The Signal app is set to integrate what it describes as a way to bring the same ease of use and security it offers to its users and their payments.
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Signal is planning to launch the ability for its users to send money in the form of cryptocurrency to each other within its rapidly growing encrypted communications network. To do so, it has built-in support for the cryptocurrency MobileCoin, a form of digital cash designed to work efficiently on mobile devices while protecting users’ privacy and even anonymity. For now, the payment feature will only be available to users in the United Kingdom, and only on iOS and Android, not desktop. The new feature represents an experiment it hopes will focus on protecting the privacy of millions of users, something Signal hopes to eventually expand to the rest of the world.
Moxie Marlinspike, Signal's creator and CEO of the nonprofit that runs it, describes the new payments feature as an effort to extend Signal's privacy protections to payments, offering the same seamless experience it offers for encrypted conversations.
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Unlike payment features built into other messaging apps like WhatsApp or iMessage, which typically link to a user’s bank account, Signal aims to provide a way to send money that no one but the sender and recipient can track. Financial institutions routinely sell their users’ personal transaction data to marketing companies and advertisers or hand it over to law enforcement. As with many cryptocurrencies, their protection against fraud and counterfeiting relies on a blockchain, which in many cases can reveal who sent money to whom.
So, Signal was looking for a privacy-preserving cryptocurrency that bypasses banks and is specifically designed to protect users' identities and payment details on a blockchain.
See also: “Blockchain hacks”: Billions were stolen in 2020
The choice of MobileCoin is not surprising. MobileCoin only began trading as a real-world currency in December of last year. It is currently available for sale on only one cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, which does not allow trading by US users, although Goldbard says there is no reason why US exchanges could not also list the coin for trading. Signal chose to develop its MobileCoin integration in the UK in part because the cryptocurrency cannot yet be purchased by users in the US.
In this way, Signal plans to make its users' transactions more secure, so they don't have to worry about their privacy.
