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Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

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Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#81

Post by awrence »

omarchowdhury wrote: post #79
awrence wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On paper, you're basically entirely right. Stablecoins including FB are all smokescreens to sell managing fiat on an internal database for you with "blockchain" wrapped around it. This project and stablecoins in general have nothing to do with cryptocurrencies. With that said i can tell you at least one solid reason why any issuer would do it. At a bare minimum they can earn overnight on the holdings since stablecoin…

> But to take an example, at this point tether is generating 75mm a year for free for it owners at 0 risk. Tether has got hundreds of millions of dollars worth of funds seized from their banks.

True. But they still 2-3 billion working for them for free. And then that's a specific example where they went and made poor choices with their funds etc. On paper if all you do is create a "stablecoin" and segregate funds in an interest bearing account and don't touch them then its free running interest to you.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#82

Post by omarchowdhury »

koolba wrote: post #15

I think the angle here is international blockchain Venmo with a goal to convince the non-destitute Facebook holdouts to finally sign up so that they can commerce. For the record I doubt that will work. The early adopters will be scammers and people duped into thinking this is their get rich quick opportunity.

> The early adopters will be scammers and people duped into thinking this is their get rich quick opportunity.

It's a stablecoin. There's no get rich opportunity.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#83

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

> It could be used to offer low or no-fee payments between friends or remittance of earnings to familys from migrant workers abroad who are often gouged by money transfer services.

Doesn’t Transferwise already fill this niche? These days you can send several hundred dollars to and from the US for around $2-4 in fees, whereas the fees used to be $40-60 from traditional banks or Western Union.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#84

Post by granaldo »

wz1000 wrote: post #6

Can anyone explain what the point of a pegged cryptocurrency is? Since you are dependent on the issuing entity to honour the stated peg, why not just have your balance be an entry in a regular database maintained by that entity? What exactly does the blockchain gain you here? One thing it does _not_ get you is censorship resistance. If the central authority wants to take away coins from a wallet, all it needs to do i…

somehow there seem to be many roll outs of stable coins of late.. the infamous Tether, DAI by Maker, USDC by Circle, GUSD by Gemini, TUSD and countless more https://www.coingecko.com/en?category_id=36&view=market

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#85

Post by granaldo »

kolinko wrote: post #18

A few points: - some pegged currencies are still decentralised (e.g. MakerDAO) - they rely solely on smart contracts - even with a centralised peg, you have to trust an organisation to keep the collateral, but the contract can state that anyone can move the funds around, so the managing organisation cannot just remove funds at will Also, compared to a centralised database, you have an interoperability aspect - if it'…

they are struggling to keep the peg. indeed how much magic central banks are using to maintain a stable currency

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#86

Post by wcoenen »

literallycancer wrote: post #71
wcoenen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was to move money between trading accounts. I don't think these new nimble "mobile" banks offer stock trading accounts just yet. edit : also, those banks are UK ones. I'm not inclined to open accounts there with Brexit going on. Foreign accounts are also a pain for tax admin.

Where do you live that you have to report you own foreign accounts? Asking companies to report them might be justified, but individuals?

Belgium. https://finances.belgium.be/fr/comptes-%c3%a0-l%e2%80%99%c3%...

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#87

Post by vcavallo »

mihaifm wrote: post #66
vcavallo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why couldn’t they delete everything but your trade data?

At the minimum they'd need to store your name and address, probably birthdate too. It would just complicate the whole process of leaving Facebook.

so they’d delete everything but that. the rest of the leaving process would be the same (I recently did it myself, it wasn’t too bad, but more annoying than I’d like).

don’t get me wrong, i’m no fan of facebook and their data practices, but i don’t agree with what you said above.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#88

Post by cs702 »

Ultimately, the goal seems to be "one currency to rule them all." The peg may prove necessary only initially, to gain confidence.

Unlike most other currencies, Facebook's new currency will be readily available to and easily usable by virtually everyone everywhere, and it will likely have very low transaction costs -- much lower than those of most financial intermediaries. You will be able to use it as easily from New York as from Timbuktu, bypassing the inefficiencies and high fees of the legacy financial system.

Why use traditional nation-backed money when you can click a button on your phone instead?

Facebook seems to be gradually morphing into a sort of planet-wide nation.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#89

Post by trophycase »

mbrock wrote: post #56
hocuspocus wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SWIFT transfers aren't particularly slow or expensive these days. I use TransferWise but it's not cheaper in all cases.

It totally depends on the source and destination of the transfer. My girlfriend's small art house cinema recently transferred money to pay a filmmaker for festival participation and the correspondent bank fee was something like 60 euros on a 100 euro transfer.

Just use Bitcoin? I mean I know people give it a lot of shit for some reason, but this is a perfect usecase for it.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#90

Post by lexapro »

floor_ wrote: post #65

I find it funny that bitcoin fails to do what it was created to do and that people are so invested in it they can't change it or let it die. You can't buy a cup of coffee without paying large confirmation fees or delaying the transaction for day to weeks. There was talk about decentralizing smaller transactions to ease up on that but that defeats the whole purpose of bitcoin.

With https://lightning.network you can.
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