Agreed. I was half expecting this was going to be using Monero, one of the more popular privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies I know of that's already being used.

E.g. the only cryptos I've seen people accepting on dark web markets are Bitcoin and Monero.

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

#228

Post by stonesweep »

hiq wrote: post #211
stonesweep wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If you run a libre device without the Google Play store (non-Google android build) then the software cannot function I think you mean either of two things: 1. running the APK they build on a device without Google Service does not work 2. running the APK they build on a device means it's no longer running only libre software 1. is not true, so I assume you mean 2. I guess that's true, but in practice I think that th…

I think it sort of floats in 2 territory and sort of resembles the LGPL based kernel modules which require a binary firmware blob to run (kind of, not exactly). In order to create the APK, the code must compile against the SDK and encumber it by binding to an API, however if I understand this correctly in Android terms it means a stub of non-free code is now inside your APK, instead of say an external firmware blob. (I am not an Android coder to know the subtle details here)

(I'm aware that the code will try and use Google services, then if it fails it falls back to websocket(?) - so the actual Services don't have to be present, but the compiled APK contains the non-free hooks to use it if present? I tried to use the word encumbered to reflect that)

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

#229

Post by doggosphere »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #201
anonporridge wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Stock represents actual ownership of a scarce resource (a company).

Is there a limit to how many shares a company can issue? No, a board can technically issue shares unto infinity. There is no guarantee of scarcity, no guarantee they will not raise more money.

That company would have value whether or not it was explicitly sold as a stock. The value doesn’t come from the stock.

So when a company has no profit but a high valuation, is this the market correctly discounting future predicted cashflows and giving a company fair value, or is it some sort of scam? Ex: Is NKLA actually a $5.2b electric vehicle company? How about the spade of Chinese IPOs that ended up being vaporware?

Cryptocurrency removes the underlying asset and simply sells shares of artificial scarcity.

The scarcity isn't artificial. It's mathematically provable, open source and auditable. If you think you can manufacture "fake" btc on the blockchain, feel free to try. If you think you can successfully fork and create a whole new chain, you're also welcome to try.

It’s only as valuable as what people decide to trade it at, because it doesn’t represent ownership of anything other than itself.

This is actually factual for anything in existence. A piece of bread. A $100m painting. You're starting to figure out what peculiar creatures humans are.

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

#230

Post by codethief »

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.

No, you're absolutely right. The repo had indeed been stuck on "April 2020". I last checked it two days ago.

Wayback Machine for March 11: http://web.archive.org/web/20210311053716/https://github.com...

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