Comment on Proton Wallet Review: Is Proton Losing Touch? - Privacy Guides

shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Exactly. If Proton does anything with cryptocurrency, it should use one of the privacy coins, and Monero is probably the best option here. Here’s how I would’ve rolled it out:

  1. accept Monero w/ a discount directly as payment for Proton - I might have picked Proton over Tuta for this
  2. add Monero payments to Proton Pass
  3. integrate 2 into existing products (e.g. send money to trusted contact, pool money for events in calendar, etc)
  4. add other cryptocurrencies (e.g. Bitcoin and ETH) and payment networks (e.g. Lightning)

  But no, they instead did:

  1. accept Bitcoin as payment for Proton
  2. release Bitcoin wallet
  3. ??

  At least it’s non-custodial, but that raises more questions because if it’s non-custodial, I presumably already have another wallet anyway. The wallet doesn’t add anything directly useful.

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  • asap@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The wallet doesn’t add anything directly useful.

    It adds a couple of things which can be useful:

    1. You have a single receive email, but it’s associated with a full HD wallet, so every receive will generate a brand new unused address for the sender. As the email is static, you could for example post it for donations and not have to worry about people being able to track anything you’ve received.

    2. They have support which you can contact, which while almost certainly isn’t important for you, for your aunty it might be useful.

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    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      1. This seems to only work between Proton accounts, so I doubt many would actually do that. And it seems they’re using the regular BTC network, not Lightning, so fees are going to be huge ($1.60 from their screenshots). Monero solves this way better since there’s no way to see someone else’s balance with their address, and transactions are pretty cheap (a few cents). Their solution doesn’t actually add privacy, it just obfuscates transactions a bit. Lightning does a much better job w/ privacy (it’s private until you close the channel) and costs (transactions are way cheaper and way faster than regular BTC), and it would be the ideal solution to this problem since it still uses BTC.
      2. Sure, but aunty is highly unlikely to be using Proton, much less Bitcoin. It’s a service for enthusiasts. Support is absolutely important though, I just don’t think aunty is likely to be sending crypto over Proton.

      I still don’t really see who this is for. The requirements to actually using it productively is that your contacts need to also have Proton. If most of your contacts use Proton, that means you’re probably running a business or something and thus don’t need to send BTC to eachother.

      Focusing on regular users makes way more sense than focusing on these niche use-cases. Make it so I can easily use cryptocurrencies for online payments. Integration with Proton Pass makes way more sense than integrating with email.

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      • asap@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Oh I agree with you. I am a daily crypto user and I have no use for this wallet. I was just offering some things it adds which might be useful.

        Lightning is a big missed opportunity. Phoenix is the only wallet I know that has solved this in a user-friendly way.

        (I did also mention that it only works between Proton accounts.)

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