Question 1

What is MOB?

Accepted Answer

MOB is the native crypto asset of the MobileCoin payments network. The network is designed for privacy-conscious value transfers on mobile devices: the blockchain records the state of completed payments, while the transaction structure seeks not to expose the payer, recipient, or amount directly to observers. MOB is not an account balance at a company, nor does it represent a claim on company equity or a fixed fiat value; it is the unit of value transferred in the form of transaction outputs on the network.

Question 2

How does MobileCoin protect payment privacy?

Accepted Answer

MobileCoin transaction privacy is achieved by three mechanisms working together: one-time addresses hide the recipient, ring signatures mix the actual spent input into a set of possible inputs to hide the payer, and RingCT (Ring Confidential Transactions) hides the amount. They address the visibility of “who receives, who pays, and how much was paid,” respectively. This does not mean that all risks are eliminated. The project’s code repository states that, even if a known and unpatched vulnerability targeting an SGX enclave occurs, ring signatures, one-time addresses, and RingCT in the ledger still protect the relevant information, although attackers may still try to make statistical linkages through ring-signature inputs; after the vulnerability is fixed, the project describes this as having forward-secrecy properties.

Question 3

How is a MOB payment completed on-chain and protected against double spending?

Accepted Answer

A MOB payment consumes existing unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) and creates new transaction outputs for the recipient and a change address. Each output corresponds to a unique key image; once an output is spent, that key image is permanently recorded on-chain, so the same output cannot be used again as a valid input. The user first constructs the transaction locally on their device and then submits it to the secure enclave of a validator node they select. After verification, the node propagates the transaction to the network; only after consensus records it in the ledger do the new outputs become part of the network record. This process separates “control of ownership” from “double-spend prevention”: control of an output depends on a private key, while double-spend checks depend on recorded key images.

Question 4

How does MobileCoin confirm transactions, and what does SGX do?

Accepted Answer

Validator nodes in MobileCoin run the MobileCoin Consensus Protocol to establish an agreed order for valid transactions and confirm new blocks through Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT). Validators first check whether a transaction attempts to create value fraudulently, then participate in state-machine replication that writes valid transactions to the ledger. Validator enclaves on the network use remote attestation to confirm that a peer enclave is running unmodified MobileCoin software and is located on a genuine Intel processor; only peer enclaves that can complete that verification participate in this communication path. SGX is a defense-in-depth component for consensus and privacy here, rather than a mechanism that leaves transaction validity entirely to one node alone.

Question 5

What is the difference between a validator node and a watcher node?

Accepted Answer

Running a validator node and running a watcher node are not the same type of participation. Validator nodes validate new transactions and take part in consensus; according to the project’s mainnet guide, joining the mainnet as a validator requires a machine or cloud server with SGX capability. A watcher node does not participate in producing consensus results. Instead, it verifies the signatures that full validators attach to each block, maintains a full copy of the chain, and provides APIs to wallet or exchange clients. The project states that a watcher can run mobilecoind and does not require Intel SGX; therefore, being able to run a watcher does not mean being able to join validator consensus.

Question 6

What are MOB’s total amount and smallest unit?

Accepted Answer

The project code repository’s network overview sets the MobileCoin network’s total amount at 250,000,000 MOB; 1 MOB can be divided into 10^12 indivisible picomob. Each on-chain UTXO is represented as an integer number of picomob, so payment amounts are measured in that smallest unit. This total-amount convention answers the network-level upper limit of measurement. It should not be confused with circulating supply at a given time, the quantity tradable on an exchange, or the distribution of holdings; each of those requires its own verifiable data to assess.

Question 7

How does Fog let a mobile wallet use MOB privately without downloading the full ledger?

Accepted Answer

Fog is a suite of private services designed for using MobileCoin on mobile devices. It lets wallets find incoming payments, check balances, and construct new transactions without downloading and synchronizing the full blockchain, while seeking not to give the Fog operator nontrivial information about a user’s payment activity. This is because ordinary light-wallet queries can reveal balances, receipt times, or transaction relationships. Fog processes sensitive queries through SGX enclaves and Oblivious RAM: the ingest service performs private post-processing of blockchain outputs, the view service delivers a user’s outputs to that user, and the ledger service supplies materials such as rings, Merkle proofs, and key images needed to construct transactions. Fog can be deployed by an application provider and is not a single decentralized network; the user’s privacy model relies on the integrity of SGX rather than requiring complete trust in the service operator.

Question 8

What keys are required to receive and control MOB?

Accepted Answer

Controlling a MOB output requires two private keys: the spend private key transfers value, and the view private key finds outputs that belong to you; most users can derive both keys from the same root entropy. The recipient provides the corresponding public information to the payer so that the payer can construct a payment output. Therefore, possessing or backing up the root entropy that can derive these keys is tied to the ability to control assets and discover incoming payments. In MobileCoin’s design, transaction outputs themselves are on-chain state; private keys are not written to the blockchain, but are used to prove control and identify outputs that belong to you.

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