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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

#291
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.

> There are 250 million units of mobilecoin, and majority of them are owned by the founders. Only 37.5 million have been distributed.

more of the same cryptocurrency themes:

1. decentralization for Thee and not for Me

2. regulated by math.... aaand the developers' / founders enormous, unaccountable and unilateral leverage over liquidity.

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

#292
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…

> How do you stop harassers sending unwanted money? idk, but this sounds like a great problem to have.

Accepting unwanted money from someone can have serious consequences in many cases. In some cases it is illegal - for example, accepting certain types of political donations.

In cases where you've been sent unwanted money your obligation is typically to return it, but that specific type of use-case is often not considered when people design things. If you end up in a situation where anyone can send you money and you can't return it, you're in big trouble because the sender might be causing you to unintentionally get involved in a violation of the law and leave you without any method to undo it.

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

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Monero is clearly the most practical secure coin as evidenced by it's popularity on the darknet. But I think what MobileCoin offers is speed.

As a tradeoff for decentralisation. Currently nodes are run by "trusted companies" and it doesn't look like you can run your own as an individual.

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

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> No. Your shares were _diluted_ by the company issuing new shares. Now your 100 shares are worth half as much. That's not correct. A company sells shares in exchange for cash. That cash is owned by the company, which is represented by the shares. Companies can't simply dilute away their shareholders like you're suggesting. The money raised by selling shares doesn't simply disappear.

> Companies can't simply dilute away their shareholders like you're suggesting. The money raised by selling shares doesn't simply disappear.

Yes, they can and yes they do, all the time. That's not only precisely how VC funding works in the early stages of a startup raising seed money and subsequently doing Series A, B, etc. that's also how public financing works via new share offerings on a public marketplace like NYSE or NASDAQ.

GameStop is about to do precisely this very thing: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/gamestop-finally-a...

The cash they receive has no forward value. $1 will be worth $1 in 10 years. When you buy shares, you are betting on future value. When a company trades new shares for cash, it is trading some portion of its future value for cash today.

Not only that, but the cash on hand can disappear rather quickly (after all, they are raising it to spend it) depending on the company's expenditures, cost of new customer acquisition and whether its growth strategy is working or not.

Also, shareholders are the last to be compensated in the event of a bankruptcy or liquidation. Bondholders take preference.

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

#295
post #68

Well, if any cryptocurrency is to gain really wide adoption, this is the way to go: integrate it into something a large number of people already use. And judging by what WeChat does, a chat client is an excellent choice - after all, money sending is a way of communicating something (an abstract form of "value" in this case). I only wish it were done differently - maybe we'll get answers to these questions: - Why not…

I feel like I can answer the second question, the reason why they are using the unknown coin is because thats how they make money, they get into a shitcoin (https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/mobilecoin/) that they already have mined a good amount, using Signal popularity, then pump it to the moon(like they say) and sell their positions.

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

#296
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…

Elsewhere[1] in the thread it's been claimed your organization owns 85% of the total market cap of this coin. Can you speak to this? Is it true or not? If not true, what is the correct percentage? How much is left?

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26715348

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

#297
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 had no pre-mine and has been fairly distributed from the start.

Except for that small initial 1 million that stayed with Adam

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

#298

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)

This is going to vary from country to country. Sometimes, only the conversion to fiat is taxed. I think that generally any transfer to another person is taxed too ?

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

#299
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…

>>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…

Who is in the foundation and what does the governance look like? Is there a plan to expand governance to the community?

I know the next question is signal specific but do you have any details on how they'll maintain privacy for pegging which is likely just to require an on/off ramp. Surely this is just no better if the majority of transactions have an associated log on an exchange?

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

#300

Mobilecoin was flat for long time at around $7 and then on March 28th started a dramatic rise to $66 today. There were rumors in late January that Signal was looking into Mobilecoin but that seems unrelated, and I'm not sure I buy a short-squeeze scenario as mentioned on Twitter. https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/mobilecoin/ https://twitter.com/classicmacro/status/1375868871509442562

Almost a 10X return in a couple of weeks.

Having inside information on this announcement was highly profitable.

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