Shower Thoughts

Why & how did Telegram become the de-facto messaging app for crypto/web3?

A big shocker to me after beginning to work on Paragraph full-time was how all-in everyone is on TG.

cma.xyz. Founder /paragraph, ceo /mirror, previously at Google & Coinbase 

Shocking to me too knowing how shady they’ve acted, and when actual crypto OGs like Marlinspike launched Open Whisper / Signal.

Generally I find that the crypto/web3 crowd isn’t as crypto(graphically) and privacy principled as I would have imagined them to be.

Aviator, diver, Etherean, nexialist, PhD in aviation and climate science, host of /diving /ethfinance /forteantimes /geopolitics /science /singapore /thomas

* higher rank in Tae Kwon Do than Vladimir Putin
* hobbies include trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty
* OSS contributor (I updated a README)

And when people say they prefer TG (including in this thread), it’s almost never because of Signal asking for a phone number. It’s because TG has funny stickers and a better UX than Discord… people generally don’t care [enough] about privacy IMHO

I’ve heard that argument before and agree with it (technical reasons aside). But on the other side, we have TG where comms literally transit in plain text over their server (unless you deliberately start a “Secret Chat”, which I never see anyone do)… Surely the greater evil is not the phone number here.

I like Signal (and donate to it), but the idea of handing out my phone number to strangers on the Internet is...a lot to ask.

I know Signal is testing out usernames, but they've not yet rolled out that feature to me, yet, at least.