Developer of chat app Signal is working on cryptocurrency aimed at smartphones

Moxie Marlinspike, developer of the secure chat app Signal, is collaborating with others on a new cryptocurrency called MobileCoin. It should focus on usability, especially on mobile devices.

According to Wired, Marlinspike has been involved in the development of the project for four months. “I think usability is one of the biggest challenges with crypto today. The innovations I want to see are those that allow the currency to be used in normal environments, without sacrificing the properties that distinguish cryptocurrencies from regular currencies,” said Marlinspike . The team behind the project recently published a concise whitepaper with more information.

In it, the authors write that mobile devices typically have trouble synchronizing a blockchain of several gigabytes and that minutes-long transaction times are unacceptable in normal use. In addition, users would often be unable to keep their secret keys safe for long periods of time.

MobileCoin uses consensus protocol Stellar, which is currently used for exchanging money. All the ‘heavy work’, such as tracking and processing transactions, is done by nodes and not by the mobile devices themselves. They run in a secure enclave of processors with SGX. That’s a feature of Intel CPUs, also called Software Guard Extensions. Intel made this functionality part of its architecture in 2013 to provide the ability to create protected software containers. As a result, a node owner may not be able to see what is going on inside it.

Ultimately, MobileCoin users should be able to install an app and secure it with a four-digit pin. This allows them to quickly make payments via chat apps such as WhatsApp and Signal. Key management is performed by the nodes. Marlinspike also recently applied the use of SGX to a function of Signal.