Jack Dorsey, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and former Twitter CEO, is encouraging Signal Messenger to integrate Bitcoin for peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, a move that could shift the platform’s crypto strategy away from altcoins.
“Signal should use Bitcoin for P2P payments,” Dorsey wrote on X on April 9, replying to a post by Bitcoin developer Calle, who suggested that Bitcoin (BTC) would be a perfect fit for Signal’s private communication channel.
Source: Jack Dorsey
Dorsey’s call to action was echoed by other industry leaders, including former PayPal president David Marcus, who wrote that “all non-transactional apps should connect to Bitcoin.”
The endorsements reflect a growing push to promote Bitcoin as a functional payment system rather than just digital gold or a pure store of value, which alone — according to Dorsey — won’t ensure the success of BTC.
Signal offers payments with Sentz, formerly MobileCoin
Founded in 2014, Signal is an open-source, encrypted messaging service for instant messaging, voice calls and video calls.
The messenger currently offers in-app payments in MobileCoin (MTCN), a privacy-focused ERC-20 token, which rebranded to Sentz in November 2023.
Signal’s website mentions the old name of Sentz (MobileCoin) as the only supported cryptocurrency within the messenger. Source: Signal
Backed by high-profile industry players like BlockTower Capital and Coinbase Ventures, Sentz was founded in 2017 by Josh Goldbard and Shane Glyn to enable a “fast, private, and easy-to-use cryptocurrency.”
Related: Kraken taps Mastercard to launch crypto debit cards in Europe, UK
Signal came under fire over its MobileCoin integration in 2021, with many raising concerns over potential ties between Signal’s founder and MTCN, opacity around its issuance and suspicious gains leading up to the partnership’s announcement.
Cointelegraph reached out to Signal regarding potential plans to integrate Bitcoin but had not received a response as of publication.
Social media apps historically pushed altcoins
Signal is far from being alone in pushing altcoin payments instead of offering its users payments in Bitcoin, which is designed for P2P payments as its core use case, according to its anonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Although former PayPal president Marcus is now advocating for Bitcoin usage by all non-transactional apps, he previously led Meta’s (formerly Facebook) project developing the firm’s own payment cryptocurrency, initially known as Libra, which eventually failed.
Source: DogeDesigner
Telegram, another messenger popular in the community, has also been aggressively pushing its ecosystem to use Toncoin (TON), a crypto asset linked to Telegram founders, though not technically managed by Telegram.
Elon Musk’s “everything app” X has also been suspected of planning to launch its own coin for a long time, but Musk publicly denied that in August 2023.
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