Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 345 posts

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#131

Post by CydeWeys »

mc32 wrote: post #102
will_brown wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can anyone explain what the point of a pegged cryptocurrency is? What was the point of arcades taking your quarters and issuing you tokens for the machines? Why not just allow the machines to take your quarters? The idea is for the issuer to take real money from you and issue you Monopoly money which the issuer can track and control. In a worst case scenario the issuer can make up new rules (change their terms and c…

And importantly the tokens can be unilaterally devalued without having to change the slots or recalibrate. So instead of 25¢ and next step being 50¢ if using the same config, they can charge you 27, or 48 or 50¢ for the token and not have to reconfigure the machine one bit.

And they also make money in seignorage (profit in undredeemed tokens). The tokens cost 25 cents to buy but certainly don't cost 25 cents to make, so that delta is profit. A lot of tokens are "saved for next time" but next time never comes, and then you discover those tokens in a drawer somewhere a decade later long after they're no longer spendable.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#132

Post by JudgeWapner »

will_brown wrote: post #99
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…

>Can anyone explain what the point of a pegged cryptocurrency is? What was the point of arcades taking your quarters and issuing you tokens for the machines? Why not just allow the machines to take your quarters? The idea is for the issuer to take real money from you and issue you Monopoly money which the issuer can track and control. In a worst case scenario the issuer can make up new rules (change their terms and c…

don't forget, they can "get hacked", and, "whelp, it's over guys. we promise to do whatever we can to recover the lost coins. the case has been turned over to law enforcement. We won't give up hope that someday they may be able to recover something."

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#135

Post by will_brown »

bduerst wrote: post #109
will_brown wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can anyone explain what the point of a pegged cryptocurrency is? What was the point of arcades taking your quarters and issuing you tokens for the machines? Why not just allow the machines to take your quarters? The idea is for the issuer to take real money from you and issue you Monopoly money which the issuer can track and control. In a worst case scenario the issuer can make up new rules (change their terms and c…

As many mobile app games have shown, you don't need a cryptocurrency to achieve this, just some arbitrary point system. I think GP was asking, "Why Cryptocurrency?" since the benefits of blockchain don't really translate to this system.

Like most existing Blockchain projects, maybe no benefit over database to the users...but I don’t think it’s fair to say without knowing the actual use case/function/purpose of the token, so probably have to wait for the release of the whitepaper to form an opinion.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#136

Post by negamax »

fullshark wrote: post #126
negamax wrote: post #118

I will revisit this thread in 2021 just to see how wrong everyone was. FB has billions of users that interact with its product everyday. People who make plans, attend events, split all sort of bills. A borderless stablecoin will be a gamechanger. It can fuel commerce but above that it will kill many middlemen and rightly so.

A payments system on Facebook makes a ton of sense and would be very useful. I just don't get why it has to be cryptocurrency.

Biggest benefit of using blockchain and cryptocurrency here is open trust (this term is the best way I can think about describing this). Any internal database is subject to all kind of human and technical errors. But with a network of trusted parties that solves the Byzantine Generals Problem. This becomes secure and trusted as trust is given. No one can hack it at will without taking the 50% of the network down and compromising multiple entities. This is a bizarre technical, social and economic feat. I wish Apple was the one pulling this instead of FB. But quite certainly there are more FB users than iPhone users.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#140

Post by tim333 »

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…

The main use so far has been to allow crypto exchanges to let you trade between cyptocurrencies and dollar equivalents without getting involved with banking regulations or banks. If you set up a crypto exchange doing say bitcoin - usdt, it's basically just software you can upload without needing accounts, licenses etc assuming the owners are nominally not in regulated countries.
Post reply on HN