Ask Doctor Bitcoin: Is MobileCoin any good? [Free, #4]
Signal just announced yesterday that they're implementing MobileCoin into the native Signal messenger experience. Is it truly "secure and private way to transact?" Sorta... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Well, hello there!
It’s been an interesting week for blockchain and bitcoin. Prices are holding steady still, and all the news that’s come out recently is more cryptocurrency than blockchain, which if you’d ask the average pundit from the last boom cycle if that’d be the case, you’d be hard pressed to find someone to take that prediction seriously.
Some of us saw this coming. I’ve found myself referring back to cipherpunk principles quite a bit in the conversations of the last week, and I’d actually anticipating talking a bit about that today in connection to a bit of an exposition and explanation of the concept of Bitcoin Maximalism, but then the biggest news of the week popped up when Signal announced direct integration with a dark horse privacy coin called MobileCoin.
… so we pivoted and did a bit of a quick-take analysis on that so you can have a handle on what that news is all about. Signal is obviously a hugely popular communications tool in the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency, so we’ll be doing more research in the coming weeks on MobileCoin and circling back with more in-depth analysis, so stay tuned for that.
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Blockchain Bulletin
Fake Trezor iPhone app scams user out of $600,000 in BTC. A fake Trezor app infiltrated the Apple App Store and scammed a user out of 17.1 BTC, approximately $600,000 at the time it was stolen, according to a report from The Washington Post.
Enjin raises $19M to build Efinity, Polkadot-based blockchain network for NTFs. Signapore-based blockchain software provider Enjin announced on March 31 that it raised $19 million to build Efinity, a Polkadot-based blockchain network that will be purpose-built to support non-fungible tokens.
Bobblehead manufacturer Funko announces lineup of NFT products. With an investment in Tokenwave LLC, Funko will be producing a new wave of NFT products and extend the company’s pop culture platform to include digital assets sold on the WAX platform.
Blockchain Behind the Scenes
Visa embraces USDC cryptocurrency for settlements on its network. Credit card company Visa has embraced the cryptocurrency USD Coin in partnership with Crypto.com for settlements on its network.
Blockchain and COVID-19 vaccines in the news. More governments around the world are turning to blockchain technology as a way to provide a tamperproof registry for COVID-19 vaccine documentation for so-called “vaccine passports” such as in New York, South Korea, Singapore and soon Brazil.
Blockchain Deep Dive
Signal is a privacy-focused end-to-end encrypted mobile chat app.
They announced a partnership with MobileCoin, to allow “secure, private p2p transactions.
MobileCoin is a fork or derivative of Stellar, up to and including the 100% pre-mined tokens.
They claim to use at least some features from Monero, including RingCT.
They rely heavily on Intel’s SGX Secure Enclave technology for endpoint node security.
Their ecosystem is very immature, and by all accounts presently a zombiechain.
Claims of security are probably somewhat overstated. Claims of privacy are as of yet untested and unproven. It’s worth watching, but not trusting mission critical financial infrastructure to.
For trivially sized transactions that don’t rely on security or privacy, it may be worth a try.
Near-Term Market Outlook with VirtualBacon DAO’s Dennis Liu
Bull market conditions prevail.
Focused on ETH this week, last week’s trading signals were validated.
ETH is now in breakout.
Next price target is $2,600.