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Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

(www.wired.com)
544 points josh2600 | 1 comments | 06 Apr 21 16:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.203s | source
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ivoras ◴[06 Apr 21 17:55 UTC] No.26715142[source]▶
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 airdrop everyone a 100 pieces of whatever coin (or even just 1, assuming the coin can be subdivided into tiny bits)? I'm asking because I believe the value of this kind of coin usage will come from its daily users, not from exchanges, but that's a long game. Even if today it's worth 0, if the UX is good enough and it proves to be secure, people will start assigning value to it.

- Why pick a cryptocurrency almost noone has heard of? For example, related to the above question, why not buy or mine a million Doge and gift every account a 1 doge (presented as 1 thousand mili-doge)? People will start assigning (more) value to it sooner or later if it's easy to use. Feel free to substitute almost whatever instead of Doges (maybe something with PoS and give the users the warm fuzzies with apparent increase in value).

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1. qqii ◴[06 Apr 21 23:40 UTC] No.26718734[source]▶
INAL but an airdrop may run afowl of securities laws. As for the seccond point I think the choice is actually pretty apt - most other cryptocurrencies aren't private and those that are aren't especially user friendly (they cite block times).

Since Signal's sever is centralised, uses SGX and they have no intention of federation it makes sense that the cryptocurrency they chose has similar tradeoffs.