- Not be MobileCoin or any small-cap coin - Support Bitcoin/Litecoin/Etherum/other popular and trusted coins - Sync private keys using the same mechanism as messages
Signal has had some questionable choices in the past, but this is over the line for their goal of privacy/security/trust. MobileCoin does not belong in Signal.
Why not?
> - Support Bitcoin/Litecoin/Etherum/other popular and trusted coins
The post explains their requirements which these cryptocurrencies don't fit. Do you take issue with their requirements?
> Sync private keys using the same mechanism as messages
AFAIU it's non-custodial and it stays on the mobile client, meaning that there's no synchronization so far (the desktop client does not support these features). This could come eventually, but it's part of their requirements to stay out of the way and let the user handle their coins without trusting Signal.
> this is over the line for their goal of privacy/security
How so?
Because the price of small cap coins is insanely volatile, and even more subject to manipulation than cryptocurrencies in general. Mobilecoin's price changed by 1000% over the course of a couple weeks last month.
The future volatility of MobileCoin is to be seen. Past performance is not indicative of future performance and whatnot.
Wether they should have used a test net, MobileCoin should have only released a limited portion of the coins or whatnot is another question entirely.
It's not even really used right now, it's hard to tell how much it reflects what will happen later.
With a centralized cryptocurrency there's a lot they could do to make it less volatile, and it's still to be seen what will happen in practice. It's a hard problem, but I don't think we can easily conclude that they will fail, or that a better solution already exists.
The goal is to transmit money through a mobile messaging app. If the MobileCoin wants to take donations to support the platform, or even wants to take a tiny cut of each transaction, that seems fine. But I see no justification for their platform to be based around a volatile speculative asset which generally serves no purpose but to create a new gambling market and enrich the founders.
A mobile-friendly alternative to Monero seems like a really cool, valuable idea. But I don't think it's acceptable that it's both a volatile security to speculate on and the payment system for a supposedly non-profit privacy-and-freedom-oriented messaging app.
The problem isn't cryptocurrency; it's penny stocks and all the zero-sum bullshit that comes with them. You don't have to make your new cryptocurrency a penny stock if you don't want to. Here, it seems they probably want to.
Stablecoin mechanisms have tradeoffs whether that's being on a public blockchain, a centralised party, collateral risk or lack of privacy. Monero is the current gold standard when it comes to privacy but trades off speed (confirmation blocks), mobile friendliness and a volatile price. On the other end of the spectrum Tether is very stable but is produced by a centralised entity and is on a public blockchain.
From Moxie's 2017 interview (https://www.wired.com/story/mobilecoin-cryptocurrency/) we can safely assume that their list of requirements existed from the start (MobileCoin didn't have much to show at this point). Since then it's been public knowledge and since the market cap of MobileCoin is dictated by the market so I'm not sure about your penny stock comment, it seems more sensible to direct criticism at their lack of distribution transparency.