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I don't see what the big deal is at all. I'm glad to see them innovating and extending crypto to the masses in a user-friendly and private way. It's more than

I don't see what the big deal is at all. I'm glad to see them innovating and extending crypto to the masses in a user-friendly and private way. It's more than I see most crypto teams doing.

fwn 6y ago
I think that most criticism comes from the choice to include their wallet into Signal, a private messaging app. I'm pretty certain a MobileCoin wallet app in the play store would've been well received by those who are interested in the concept of MobileCoin. Users that are interested in both Signal and MobileCoin could just install both apps side by side. The decision to link this coin to signal appears to me to be a decision to compete with other cryptocurrencies not by merit of being a better payment solution but by reach. Facebook and Google frequently make this decision (reach instead of merit) and HN regularly criticizes them for it. I think it is fair and honest to criticize Signal for it as well.
CynicusRex 6y ago
The big deal is that «any new “currency” or speculative digital token that doesn't have a fair distribution mechanism is a multi-level marketing pyramid scheme by default. Hence, not a currency. The earliest adopters of such flawed contrivances will always have an increasingly disproportionate amount of the total wealth as it gets adopted. Early adopters mine or buy large proportions of the total supply at negligible costs while late adopters mine or buy negligible proportions at large costs. It follows that holders immediately have every incentive to get as many people to buy after them.» —https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html
- jcbrand 6y ago
  With Bitcoin, you've had ten years to acquire some, in multiple different ways. It's about as fair as one can hope for while being permissionless and not requiring identification. In the early days Bitcoin was given away for free via faucets, you just had to create a wallet The existing fiat currencies suffer the same issue. It's called the Cantillon effect. People who are closest to newly created currency units (mostly financial insiders) pay lower interest rates and have more buying power with that money. They can also immediately turn around and lend the currency out at higher rates, pocketing the difference.
  - CynicusRex 6y ago
    > you've had ten years to acquire some That makes it a ten-year-old pyramid scheme. It may be born from noteworthy ideals, but its flaws have become more apparent over the years. Stephen Diehl succinctly puts why the bubble has lasted so long: “Writing about bitcoin for a lay audience is challenging. If people know enough about tech alone they might think there's no problem, if they know enough about finance alone they might think there's no problem. If people know enough about both then they know it's all a big scam.” —https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1363898199010852869 https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1363898199010852869 > The existing fiat currencies suffer the same issue. Bitcoin touting to be the future of money while having the same if not more problems than fiat currencies is exactly why it deserves all the scrutiny it can get.
    - jcbrand 6y ago
      > Bitcoin touting to be the future of money while having the same if not more problems than fiat currencies is exactly why it deserves all the scrutiny it can get. I'm totally on board that Bitcoin should be scrutinized and examined critically. Concerning the Cantillon effect, in the fiat system, the beneficiaries are the already rich and well connected insiders. Recent central bank monetary interventions are major drivers of inequality by pushing up the asset prices of the rich while the poor suffer joblessness and inflation. With Bitcoin, new units are created in fierce and open competition, and not handed out to insiders.
      - CynicusRex 6y ago
        >in the fiat system, the beneficiaries are the already rich and well connected insiders. Same with crypto“currencies”, hence why they're a pyramid scheme. >Recent central bank monetary interventions are major drivers of inequality by pushing up the asset prices of the rich while the poor suffer joblessness and inflation. Again, crypto“currencies” do the exact same thing; increasing inequality by creating another elite who hoard their wealth. >With Bitcoin, new units are created in fierce and open competition, and not handed out to insiders. New units are mined by the already filthy rich because mining on regular PCs has become obsolete.
- skybrian 6y ago
  Company stock rewards founders and early supporters in a similar way for making the stock more valuable. These incentives aren’t usually considered a bad thing in themselves? Though they certainly can be in pump-and-dump situations. Buyer beware. Other than stablecoins, it’s unclear how it would be avoided?
  - xfer 6y ago
    That is fine if you consider cryptocurrency as an investment. But if the goal is to be used as a currency(which is what this integration is about), then it is not acceptable.
    - skybrian 6y ago
      Volatility is a problem but they claimed that users might mitigate this by not holding for very long with ordinary transactions. I’m somewhat skeptical. But given that speculation drives much of the interest in cryptocurrencies, they might succeed anyway.
    - CynicusRex 6y ago
      > That is fine if you consider cryptocurrency as an investment. Investment is a misnomer because it doesn't produce or fix anything in the real world, nor pay dividends. If you invest in a company that 3D prints modular homes you'll get a piece of the profits through dividends. Crypto“currencies” do nothing of the sort. You have to sell to a greater fool to profit. Meanwhile, the originators have trivially created digital tokens from thin air, backed by a mere white paper or faulty proof of concept, and consequently profit wildly by mere shilling. Yes, similar pyramid schemes occur in the stock market as well, which I criticize just as much. If it's an actual currency then it's not an investment but a conversion.
      - chillchurch 6y ago
        A good number of cryptocurrencies do provide real world value, just because it is not a physical good doesn't mean the value doesn't exist. And many of the cryptocoins are Proof of Stake, or planning to switch to PoS (such as Ethereum). This, besides requiring far less energy than the Proof of Work mining for block validation, allows someone who purchased the coin to gain more coin. By staking coin to assist in the validation of blocks, stakers are rewarded a percentage of the transaction fees as payment. They do not need to buy equipment to mine and effectively earn interest on staked coin. Even if you bought in at the point a coin stabilizes and no longer appreciates, you could still increase your wealth without needing the price of the coin to increase.
Vinnl 6y ago
I think the key to understanding people's dismay is not seeing the Signal team as yet another 'crypto team'. People aren't hoping for Signal to do better than other cryptocurrencies; they're hoping for them to do better than the other messengers, and are afraid that crypto will jeopardise that. I'm in more of a 'let's wait and see' mode (see: this article), but I understand the worry.
- qqii 6y ago
  Signal's developers are not MobileCoin's developers though. All Signal's developers have done is integrate the work of MobileCoin into their backend (fog) and client (fog wallet).
  - iudqnolq 6y ago
    However, that integration took a year, which we know because they made their development private while they worked on it. I'd call that a non-insignificant impact, both in terms of what else they could have worked on in the portion of their time they spent on it, and because it moviated them to hide their source code.
    - qqii 6y ago
      I get the point but it's misleading to attribute the entire year to integrating payments. The server code base has historically had periods of non public updates and doing a quick grep of the commit log payments first appears in October 2020. It's been clear since 2017 that Moxie has wanted to integrate payments to "stay competitive", so such effort was always on the schedule.
      - iudqnolq 6y ago
        Absolutely. I tried to get that across with "portion of the time", but I realize that wasn't clear. I meant to imply that if it took a year in clock time it took non-insignificant person-hours, which I think is reasonable. I also tried to get across that if payments caused the code to be private for a year, that's also a downside
bjohnson225 6y ago
User friendly? Can’t be bought in the US, and for the remainder it will only cause headaches for anyone who just wants to be paid but have now received some unusable nonsense instead.
- kijin 6y ago
  The feature is opt-in. You will not receive any unusable nonsense unless you choose to be paid in such. For American users, nothing has changed.
  - bjohnson225 6y ago
    Yes, but I can’t imagine more than a negligible percentage of the Signal user base opting in because it’s anything but user friendly as a solution.

I don't see what the big deal is at all. I'm glad to see them innovating and extending crypto to the masses in a user-friendly and private way. It's more than I see most crypto teams doing.

fwn 6y ago

I think that most criticism comes from the choice to include their wallet into Signal, a private messaging app. I'm pretty certain a MobileCoin wallet app in the play store would've been well received by those who are interested in the concept of MobileCoin. Users that are interested in both Signal and MobileCoin could just install both apps side by side. The decision to link this coin to signal appears to me to be a decision to compete with other cryptocurrencies not by merit of being a better payment solution but by reach. Facebook and Google frequently make this decision (reach instead of merit) and HN regularly criticizes them for it. I think it is fair and honest to criticize Signal for it as well.

CynicusRex 6y ago

The big deal is that «any new “currency” or speculative digital token that doesn't have a fair distribution mechanism is a multi-level marketing pyramid scheme by default. Hence, not a currency. The earliest adopters of such flawed contrivances will always have an increasingly disproportionate amount of the total wealth as it gets adopted. Early adopters mine or buy large proportions of the total supply at negligible costs while late adopters mine or buy negligible proportions at large costs. It follows that holders immediately have every incentive to get as many people to buy after them.» —https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html

jcbrand 6y ago
With Bitcoin, you've had ten years to acquire some, in multiple different ways. It's about as fair as one can hope for while being permissionless and not requiring identification. In the early days Bitcoin was given away for free via faucets, you just had to create a wallet The existing fiat currencies suffer the same issue. It's called the Cantillon effect. People who are closest to newly created currency units (mostly financial insiders) pay lower interest rates and have more buying power with that money. They can also immediately turn around and lend the currency out at higher rates, pocketing the difference.
- CynicusRex 6y ago
  > you've had ten years to acquire some That makes it a ten-year-old pyramid scheme. It may be born from noteworthy ideals, but its flaws have become more apparent over the years. Stephen Diehl succinctly puts why the bubble has lasted so long: “Writing about bitcoin for a lay audience is challenging. If people know enough about tech alone they might think there's no problem, if they know enough about finance alone they might think there's no problem. If people know enough about both then they know it's all a big scam.” —https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1363898199010852869 https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1363898199010852869 > The existing fiat currencies suffer the same issue. Bitcoin touting to be the future of money while having the same if not more problems than fiat currencies is exactly why it deserves all the scrutiny it can get.
  - jcbrand 6y ago
    > Bitcoin touting to be the future of money while having the same if not more problems than fiat currencies is exactly why it deserves all the scrutiny it can get. I'm totally on board that Bitcoin should be scrutinized and examined critically. Concerning the Cantillon effect, in the fiat system, the beneficiaries are the already rich and well connected insiders. Recent central bank monetary interventions are major drivers of inequality by pushing up the asset prices of the rich while the poor suffer joblessness and inflation. With Bitcoin, new units are created in fierce and open competition, and not handed out to insiders.
    - CynicusRex 6y ago
      >in the fiat system, the beneficiaries are the already rich and well connected insiders. Same with crypto“currencies”, hence why they're a pyramid scheme. >Recent central bank monetary interventions are major drivers of inequality by pushing up the asset prices of the rich while the poor suffer joblessness and inflation. Again, crypto“currencies” do the exact same thing; increasing inequality by creating another elite who hoard their wealth. >With Bitcoin, new units are created in fierce and open competition, and not handed out to insiders. New units are mined by the already filthy rich because mining on regular PCs has become obsolete.
skybrian 6y ago
Company stock rewards founders and early supporters in a similar way for making the stock more valuable. These incentives aren’t usually considered a bad thing in themselves? Though they certainly can be in pump-and-dump situations. Buyer beware. Other than stablecoins, it’s unclear how it would be avoided?
- xfer 6y ago
  That is fine if you consider cryptocurrency as an investment. But if the goal is to be used as a currency(which is what this integration is about), then it is not acceptable.
  - skybrian 6y ago
    Volatility is a problem but they claimed that users might mitigate this by not holding for very long with ordinary transactions. I’m somewhat skeptical. But given that speculation drives much of the interest in cryptocurrencies, they might succeed anyway.
  - CynicusRex 6y ago
    > That is fine if you consider cryptocurrency as an investment. Investment is a misnomer because it doesn't produce or fix anything in the real world, nor pay dividends. If you invest in a company that 3D prints modular homes you'll get a piece of the profits through dividends. Crypto“currencies” do nothing of the sort. You have to sell to a greater fool to profit. Meanwhile, the originators have trivially created digital tokens from thin air, backed by a mere white paper or faulty proof of concept, and consequently profit wildly by mere shilling. Yes, similar pyramid schemes occur in the stock market as well, which I criticize just as much. If it's an actual currency then it's not an investment but a conversion.
    - chillchurch 6y ago
      A good number of cryptocurrencies do provide real world value, just because it is not a physical good doesn't mean the value doesn't exist. And many of the cryptocoins are Proof of Stake, or planning to switch to PoS (such as Ethereum). This, besides requiring far less energy than the Proof of Work mining for block validation, allows someone who purchased the coin to gain more coin. By staking coin to assist in the validation of blocks, stakers are rewarded a percentage of the transaction fees as payment. They do not need to buy equipment to mine and effectively earn interest on staked coin. Even if you bought in at the point a coin stabilizes and no longer appreciates, you could still increase your wealth without needing the price of the coin to increase.

Vinnl 6y ago

I think the key to understanding people's dismay is not seeing the Signal team as yet another 'crypto team'. People aren't hoping for Signal to do better than other cryptocurrencies; they're hoping for them to do better than the other messengers, and are afraid that crypto will jeopardise that. I'm in more of a 'let's wait and see' mode (see: this article), but I understand the worry.

qqii 6y ago
Signal's developers are not MobileCoin's developers though. All Signal's developers have done is integrate the work of MobileCoin into their backend (fog) and client (fog wallet).
- iudqnolq 6y ago
  However, that integration took a year, which we know because they made their development private while they worked on it. I'd call that a non-insignificant impact, both in terms of what else they could have worked on in the portion of their time they spent on it, and because it moviated them to hide their source code.
  - qqii 6y ago
    I get the point but it's misleading to attribute the entire year to integrating payments. The server code base has historically had periods of non public updates and doing a quick grep of the commit log payments first appears in October 2020. It's been clear since 2017 that Moxie has wanted to integrate payments to "stay competitive", so such effort was always on the schedule.
    - iudqnolq 6y ago
      Absolutely. I tried to get that across with "portion of the time", but I realize that wasn't clear. I meant to imply that if it took a year in clock time it took non-insignificant person-hours, which I think is reasonable. I also tried to get across that if payments caused the code to be private for a year, that's also a downside

bjohnson225 6y ago

User friendly? Can’t be bought in the US, and for the remainder it will only cause headaches for anyone who just wants to be paid but have now received some unusable nonsense instead.

kijin 6y ago
The feature is opt-in. You will not receive any unusable nonsense unless you choose to be paid in such. For American users, nothing has changed.
- bjohnson225 6y ago
  Yes, but I can’t imagine more than a negligible percentage of the Signal user base opting in because it’s anything but user friendly as a solution.