MobileCoin

Market position

MobileCoin is one of a set of privacy- and payments-tagged cryptocurrencies; market-data pages tag it under "privacy" and "payments" and rank MOB around #733 by market capitalization, with a market cap near $16.3M and a price roughly 99.9% below its April 2021 all-time high of $73.45. MOB is not tradable on Coinbase and, per 2021 reporting, was not listed on U.S. exchanges, trading instead on venues such as Bitfinex, BigONE and HotBit.

The company emphasizes transaction privacy (payments encrypted end-to-end and kept off the public ledger), self-custody, very low fees, near-instant settlement, mobile-first usability including phone-number-based onboarding without a bank account, and lower energy consumption than proof-of-work chains, with claims of being among the first negative-carbon cryptocurrencies in its niche. eUSD is differentiated as a stablecoin backed by a mix of other stablecoins rather than a single reserve asset.

Technology

MobileCoin is a one-dimensional blockchain written in Rust and licensed under GPLv3. Consensus uses the MobileCoin Consensus Protocol, derived from the Stellar Consensus Protocol / federated byzantine agreement, which the company argues requires less energy than proof-of-work. Privacy is derived from Monero and CryptoNote techniques: Schnorr-style multilayered linkable ring signatures, Merkle proofs of membership for inputs, amounts concealed with Pedersen commitments and validated by non-interactive zero-knowledge range proofs, and amounts communicated to recipients via ECDH. Transactions are validated in Intel SGX secure enclaves. Users recover wallets with a recovery PIN. The Sentz app applies end-to-end encryption so payments remain off the public ledger.

Go-to-market

Distribution is via the consumer Sentz mobile app, downloaded directly and onboarded with a phone number and email. Historically the strategy centered on embedding the currency in third-party messaging apps — Signal and Mixin Messenger integrated MobileCoin for peer-to-peer payments — and the current approach emphasizes country-specific product rollouts (Sentz Earn in Nigeria) and partner integrations.

Consumers making cross-border peer-to-peer transfers without a bank account, and freelancers who invoice international clients and want to be paid in stablecoins and withdraw to a local bank account. Marketing testimonials on the site focus on Nigerian freelancers and knowledge workers. Historically the token targeted users of encrypted messaging apps such as Signal and Mixin Messenger.

Geography

Headquartered in San Francisco, California. The Sentz app is stated to be available in 180 countries subject to local regulations, with 141 countries reached; Sentz Earn is available to Nigerian customers. At launch, the MobileCoin Foundation said the project was not available to U.S. users or persons in other prohibited jurisdictions, and Signal's payments feature initially launched only in the UK.

History

After its 2017 founding, MobileCoin disclosed a $29.7 million financing in May 2018 in an SEC filing, reportedly led by Binance Labs in exchange for 37.5 million tokens. The network launched in December 2020 and MOB began trading on FTX. In March 2021 the company raised $11.35 million in Series A funding from General Catalyst and Future Ventures, followed in August 2021 by a $66 million all-equity Series B that CEO Goldbard said valued the company at $1.066 billion and brought total funding to $107 million. Signal added MobileCoin payments in April 2021, initially for UK users. Bob Lee, former CTO of Square, joined as Chief Product Officer in December 2021 and was murdered in 2023. Board and foundation appointments included Renée DiResta (July 2020), Alex Feerst (August 2020), Steve Jurvetson and Todd Huffman (January 2023). A company post dated September 2023 announced a new CEO. The company subsequently repositioned around the Sentz app and the eUSD stablecoin.

Risks & controversies

Signal's integration of MobileCoin drew criticism, including from security expert Bruce Schneier, who argued it would bloat the app and attract regulatory attention. MobileCoin was linked to FTX's collapse: after Alameda Research invested in the Series B, a trader bought a large amount of MOB on FTX, drove up the price and borrowed against it, forcing FTX to buy out the position and incur losses reported as large as $1 billion, absorbed via an Alameda loan. In a separate matter, a 2017 sale of 97,165 MOB tokens by employee Dustin Boyer to investor Pamela Day resulted in litigation filed in 2019 and resolved in Day's favor in 2020. Regulatory exposure is significant: the token has not been listed on U.S. exchanges, the project excluded U.S. users at launch, and comparable messaging-app currencies (Kik's Kin, Telegram's TON) faced SEC action. Token price has fallen roughly 99.9% from its 2021 peak, and reported liquidity is thin. Storing value on a phone carries device-compromise risk.