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Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

(www.wired.com)
544 points josh2600 | 10 comments | 06 Apr 21 16:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.397s | source | bottom
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Geee ◴[06 Apr 21 18:14 UTC] No.26715348[source]▶
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.
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PragmaticPulp ◴[06 Apr 21 21:12 UTC] No.26717443[source]▶
The founding organization owns 85% of the total market cap of a coin? That should be raising red flags for everyone involved.

There is no valid reason for the vast majority of what is supposedly a currency to be owned by the company that created it. Imagine if PayPal launched but required everyone to transact in fractional shares of PayPal to get anything done. Oh and by the way, those shares are majority owned by the founders, but they’ll sell you some so you can send them to your friends.

This is ridiculous.

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nullc ◴[07 Apr 21 00:32 UTC] No.26719110[source]▶
Of course, it's totally centralized. The 'cryptocurrency' marketing just exists as a regulatory dodge.

So far this scheme has worked out fine for the original creators of Ripple-- who've extracted hundreds of million selling their massive premine to an ignorant public, then abandoned the original and did it again. What we're seeing from signal now is just a third generation of the same scheme, preempting the ripple founders from doing it again (or maybe they're involved behind the scenes, who knows?).

So long as there seems to be no consequence except a massive windfall (SEC fines against ICO/premines have tended to be a fraction of 1% of the funds raised), it's unsurprising to see them continue.

The fact that it may kill one of the more useful secure messaging apps as a side effect? Welp. This is why we can't have nice things: Collectively, we're better at funding borderline scams than public goods.

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ChainOfFools ◴[07 Apr 21 01:52 UTC] No.26719702[source]▶
At least it's better than Bitcoin, since in this case it's well known who the whales are.

If one wishes to subject their wealth to the whims of a massively centralized cartel of "rationally self interested" HOLDers, maybe it's better to deal with the devil(s) one knows.

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1. SwimSwimHungry ◴[07 Apr 21 05:36 UTC] No.26720924[source]▶
Or better yet, don't use cryptocurrency at all. Then you can avoid all ethical dilemmas surrounding them.

Problem solved.

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2. flal_ ◴[07 Apr 21 07:43 UTC] No.26721548[source]▶
But then, you haven't solved the private electronic payment...
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3. IshKebab ◴[07 Apr 21 07:52 UTC] No.26721614[source]▶
Most people don't want private electronic payments. In stable countries like the UK - where this is being launched - it's basically only useful for buying drugs and tax evasion.
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4. flal_ ◴[07 Apr 21 08:22 UTC] No.26721816{3}[source]▶
One can argue than most people don't care about private messaging as well... I find it a bit scary that my bank has all my purchasing data : they basically know everything about me that way, what if they decide to sell this data ?
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5. fX0rObfoMN4 ◴[07 Apr 21 13:12 UTC] No.26724387{3}[source]▶
You say that like those are bad things.
6. romanovcode ◴[07 Apr 21 14:56 UTC] No.26725854{4}[source]▶
Use cash for every day payments - your bank will know nothing.
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7. monokh ◴[07 Apr 21 15:10 UTC] No.26726049{5}[source]▶
I can't remember the last time I could use paper cash. Beyond your daily groceries, everything is usually exclusively paid for digitally.

Surveillance on daily spends is not valuable. What's valuable is things connected to your identity, specifically associations with other individuals and companies.

8. stjohnswarts ◴[07 Apr 21 16:44 UTC] No.26727424{3}[source]▶
This is the way government wants you to think. They want to know literally every dollar (unit_of_monetary_exchange) that you use and don't care one iota about your privacy. They don't want you to value privacy at all.
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9. SwimSwimHungry ◴[08 Apr 21 05:07 UTC] No.26735270{4}[source]▶
Here's the reality of the situation.

The vast majority of people simply don't care about this. I mean I have a hard enough of a time to get people to care about privacy-centered messaging apps. Getting them to even begin to comprehend the myriad of cryptocurrencies and the confusing space of DeFi is simply not going to catch on. To them, there's really no benefit outside of "number go up" and so-called store of values, which conveniently have the nasty side effect of requiring users to do their own OpSec. That's actually harder than you think.

And that's not even accounting for how scam-ridden the entire space is to begin with. Who can they even begin to trust? Seems like an oxymoron for a trustless system, when the fact is they aren't even sure if they can trust themselves.

I find it mildly hilarious too, that places like BNY Mellon and JP Morgan are exploring cryptocurrency storage options. Now we are back to "trusting" those darn evil banks everyone gets triggered about.

See how weird this rabbit hole gets?

10. flal_ ◴[08 Apr 21 09:17 UTC] No.26736722{5}[source]▶
That's definitely not the direction taken by society... Pandemic, convenience, online businessew ( yeah, I know we could physically mail cash for online purchases but, come on... )