As people all over the globe have become increasingly aware of their privacy rights and how they are constantly being violated by various prominent social media platforms, the need for tangible, decentralized alternatives has continued to grow rapidly. For perspective, in 2019, Facebook was ordered to pay a mind-boggling $5-billion fine by the United States Federal Trade Commission for improperly acquiring private data of up to 87 million of its users. Just a year later, the social media giant had to shell out another $550 million to settle a privacy lawsuit that suggested that the firm had illegally accrued customer …

The team behind the popular blockchain explorer and analytics platform Etherscan has launched an Ethereum-based wallet-to-wallet instant messaging service dubbed “Blockscan Chat.” Blockscan is currently in beta testing mode, and it currently enables users to engage in an instant wallet-to-wallet chat, access chats from multiple devices, block spammy or unwanted addresses and get notified on the block explorer when a message has been received. While the new feature is a great way to talk to other anons — say to negotiate an anonymous purchase — it might come in particularly handy for dealing with whitehat hackers, who have often left …

Citron’s announcement of the upcoming Ethereum (ETH) blockchain integration came as a reply to a tweet from Packy McCormick, founder of Not Boring, sharing an article that read: Instant messaging platform Discord may soon launch support for MetaMask and WalletConnect integrations, as evidenced by a pre-release screenshot shared by the CEO Jason Citron. However, a portion of the Discord community raised concerns about the update while threatening to cancel their Nitro subscriptions. “Imagine a human website. Imagine a place where dank memes flow like honey. Imagine a place where potatoes thrive. Imagine a place where humans and bots live in …

Ethereum-based project Status has started an incentivization program for node operators around its decentralized peer-to-peer messaging protocol, Waku. In an announcement on Tuesday, Status said it would be rolling out the first phase of a program to encourage people to set up and run nodes used by Waku, a private messenger based on the Whisper protocol. The project said it planned to offer up to $100 worth in its native token, SNT, to 100 people participating in a three-month program. The Status team forked Whisper to create Waku in 2019. The protocol uses community-owned and -operated nodes to route messages …

Privacy-focused messenger app Signal has posted early user feedback from the United Kingdom-based beta launch of its payments integration with MobileCoin’s MOB token. A blog post by Signal head of growth and communication Jun Harada revealed the top four user complaints about its new cryptocurrency integration so far — with a major complaint from many users about the entire concept itself because “cryptocurrency is the worst.” He reassured such users it was an optional feature. Signal announced on April 6 that it’s aiming to extend its privacy protection features to payments in an attempt to replicate the success of PayPal-owned …

Make Sense Labs, a decentralized application firm backed by venture capitalist Tim Draper, now allows users of its social messaging app to earn rewards in crypto. According to an announcement from Make Sense, the technology company launched the crypto rewards feature on Monday on its Sense Chat app first developed in 2018. The app reportedly allows users to earn the company’s native SENSE tokens by interacting with others online, subscribing to different channels, inviting new users and creating message threads. Crystal Rose Pierce, CEO of Make Sense and wife of controversial crypto figure Brock Pierce, said the project was created …

Users of major privacy-oriented messaging app Signal can now support the project with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC). Signal officially announced Monday that the platform has started accepting crypto donations as a form of support for the Signal Technology Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind the app. “As a nonprofit organization, we depend on your support. If you've been patiently waiting for Signal to accept cryptocurrency donations, you no longer need to hodl back your generosity,” Signal wrote. Cryptocurrency donations are now part of Signal’s “Donate” section on its official website, specifying that the new feature is enabled via major crypto donations …

Signal is reportedly under attack from Iranian authorities as interest is surging amid speculation the government already has access to users’ information on other popular messaging apps. According to Al Jazeera, many users of the privacy-focused messaging app in Iran have reported being unable to connect since Signal took the top position at the Google Play Store in the country this month. The app has already been removed from Iranian app stores Cafe Bazaar and Myket. In a tweet, Signal claimed it was “#1 on the Iranian government's block list” and working to get around the country’s attempts at censorship. …

Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation, is warning Americans about the narrative coming from media outlets reporting on crypto and other privacy tools. In an article for Time Magazine published today, Gladstein said that many news outlets covering stories about privacy-focused messaging app Signal or Bitcoin (BTC) tended to associate them with terrorists or criminal organizations. The Human Rights Foundation exec pushed back on narratives which paint privacy and self-sovereignty in a negative light, saying the next fight would be moving into money — in this case, cryptocurrencies. “Authorities will blame extremism not just on Signal …

Pavel Durov, CEO of the popular encrypted messaging platform, Telegram, has denied reports that the firm is preparing to sell the company after the failure of Telegram’s blockchain project. According to an Aug. 5 report by local tech publication iXBT, Russia’s internet company Mail.ru is one of the parties interested in acquiring Telegram. Another is an as yet unidentified Russian billionaire. The information was reportedly shared by Russia-based trader and analyst, Kirill Promzin. As reported by iXBT, Promzin predicted Bitcoin’s 2017 bull run back in 2012, even calling the asset’s eventual high of $20,000. Shortly after the iXBT’s report was …

Telegram, a major privacy-focused messaging app, has suffered a data leak that exposed some personal data of its users on the darknet. A database containing the personal data of millions of Telegram users has been posted on a darknet forum. The issue was first reported by Russian-language tech publication Kod.ru on Tuesday. According to the report, the database contains phone numbers and unique Telegram user IDs. It remains unclear exactly how many users' data was leaked while the database file is about 900 megabytes. About 40% of entries in the database should be relevant Telegram has reportedly acknowledged the existence …

Russia’s decision to lift its two-year Telegram ban is going to mark the beginning of a broader movement to protect privacy-focused apps like Telegram, the company’s CEO says. Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of Telegram, issued a statement in response to Russian authorities officially terminating the ban on the messaging app in the country last week. Telegram’s progress in Russia to help other countries In a June 21 Telegram post, Durov said that the company will not rest on its laurels, and is planning more efforts to support Telegram in other countries like China and Iran. According to Durov, the …