Signal Explores Resources Toward Development Of Crypto Payments Service For Its Users
- Crypto News Point
- Jan 27, 2021
- 2 min read
Signal, the privacy-focused messaging app, is exploring resources toward the development of a cryptocurrency payments service for its users.
It has been reported by Casey Newton, the founder of the technology newsletter service Platformer, that Signal is mulling crypto payments integration in the app.
However, the report claims that Signal ran pilot tests for such a token on the Binance-backed, Stellar-based privacy cryptocurrency platform MobileCoin.
Privacy and crypto have always had a close relationship. Now, the clandestine messaging app Signal is exploring the addition of crypto payments on its network. But will this integration draw negative attention from litigious regulators? https://t.co/GlGPTv7rMW — Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) January 26, 2021
Moxie Marlinspike, the CEO of Signal, serves as an adviser on the MobileCoin project by heightening speculation that the test could be a trial run for subsequent deployment in the messaging app.
The report said that the Platformer report also notes that Marlinspike has downplayed these speculations by describing the tests as “design explorations.”
He added:
“If we did decide we wanted to put payments into Signal, we would try to think really carefully about how we did that. It’s hard to be totally hypothetical.”
According to Newton, former Signal employees said that the company is actively pursuing the necessary protocols for integrating MobileCoin on the messaging platform. Earlier in January, MobileCoin attempted to clarify its relationship with Signal.
True! We hiked and wondered what it must be like to be on your side of the world, having to scale like that in such little time. Guessing you might share more about what that was like soon. Thanks for making the planet more free than it was and inspiring all of us to do the same. — Stephan Bridger (@hexagr) January 16, 2021
Likewise, if the reports turn out to be true, Signal would become the latest messaging service to enter the crypto and digital payments arena.
The integration of a privacy coin on the Signal platform could put the company in danger of serious regulatory scrutiny.
According to Financial News, financial services firms are already worried about the emerging regulatory blind spot occasioned by the migration of traders from WhatsApp to Signal.
Signal has already seen its user base jump over 100% after the recent policy changes by WhatsApp.
Thus, there are concerns that the addition of anonymous payments and other rumored features could see the platform becoming a home for illegal activities.
Source: Cointelegraph
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