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

241–250 of 665 posts

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

#241

Post by blackearl »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #234
doggosphere wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hi…

> 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. The scarce asset is the company , not the shares. Yes, they can issue more shares, but those shares still represent the same company plus the new investment money raised by raising the shares. They're not creating more compan…

It doesn't matter if it represents the company because the thing that shareholders care about is how much $ each share represents. This is why a stock will tank when a company talks about diluting their existing shares by creating new shares out of thin air. What you're talking about would be more akin to a stock split.

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

#243

Post by doggosphere »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #234
doggosphere wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hi…

> 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. The scarce asset is the company , not the shares. Yes, they can issue more shares, but those shares still represent the same company plus the new investment money raised by raising the shares. They're not creating more compan…

OP was responding about stocks being just as much "multi level marketing" because you still need someone to sell the shares to, someone willing to pay more for it than you did. So it is actually irrelevant to scarcity or "intrinsic value".

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

#244

Post by chrisco255 »

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…

> 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.

Depending on the voting rights embedded in the share, your ownership is likely meaningless. It doesn't guarantee you rights to dividends necessarily and even if it does, the company can just choose to never issue a dividend (like Amazon). It doesn't necessarily grant you voting rights for the Board of Directors either. Worse, you have to go through a 3rd party broker to buy a share or trust a company like Robinhood to hold your shares for you. As we saw with GameStop, they can rug pull on you at any time. With decentralized cryptos like BTC & ETH, that can't happen from your own private wallet. You can always transact.

Cryptos such as BTC & ETH are provably scarce, not artificially scarce. You can validate supply at any time by running your own node and joining the network. You don't need anyone's permission to do that. It's a public blockchain.

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

#245

Post by modeless »

lottin wrote: post #154
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.

Bitcoin rates worse than North Korea in terms of wealth distribution as measured by the Gini coefficient. [1] [1] https://blog.dshr.org/2018/10/gini-coefficients-of-cryptocur...

All calculations of this sort are fatally flawed because they assume all the coins in one address are owned by one person. That would be like calculating the US Gini coefficient assuming that all bank accounts are owned by the CEO of the bank.

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

#246

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

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…

Assuming an attacker fully compromises SGX for machines under his physical control (e.g. can execute arbitrary code inside an attested enclave), what can the attacker do/what security properties of MobileCoin break?

I know Moxie seems to put near-complete trust in SGX, but many security professionals don't.

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

#247

Post by chrisco255 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #234
doggosphere wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hi…

> 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. The scarce asset is the company , not the shares. Yes, they can issue more shares, but those shares still represent the same company plus the new investment money raised by raising the shares. They're not creating more compan…

> but those shares still represent the same company plus the new investment money raised by raising the shares.

No. Your shares were _diluted_ by the company issuing new shares. Now your 100 shares are worth half as much. Shares have predicted forward value embedded in their valuation. When you buy a share, you're betting that company will continue to grow. If it's having to raise money and issue new stock, odds are it's struggling with cash on hand. Maybe the bet will work out for you. Maybe not. Stocks are gambling, though, don't let yourself believe otherwise.

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

#248

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #233
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.

[deleted]

[deleted]

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

#249

Post by codethief »

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 Josh, thanks for taking the time!

My question, to both you and (especially) Moxie: Why do you trust Intel SGX so much (for Signal but now also MobileCoin)? Why are you not worried about vulnerabilities? As you're surely aware, even Matt Green who is/used to be(?) the biggest fan of Signal[0] is very concerned[1] about SGX. I don't question your intentions but the fact that Signal as an organization has stayed completely silent about this is… worrisome and at the very least taints its reputation of openness and trustworthiness. With MobileCoin now relying on it, too (more or less), this only seems to be getting worse.

[0]: http://web.archive.org/web/20200201112751/https://signal.org...

[1]: https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2020/07/10/a-few-th...

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

#250

Post by yoavm »

fastball wrote: post #39
yoavm wrote: post #10

I really wish Signal had stable voice and video calls before it added this blockchain thing.

My voice calls have been very stable. What kind of issues are you experiencing?

They basically only work if I'm on a great Wifi and the other side is too. As long as the connection isn't perfect, the only way to continue the conversation is on Whatsapp (or Zoom).
Post reply on HN