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> Did it appear to these clowns that if I have to use a wire transfer anyway, I can just use a fucking wire transfer? You may have misunderstood what they're s

> Did it appear to these clowns that if I have to use a wire transfer anyway, I can just use a fucking wire transfer? You may have misunderstood what they're saying. The full sentence from which you quoted: > It currently requires a wire transfer for people in the UK to get funds in and out of cryptocurrency exchanges that support MobileCoin, which costs money. They're saying that you need a wire transfer to buy and sell MobileCoin using the currently-available exchanges. Once you possess MobileCoin, you can then send or receive it using the app without further wire transfers unless you choose to cash out. A wire transfer isn't necessary for a transaction in Signal.

stefan_ 6y ago
No, I did not misunderstand at all. I care about solving my problem which presumably is sending money to my buddy in the easiest, most straightforward way. That is what a solution is going to be measured on. (Hint: you can just give people contingents of your make-believe currency. But it's a better scam if they wire transfer money for it!)
- hiq 6y ago
  You have a point in the case of a volatile cryptocurrency: if 1 MOB is worth USD 10 one day and USD 1 the next, nobody will want to keep their MOB, so you have one bank transfer for one MOB transfer. It sucks. If MOB becomes less volatile over time, you could imagine people having USD 100 in MOB that they would trade for small debts, and they could be fine leaving this sum in MOB. In this case, you'd have several MOB transfers for just a few bank transfers, and it'd be an improvement. How stable they'll manage to make it, frankly I can't say, I believe it's still an open problem for them.
  - iudqnolq 6y ago
    > In this case, you'd have several MOB transfers for just a few bank transfers, and it'd be an improvement. It'd be less inconvenient that a worse cryptocurrency, but more inconvenient than hitting a button in your bank app (the uk has instant transfers already).
    - hiq 6y ago
      > but more inconvenient than hitting a button in your bank app Sure, assuming: 1. you have the app 2. you have the IBAN (or equivalent) I'd say 1. is a good assumption for younger generations (?), but 2. is still more friction than what Signal could offer.
      - iudqnolq 6y ago
        But you need a bank account to make a wire transfer to turn your real money into MOB.
      - jeltz 6y ago
        Only 2.5% of the UK adult population is unbanked and if it is anything like here in Sweden that means virtually all of the other 97.5% have IBAN.
      - roywiggins 6y ago
        How do you buy MobileCoin without an IBAN?
      - Dma54rhs 6y ago
        These are standard things people have when they are savvy enough to own a mobile phone. In UK/EU they don't solve a problem tiny bit but rather make it more risky because of volatility and more difficult abs expensive to cash out.
      - hiq 6y ago
        I should have been clearer with the IBAN point. In particular I was not talking about people outside of the banking system. I'll respond here to most replies I got so far. What I meant is that you need the IBAN of the person you want to send money to (of course you need to have an IBAN, as in, you need a bank account for your MOB to be actually worth anything). Assuming Alice and Bob are contacts on Signal, and Alice wants to send money to Bob, Alice still has to ask for Bob's IBAN. We can safely assume that Bob does not know his IBAN by heart, and has to use his ebanking app (for instance). You already have some kind of identifier for Bob, Signal would allow you to reuse it. Some ebanking apps already allow you to do that, but I think in most cases both have to be clients at the same bank (?) The idea is that you have less friction. The chat would be something like: > B: can you send me 5 USD > A: sure, here it is > A sent you N MOB, equivalent to 5 USD. Of course the UX is still far from being there (volatility is the biggest problem I think).

stefan_ 6y ago

No, I did not misunderstand at all. I care about solving my problem which presumably is sending money to my buddy in the easiest, most straightforward way. That is what a solution is going to be measured on. (Hint: you can just give people contingents of your make-believe currency. But it's a better scam if they wire transfer money for it!)

hiq 6y ago
You have a point in the case of a volatile cryptocurrency: if 1 MOB is worth USD 10 one day and USD 1 the next, nobody will want to keep their MOB, so you have one bank transfer for one MOB transfer. It sucks. If MOB becomes less volatile over time, you could imagine people having USD 100 in MOB that they would trade for small debts, and they could be fine leaving this sum in MOB. In this case, you'd have several MOB transfers for just a few bank transfers, and it'd be an improvement. How stable they'll manage to make it, frankly I can't say, I believe it's still an open problem for them.
- iudqnolq 6y ago
  > In this case, you'd have several MOB transfers for just a few bank transfers, and it'd be an improvement. It'd be less inconvenient that a worse cryptocurrency, but more inconvenient than hitting a button in your bank app (the uk has instant transfers already).
  - hiq 6y ago
    > but more inconvenient than hitting a button in your bank app Sure, assuming: 1. you have the app 2. you have the IBAN (or equivalent) I'd say 1. is a good assumption for younger generations (?), but 2. is still more friction than what Signal could offer.
    - iudqnolq 6y ago
      But you need a bank account to make a wire transfer to turn your real money into MOB.
    - jeltz 6y ago
      Only 2.5% of the UK adult population is unbanked and if it is anything like here in Sweden that means virtually all of the other 97.5% have IBAN.
    - roywiggins 6y ago
      How do you buy MobileCoin without an IBAN?
    - Dma54rhs 6y ago
      These are standard things people have when they are savvy enough to own a mobile phone. In UK/EU they don't solve a problem tiny bit but rather make it more risky because of volatility and more difficult abs expensive to cash out.
    - hiq 6y ago
      I should have been clearer with the IBAN point. In particular I was not talking about people outside of the banking system. I'll respond here to most replies I got so far. What I meant is that you need the IBAN of the person you want to send money to (of course you need to have an IBAN, as in, you need a bank account for your MOB to be actually worth anything). Assuming Alice and Bob are contacts on Signal, and Alice wants to send money to Bob, Alice still has to ask for Bob's IBAN. We can safely assume that Bob does not know his IBAN by heart, and has to use his ebanking app (for instance). You already have some kind of identifier for Bob, Signal would allow you to reuse it. Some ebanking apps already allow you to do that, but I think in most cases both have to be clients at the same bank (?) The idea is that you have less friction. The chat would be something like: > B: can you send me 5 USD > A: sure, here it is > A sent you N MOB, equivalent to 5 USD. Of course the UX is still far from being there (volatility is the biggest problem I think).