Bitcoin supporters launch “Bitcoin for Signal” campaign to bring BTC payments to the app

Jack Dorsey and a group of Bitcoin advocates are urging the encrypted messaging app Signal to integrate Btc payments, saying it would align with the platform’s privacy-focused mission and help it achieve financial independence.

The “Bitcoin for Signal” campaign suggests integrating the crypto through the Cashu protocol and its “Chaumian Ecash.” BTC developer Cashu shared the movement on X, and Dorsey reposted, saying, “@signalapp should use Bitcoin.”

Bitcoin supporters push Signal to use BTC for private payments

Many people already use Signal every day because it protects their conversations from being spied on and their data from being collected. Now, the campaign also aims to enable these users to send and receive money privately and securely. Supporters say people will be able to send money to each other instantly across the globe, without banks, middlemen, or extra apps, if the messaging app adds Bitcoin payments through the Cashu protocol.

The message on the Bitcoin for Signal website says, “Bitcoin belongs in Signal. Cashu ecash enables truly private BTC payments inside the world’s most trusted encryption messenger.” People argue that the leading digital asset could also help the service become financially independent, as it currently relies on donations and external funding. With BTC payments, users can directly send small donations or “tips” inside the app to help Signal stay free and open.

Co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, drew more attention to the campaign when he reposted Cashu’s message to his millions of followers and commented, “@signalapp should use Bitcoin.” Other popular figures, like Bitcoin developer Peter Todd, co-founder of Satoshi Labs, Pavol Rusnak, and the anonymous developer behind Cashu, Calle, have also expressed their support for the campaign. 

Peter Todd even criticized the app’s current payment option, MobileCoin (MOB), and said, “I’ve been wanting to try MobileCoin. But it’s such a failure I can’t even buy any. Signal App needs to accept reality and just add Bitcoin support.”

The encrypted messaging service tested MobileCoin in April 2021 to see if people could send money privately through the app, but users and experts found problems with the system over time. MobileCoin is not as decentralized as BTC or other cryptocurrencies because it relies on a small group of computers, known as validators, to process transactions. 

Critics also argue that MobileCoin is difficult to purchase or use in most countries because it isn’t available on many exchanges. For this reason, most people believe it won’t grow or reach the large global audience that Signal already has, so they believe that replacing or adding BTC would address these problems.

The app has approximately 70 million active users each month. According to analysts, it will instantly become one of the largest platforms for private, peer-to-peer Bitcoin transactions if even a small portion of its users start sending the crypto through the app.

Critics warn Bitcoin may weaken Signal’s privacy goals

Some privacy experts, digital rights groups, and blockchain engineers say adding the crypto could actually weaken Signal’s strong reputation for privacy and security. According to them, BTC’s public blockchain could expose information that conflicts with the app’s main goal of keeping users completely anonymous.

An engineer at Aztec Network, José Pedro Sousa, responded to Jack Dorsey’s post with a sharp question: “Jack, why use a fully public blockchain for a privacy chat? The digital rights group Techlore also warned that combining BTC payments with Signal could unintentionally create new privacy risks that the app was never designed to handle. They suggested that the messaging service consider using digital currencies like Monero (XMR) and Zcash (ZEC), as they already have built-in privacy features.

Other privacy-focused developers noted that anyone can analyze Bitcoin’s blockchain. However, privacy coins utilize advanced cryptographic techniques, such as “zero-knowledge proofs,” to conceal transaction details while still verifying that payments are valid. They say this technology would better align with Signal’s mission than relying on Bitcoin’s open and transparent system.

Those who support the Cashu protocol defended their design, stating that it utilizes a system of BTC-backed “ecash” tokens to hold and send Bitcoin without their transactions appearing on the public blockchain. They added that people will be able to make payments privately inside Signal without their crypto addresses being exposed.

However, many experts say Cashu and other ecash systems are still new and have not yet been tested on a large scale. Privacy researchers also warn that it takes years to build, test, and prove the safety of such systems. Signal might face bugs, scalability issues, or weaknesses that attackers could exploit if it rushes to integrate BTC through Cashu.

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