Crypto chat app Signal CEO leaves, integrated cryptocurrency payments are sprayed on "playing with fire"

On Monday, Moxie Marlinspike, CEO of encrypted chat software Signal, announced that he would step down as CEO after nearly a decade of working with the company.

Marlinspike detailed in a blog post that he will remain on Signal's board of directors to continue "helping to achieve Signal's mission." He said Brian Acton, Signal's executive chairman and whatsApp co-founder, will take over as Signal's interim CEO while looking for a permanent replacement.

"Based on our existing team, I now feel very relieved to step down as CEO and believe this is an important step in expanding Signal's success," he wrote. "I've been talking to candidates for the past few months, but hope to open a search with this announcement to help find the best candidate for the next Signal decade." If it could be you, please contact us! ”

Musk has tweeted to call on fans to "Use Signal"

Signal is an end-to-end encrypted communications application available in both mobile and desktop versions. Users can send messages, phone calls, or video calls through the app, including third parties to the platform itself, who cannot see the message content. Even if someone intercepts a message sent by a user, it looks like a bunch of garbled code.

Signal was initially very niche, but in early 2021 it exploded into popularity, becoming the most downloaded app in the U.S., surpassing many of the long-popular social media apps and games.

There are a number of reasons for this phenomenon, one is that the policy of whatsApp, a common messaging app, is constantly changing; second, the riots in the US Congress at that time led many technology companies to ban Trump's accounts; third, Elon Musk, the world's richest man, tweeted a call on fans to "Use Signal".

On January 7, 2021, Tesla founder Musk posted a message on Twitter saying "Use Signal", after which Signal became the most downloaded app for the first time in the Two Major App Stores in the United States, Apple's App Store and Google Play. The spike in downloads has even caused new users to have to wait a long time to receive an SMS verification code when they sign up.

On January 4, 2021, WhatsApp, a Facebook company, released an updated privacy policy in which WhatsApp tells users that they must agree to facebook and its subsidiaries collecting WhatsApp data (including phone numbers and locations) by February 8 or they will not be able to continue using the WhatsApp app. Later, in the face of users' doubts, Facebook clarified that WhatsApp messages will continue to be encrypted, and information such as WhatsApp contacts will not be shared to Facebook. But despite this, many users, at Musk's call, switched to other encrypted messaging apps, such as Telegram. Signal has approximately 40 million monthly active users as of early 2021 and WhatsApp has over 2 billion monthly active users.

However, Signal's rapid growth is also worrying. In the months leading up to and after the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Signal employees questioned the development and addition of new features, fearing that they might inadvertently provide a safe source of financing for criminals and possibly even induce further regulatory involvement.

"The world needs products like Signal, but they also need Signal to be thoughtful," says Gregg Bernstein, a former user researcher who held the skepticism, and he left the company. Marlinspike did not respond positively to the incident at the time, saying only that Signal would hire a staff member dedicated to policy, trust and security-related issues.

In addition, Signal's support for MobileCoin over the past few months has been constantly being questioned.

Signal playing with fire?

In April 2021, encrypted messaging app Signal announced open beta payments in the UK and integrated support for MobileCoin. MobileCoin is a crypto-focused cryptocurrency designed for everyday transactions, Signal claims that MobileCoin is more focused on the privacy experience, and Moxie Marlinspike, the CEO of Signal who announced his departure this time, served as an advisor to MobileCoin Currency.

However, this decision has also caused a lot of controversy. Stephen Deere, a London-based software developer and cryptocurrency critic, denounced Signal's embrace of MobileCoin as a blow and betrayal of intuition last year.

"Many of us have spent a lot of time and effort moving friends and family from privacy-conscious platforms like Facebook to Signal, hoping to break the cycle of commercial exploitation of our online relationships," he wrote in a Blog Post in April 2021. "Some of us feel taken advantage of."

Recently, with MobileCoind founder Josh Goldbard confirming the time to officially push Signal's new payment function to the international market, Nicholas Weave, a researcher at the Berkeley International Institute of Computer Science, also raised his own concerns that Signal's integration of cryptocurrency support is risky and may bring legal trouble to Signal. Similarly, cryptographer Bruce Schneier made a similar observation last year, "I think it's a very bad idea," he said.

epilogue

Marlinspike announced his departure from Signal, and some speculate that he and Twitter founder Jack left and focused on cryptocurrencies.

App Annie, a mobile app analytics company, has said that the demand for privacy-focused instant messaging apps has grown over the past few years as internet privacy protection has become a mainstream topic and users have spent more time on instant messaging apps than social media apps.

It can be seen that the explosion of Signal has its market demand behind it, however, the support for integrated cryptocurrencies may not only lose the user's goodwill accumulated before, but also may bring legal trouble to Signal, will the departure of Marlinspike change this situation?

Reference Links:

https://signal.org/blog/new-year-new-ceo/

https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/11/signal_ceo_moxie_marlinspike_resigns/