NEWS

Signal is testing a privacy-focused payments feature

Sushmit Mukherji

Apr 05,2024
2 min read
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1.1 thousand Views

#Signal

Signal, the privacy-focused messaging app gained quite a lot of popularity after WhatsApp's Privacy Policy update. The messaging app gained further traction when Tesla's Technoking, Elon Musk tweeted and encouraged users to "Use Signal".

Now, in an official blog post, Signal’s Head of Growth and Communications, Jun Harada has announced that it is testing a new digital payment feature, which lets users send and receive “privacy-focused payments” on Signal. Dubbed Signal Payments, the feature is available on the latest beta version. It is currently in its initial testing phase and supports only one payment network, the MobileCoin, a form of cryptocurrency.

“We want payments in Signal to be fast, private, and work well on mobile devices. The first payments protocol we’ve added support for is a privacy-focused payments network called MobileCoin, which has its own currency, MOB,” wrote Harada.

Signal users will be able to link their MobileCoin wallet with Signal and start sending and receiving MOB funds. The feature will also allow users to keep track of their MOB funds and transaction history within the app, making it effortless.

Apart from beta testers, the payments feature is only available for users in the UK at the moment. “This is a beta feature in a beta build, but for those in the United Kingdom living life on the edge, please help us test and give feedback,” added Harada.

Signal assured that it will expand the payments feature to users in other regions but did not mention anything about the public release. Stay tuned for further updates!