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Hi, Before you label MobileCoin a scam, I would encourage you to take a look at the Github. I think you'll see that we've made a lot of very carefully consider

Hi, Before you label MobileCoin a scam, I would encourage you to take a look at the Github. I think you'll see that we've made a lot of very carefully considered choices on how to deliver a great payments experience without many of the compromises other cryptocurrencies have chosen. Of note, the speed of transactions, much greener energy design, privacy-protections, and mobile-first UX are differentiators. Many cryptocurrencies have some of these features, but I don't know of any other that has all of them. Believe me, I have a lot of feelings about how absurd cryptocurrency has become in the last decade. At its core, I still believe that there is something beautiful in decentralized ledgers and I think that this is the way that the world will settle debts over the next hundred years. Signal chose MobileCoin because nothing else met their performance and privacy standards. In order to meet those goals we wrote a lot of new technology that is fundamentally different from how other cryptocurrencies are architected today (check out our oblivious RAM implementation, for example: https://github.com/mobilecoinfoundation/fog https://github.com/mobilecoinfoundation/fog). I love Signal and I started MobileCoin to help fund their work. For me, a world with Signal in it is a better place.

RL_Quine 6y ago
> Signal chose MobileCoin because nothing else met their performance and privacy standards. Signal has obvious financial connections to MobileCoin, something that frankly nobody else has ever heard of before today. I find it really difficult to believe that MobileCoin paying Moxie (which you've acknowledged), and Signal/Moxie happening to choose MobileCoin for inclusion in Signal when nobody wanted it was a coincidence. It's insulting to the intelligence of the reader to even make that claim. > Before you label MobileCoin a scam, I would encourage you to take a look at the Github. What would that tell me?
- bdcs 6y ago
  "Marlinspike notes, however, that neither he nor Signal own any MobileCoins." https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-payments-messaging-cryptocurrency/ https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-payments-messa...
  - RL_Quine 6y ago
    > "Moxie, as an individual, is a paid technical advisor to MobileCoin" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26715013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26715013 This seems incompatible with the spirit of the quote in the article.
    - hiq 6y ago
      That's significant in this space, because it implies that he does not benefit directly[0] from speculation on MOB, and so has less incentives to get involved in a pump and dump. What I would still like to see for more transparency: - legal commitment from the Signal Foundation that no employee owns any MOB - disclosure of money transfers between MobileCoin and any Signal Foundation employee Maybe some of this information could already be extracted given the statuses of the entities involved? [0]: he benefits indirectly because if MobileCoin stays up, he'll probably stay as a technical advisor
    - mfsch 6y ago
      The article says “Marlinspike has served as a paid technical adviser for the project since its inception” in the same paragraph, so I would say the article is quite clear on the financial relationship.
  - maclured 6y ago
    Yet. There are a couple of trivial ways they could end up with loads of coins and this statement could still be true as of the date of the quote.
  - EMM_386 6y ago
    Are we talking about both Signals, or just the non-profit Foundation here? What about the LLC? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Foundation
  - ascorbic 6y ago
    But does he own any shares or options in MobileCoin Inc?
bjt2n3904 6y ago
Yow, the damage control is quick on this one. Off the front page, too? I don't care about your cryptocurrency. I don't care about your cryptocurrency being offered in my messenger. Let me put it plain and simple. You bring nothing to the table for me but liability. Nothing. But. Liability. Signal's one and only feature is security. This feature is a joke, and devalues Signal.
- dang 6y ago
  Your comment breaks several of the site guidelines. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here. The post went off HN's front page because it set off the flamewar detector.
adamsvystun 6y ago
Hi Josh, The problem here is not that people think that MobileCoin is not a useful technology or is not innovative. From what you are describing it actually seems like a good combination of features that are particularly suited for the messaging use-case. The problem is in the way the coins were pre-mined. It seems (we don't really know from the outside) that the knowledge that Signal would be using MobileCoin has been known early on. With that knowledge it is very easy to make money by pre-mining coins. The proper analogy here is insider trading. It is immoral and that is why people are calling this a scam.
selsta 6y ago
Why does the README mention CryptoNote when the project seems to be based on Monero + SCP? https://twitter.com/fluffypony/status/1379559273504641025 https://twitter.com/fluffypony/status/1379559273504641025 I guess the whitepaper mentions it, but that isn't suprising considering koe wrote it.

RL_Quine 6y ago

> Signal chose MobileCoin because nothing else met their performance and privacy standards. Signal has obvious financial connections to MobileCoin, something that frankly nobody else has ever heard of before today. I find it really difficult to believe that MobileCoin paying Moxie (which you've acknowledged), and Signal/Moxie happening to choose MobileCoin for inclusion in Signal when nobody wanted it was a coincidence. It's insulting to the intelligence of the reader to even make that claim. > Before you label MobileCoin a scam, I would encourage you to take a look at the Github. What would that tell me?

bdcs 6y ago
"Marlinspike notes, however, that neither he nor Signal own any MobileCoins." https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-payments-messaging-cryptocurrency/ https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-payments-messa...
- RL_Quine 6y ago
  > "Moxie, as an individual, is a paid technical advisor to MobileCoin" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26715013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26715013 This seems incompatible with the spirit of the quote in the article.
  - hiq 6y ago
    That's significant in this space, because it implies that he does not benefit directly[0] from speculation on MOB, and so has less incentives to get involved in a pump and dump. What I would still like to see for more transparency: - legal commitment from the Signal Foundation that no employee owns any MOB - disclosure of money transfers between MobileCoin and any Signal Foundation employee Maybe some of this information could already be extracted given the statuses of the entities involved? [0]: he benefits indirectly because if MobileCoin stays up, he'll probably stay as a technical advisor
  - mfsch 6y ago
    The article says “Marlinspike has served as a paid technical adviser for the project since its inception” in the same paragraph, so I would say the article is quite clear on the financial relationship.
- maclured 6y ago
  Yet. There are a couple of trivial ways they could end up with loads of coins and this statement could still be true as of the date of the quote.
- EMM_386 6y ago
  Are we talking about both Signals, or just the non-profit Foundation here? What about the LLC? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Foundation
- ascorbic 6y ago
  But does he own any shares or options in MobileCoin Inc?

bjt2n3904 6y ago

Yow, the damage control is quick on this one. Off the front page, too? I don't care about your cryptocurrency. I don't care about your cryptocurrency being offered in my messenger. Let me put it plain and simple. You bring nothing to the table for me but liability. Nothing. But. Liability. Signal's one and only feature is security. This feature is a joke, and devalues Signal.

dang 6y ago
Your comment breaks several of the site guidelines. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here. The post went off HN's front page because it set off the flamewar detector.

adamsvystun 6y ago

Hi Josh, The problem here is not that people think that MobileCoin is not a useful technology or is not innovative. From what you are describing it actually seems like a good combination of features that are particularly suited for the messaging use-case. The problem is in the way the coins were pre-mined. It seems (we don't really know from the outside) that the knowledge that Signal would be using MobileCoin has been known early on. With that knowledge it is very easy to make money by pre-mining coins. The proper analogy here is insider trading. It is immoral and that is why people are calling this a scam.

selsta 6y ago

Why does the README mention CryptoNote when the project seems to be based on Monero + SCP? https://twitter.com/fluffypony/status/1379559273504641025 https://twitter.com/fluffypony/status/1379559273504641025 I guess the whitepaper mentions it, but that isn't suprising considering koe wrote it.