Re:Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cry...
by tsimionescu on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @12:33AM
(#26720630)
If that is their thinking, then they are quite naive. Comparing WeChat's success in tackling payments with a crypto-based attempt is laughable. WeChat is using real money, and it has explicit official endorsement by the state - an extremely powerful state at that in terms of internal control.
In contrast, any crypto-currency based solution will be inherently distrusted, and few if any states will endorse it. It is more likely to be actively discouraged by many states, and the crypto support may well end up as a pretext to ban Signal on economic rather than censorship grounds.
It is overall a disaster of an idea.
The counter argument would be seeing the success of WeChat in China and wanting to reproduce that success AND expecting that if they don't do it someone else will do it and take their market.
Whether that's true or not I don't know but if I believed it was true then your arguments wouldn't matter since I'd believe not doing it is an existential risk.