I've been thinking about ProtonMail's new crypto wallet, and I'm seeing both pros and cons here. On one hand, I'm a bit disappointed it's not launching with privacy features like Lightning Network, CoinJoins, or silent payments. That seems like a missed opportunity, especially for a privacy-focused service. But I can't deny the potential upside - this could expose a lot of privacy-minded folks to crypto who might not have dabbled in it otherwise. It's kind of a trade-off, right? We're sacrificing some advanced privacy tech for the sake of broader adoption. I'm hoping this might actually create more demand for those privacy features down the line as more people get involved and start to understand why they matter.
If you listen to the interview, Andy Yen mentions that the issue is law and regulation, they have 100 million customers and a product that sells well, their lawyers in USA have been quite clear, with them, they can't implement any privacy feature that is not transparently legal in USA... Not only that, he goes further to explain that in Switzerland they have regulations that require some sort of auditing periodically and the fact that they accept Bitcoin as a form of payment is a deterrent for the biggest and most important auditors to agree to do work with them.