Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

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 a while to come back.

The best set of docs for how the whole thing fits together is our book "The Mechanics of MobileCoin"[0].

We'll be around here and on our forums [1] to answer questions. Please also check out our foundation website[2]. The github[3] is also a lot of fun, especially the section on Fog[4].

[0]https://github.com/UkoeHB/Mechanics-of-MobileCoin/blob/maste...

[1]https://community.mobilecoin.foundation

[2]https://mobilecoin.foundation

[3]https://github.com/mobilecoinfoundation/mobilecoin

[4]https://github.com/mobilecoinfoundation/fog

Hi, I still have to read the docs more thoroughly, but given that these HN threads die out quickly, I'd rather ask now that I have the chance, so forgive me if some of these are answered in the docs:

1. how does MobileCoin make money?

2. how many coins do you / does MobileCoin own?

3. related to that, are there mechanisms in place to prove that this is not a pump and dump? Or simply, how do I know it's not one and it's here for the long-term?

4. what's the threat model of the blockchain you're using? E.g. for Bitcoin, the chain is compromised once 51% of the hashing rate belongs to collaborative evil miners (as a rough approximation). What about MobileCoin? When would something bad happen? How is it prevented?

5. how does MobileCoin compare with privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies such as Monero?

P.S.: you might wanna add a F.A.Q. section somewhere for the questions I've mentioned and the others in this HN thread, right now we either have to blindly trust the claims on https://www.mobilecoin.com/ or going through the 133 pages of https://github.com/UkoeHB/Mechanics-of-MobileCoin, there should be some intermediate tech documentation (or does it exist already?)

1) MobileCoin will build a payments ecosystem around the protocol.

2) I have to check with the lawyers on whether we can disclose exact amounts, but our intention is to own a small minority of coins over the long term. We want the supply to circulate.

3) I don’t know how to prove this other than to tell you that MobileCoin is here to stay. You’ll know us by our deeds.

4) the threat model is 100% of nodes being compromised with an active attack against SGX. If there is even a single honest machine, the network will scream on any fault.

5) MobileCoin is fast and privacy-protecting (and it works on mobile without consuming tons of energy). There aren’t any other cryptocurrencies that presently fit that bill.

1% of nodes can keep the data intact?

This smells of centralisation.