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Signal Adds Cryptocurrency Support

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Re: Signal Adds Cryptocurrency Support

#251

Post by koheripbal »

hjek wrote: post #211
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Monero or ZCash would have gotten the job done, but it wouldn’t have enriched the founders. Pre-mined altcoin scams have been around so long that everyone in the crypto world knows to avoid them. Building up a dedicated following of people using an encrypted messenger app was a genius way of submarining a pre-mined crypto scam into an unsuspecting userbase. I suspect a lot of us are going back to all of the p…

> Monero or ZCash would have gotten the job done, Those cryptocurrencies have a large energy consumption. I assume that part of the reason to go with MobileCoin is because it's less power hungry.

You only increase the energy consumption of a crypto if you put many transactions on it (via increasing demand on the coin, and hence the price), so it doesn't really matter whether you use an existing PoW coin or a new one.

Re: Signal Adds Cryptocurrency Support

#252

Post by koheripbal »

numbsafari wrote: post #207
kentiko wrote: post #28

After convincing all my friends to move from WhatsApp to Signal I am really annoyed about this move. This really damaged the trust I have for Signal. I hope they realize their mistake quickly and drop this idea.

They won't care until someone creates a competitive fork that differentiates on this point.

But is it worth it if users can simply not use the crypto feature?

Re: Signal Adds Cryptocurrency Support

#253

Post by koheripbal »

carmen_sandiego wrote: post #85
jayp1418 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it won't be problematic as if someone doesn't want to create wallet they dont have to. So this payment option will be for only those who wants to enable it.

It feels scammy and annoying though, making people less likely to accept it, exactly like Keybase and Stellar. First time I got a Stellar email from Keybase I thought it was a literal scam.

I understand that point - it's the "optics". ...but for users that ignore the crypto feature, I don't see the issue - there is no real negative impact for them.

Re: Signal Adds Cryptocurrency Support

#254

Post by koheripbal »

timbit42 wrote: post #195
45ure wrote: post #87

I am suffering from messaging app fatigue, using WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram and iMessage on Android and/or iOS. No sooner than witnessing a significant portion of my contact list migrating to Signal from WhatsApp, after the ToC/privacy debacle, now there is another spanner in the works. Telegram failed with the TON project, trying to mix oil with water, in their attempt at cryptofying their platform. Signal should fo…

Remember 20 years ago when everyone was fatigued from running ICQ, MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messesnger, and Yahoo! Messenger? At least we had Trillian which let us pretend they were all one app.

...and we need to get back to open standards.

Imagine having 5 different email providers, GMail, Hotmail, etc... that didn't talk to each other.

This current situations is dumb.

Re: Signal Adds Cryptocurrency Support

#255

Post by johnchristopher »

jMyles wrote: post #232
johnchristopher wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> jMyles on Aug 9, 2018 [–] > I have recently switched to Riot (built atop Marix, which the author endorses at the end) for some family communications and yeah, I think I do prefer it to Signal. So, there are indeed some matrix fanboys polluting the debate. Pfff. Shame on you.

Shame upon me? Why? Because I like matrix? I scarcely used it in the past year. And I haven't really used Element at all. ...what's wrong with considering doing so?

> Because I like matrix?

So you like it but...

> I scarcely used it in the past year. And I haven't really used Element at all. ...what's wrong with considering doing so?

...yet three years ago:

> jMyles on Aug 9, 2018 [–]

> I have recently switched to Riot (built atop Marix, which the author endorses at the end) for some family communications and yeah, I think I do prefer it to Signal.

You switched to it for some family communication (have some of that real usage cred) but today:

> I'm ready to jump over to Element (/matrix). Anybody else?

So either you didn't really use it three years ago and were dishonest or you did but then you are dishonest today.

Re: Signal Adds Cryptocurrency Support

#256

Post by dang »

johnchristopher wrote: post #163
jMyles wrote: post #8

I'm ready to jump over to Element (/matrix). Anybody else?

> jMyles on Aug 9, 2018 [–] > I have recently switched to Riot (built atop Marix, which the author endorses at the end) for some family communications and yeah, I think I do prefer it to Signal. So, there are indeed some matrix fanboys polluting the debate. Pfff. Shame on you.

Attacking another user like this will get you banned here. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules.

Hounding someone with quotes from a previous thread is particularly not ok. As the site guidelines say: Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Those sets are disjoint.

Please don't do the "shame on you" thing either—it's against both the letter and spirit of the guidelines. We're trying to avoid the online callout/shaming culture here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a...

Re: Signal Adds Cryptocurrency Support

#257

Post by johnchristopher »

dang wrote: post #256
johnchristopher wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> jMyles on Aug 9, 2018 [–] > I have recently switched to Riot (built atop Marix, which the author endorses at the end) for some family communications and yeah, I think I do prefer it to Signal. So, there are indeed some matrix fanboys polluting the debate. Pfff. Shame on you.

Attacking another user like this will get you banned here. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules. Hounding someone with quotes from a previous thread is particularly not ok. As the site guidelines say: Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Those sets are disjoint. Please don't do the "shame on you" thing either—it's against both the letter and spirit of the gu…

Fair enough, I'll act differently next time.

Re: Signal Adds Cryptocurrency Support

#258

Post by nadaviv »

xvector wrote: post #249
bdcs wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Monero or ZCash would have gotten the job done, These take minutes to send (very stressful!) preventing a nice venmo-like experience. They also pollute the planet

They take minutes to send and pollute the planet as a byproduct of their security and decentralization. Anyways, Monero does not contribute much to pollution at all. I guarantee you that you do far more things that pollute the planet in your daily life than a Monero transaction. MobileCoin is a farcical alternative to Monero, where a few “trusted” corporate nodes are run and 80% of the coin is premined.

100% of it is premined.

Re: Signal Adds Cryptocurrency Support

#259

Post by nadaviv »

qqii wrote: post #242
root_axis wrote: post #159

I'm a big cryptocurrency skeptic, but if they had used a more reputable coin instead of a pre-mined coin distributed in such a fashion as to enrich the founders, they could have avoided most of this backlash. People who aren't enthusiasts already understand that the raison d'etre of the cryptocurrency landscape is to get rich quick, but these guys got so greedy they've even pissed off the enthusiast community. Unfort…

I'm actually going to go out on a limb and defend their choice of MobileCoin. Signal has always been a decent privacy/convenience tradeoff and MobileCoin is no different. Features like phone numbers and contact uploading were always a user friendly tradeoff. They also seem to trust SGX. Monero's isn't slow by any means but isn't fast either. UI changes can alleviate the issue but being unable to spend your entire bal…

They could've created a federated SGX-based model on top of any of the existing cryptocurrencies. The only reason for them to invent a new one is making $$$.

Re: Signal Adds Cryptocurrency Support

#260

Post by dang »

johnchristopher wrote: post #257
dang wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attacking another user like this will get you banned here. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules. Hounding someone with quotes from a previous thread is particularly not ok. As the site guidelines say: Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Those sets are disjoint. Please don't do the "shame on you" thing either—it's against both the letter and spirit of the gu…

Fair enough, I'll act differently next time.

Appreciated!
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