Signal quietly made its MobileCoin-based cryptocurrency payments feature available to all users globally in November 2021, after a UK beta test in the spring

Wired 2022-01-07 Andy Greenberg

Context & Ripple Effects

MobileCoin was built for this moment: Moxie Marlinspike's project raised $30M in BTC and ether back in 2018 specifically to make a cryptocurrency usable in resource-constrained environments, and Signal switched it on as an in-app payment rail for UK users on iOS and Android in spring 2021. By August, the token's parent had closed a $66M Series B at a $1.066B valuation with Signal's rollout as its flagship use case.

The November global expansion converts that single-country beta into Signal's default payments layer for all users — and lands just as rival messengers test the same territory: WhatsApp has been trialing QR-code money transfers in Android beta since 2018, and AT&T already accepts crypto bill payments through BitPay. Payments inside encrypted chat is no longer hypothetical; it is shipping.

First-order effects

Every Signal user worldwide can now send and receive MobileCoin inside end-to-end-encrypted conversations, making the messenger itself a wallet and giving MobileCoin instant distribution across Signal's entire base rather than one market.

Second-order effects

WhatsApp and other messaging incumbents face pressure to match native crypto payments or cede the encrypted-payments niche, while exchanges like Coinbase — which entered the UK with wallets years earlier — now compete against a wallet that ships pre-installed inside a chat app people already open daily.

Third-order effects

If messaging-native payments keep spreading, chat platforms become de facto financial rails, which positions privacy-first designs like Signal's against the regulatory scrutiny that inevitably follows consumer money movement — the same tension Meredith Whittaker later flags around agents and data access.

The trend: Messaging apps are absorbing cryptocurrency payments directly into encrypted chat, turning messengers into financial infrastructure.

Discussion

@agranato42 Andrew Granato on x
the privacy app that goes out of its way to tell everyone in your contacts that you've joined it has apparently decided to become a money laundering app https://twitter.com/...
@caseynewton Casey Newton on x
I wrote about Signal's highly risky move into untraceable payments, and the opening that could create for lawmakers who want to eliminate end-to-end encryption https://www.platformer.news/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@moltke Henrik Moltke on x
Can anyone explain the benefits of adding still more of these non-essential features to a private *messenger*? Is there any way these don't risk spoiling the core feature - private, encrypted communications - by adding code and thus attack surface? https://twitter.com/...
@tante @tante on x
Signal really putting the crypto in “what the fuck is wrong with you to deploy cryptocurrency into your app ... oh wait you just minted a bunch of shitcoins and now try to create value from some gullible fools you greedy bastards”. https://twitter.com/...
@friscojosh Josh No-coin Hermsmeyer on x
Still deeply dubious, but if anyone can get this right it's Moxie https://www.wired.com/...
@a_greenberg Andy Greenberg on x
In the spring of 2021 Signal began testing out payments via the privacy-focused cryptocurrency MobileCoin in the UK. Turns out that late last year, Signal quietly rolled out the feature to its 100+ million users worldwide. https://www.wired.com/...

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