SEC: we are going to fine Kik alot of money for unauthorized ICO
Facebook: hold my beer
Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut
141–150 of 345 posts
Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
So, there’s obvious benefits for FB. What are the benefits for users? Are people actually going to want to use this?
For users, the advantage would be an easy to use stable-coin, that is more accessible to the average person. Right now, most crypto currency has plenty of complexity to it. FacebookCoin will probably work more similarly to CashApp vs. Bitcoin.
It means most people using it won't even realize it's a Blockchain token. It'll be like "Facebook Bucks". But then it also offers the flexibility of a blockchain token to more advanced users (withdraw to your own wallet, send to an exchange, etc).
Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut
#143What is the best way to profit from all this crypto hype, as a rational person who’s convinced all coins will eventually go to zero?
You can go on deribit.com or bitmex.com and buy put options or sell future contracts.
Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut
#144I’m not sure how anyone has even the slightest trust in Facebook anymore.
Why is it that people still use the service? Is convenience really that powerful?
Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut
#145Can 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…
Have you transferred money across borders to an individual lately? As much as I want to criticize this FB is probably in an excellent position to navigate the kyc minefields.
Have you transferred money across borders with good recommendations lately?
Sending money across borders is historically super complex and expensive, you're right. The WorldBank estimates that it costs an average of 8% in total fees (transfer fees + exchange rate mark-up) to transfer money internationally.
For international transfers with banks and cash-based money transfers, this is still true.
But, in the last 10 years, we've seen hundreds of new online money transfer operators innovating in the field (way before crypto) starting with Xoom in the first wave and then TransferWise, Remitly, WorldRemit, InstaRem, Azimo and hundreds of others...
Sending $300 to Mexico to any agent location to pickup cash will cost you $2 with the cheapest option: https://www.monito.com/send-money/united-states/mexico/usd/m...
$1000 from Canada to a bank account in the Philippines in minutes? $6 https://www.monito.com/send-money/canada/philippines/cad/php...
etc...
These new innovative services are up to 10x cheapers than banks or traditional cash-based money transfers, often faster and much more convenient.
Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut
#146I 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.
A feature of cryptocurrencies like ethereum or bitcoin is they can be anonymous and unregulated which can make small transactions cheap. You can get an ethereum address and I can send you 10c worth of it for maybe 2c in costs and that's it. To do similar in fiat we each need financial institutions which may have to spend a fair bit each to do KYC on us. It remains to be seen where Facebook will fit on the regulated/unregulated spectrum. Somewhere between the two I imagine.
Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut
#147I 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.
What else would it be? Some in house software, mysql based currency system?
What is it about cryptocurrency that people still don't get?
Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut
#148Earlier 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.
It allows for a tiered system. Average users will use the token entirely within the Facebook ecosystem. Advanced users will have the ability to withdraw their tokens from Facebook's system and utilize them on other platforms.
Look at Paypal USD Balance. It's really just a "token" issued by PayPal, an IOU where 1 PaypalUSD = 1 USD Debt from Paypal. But PayPalUSD can only be used within Paypal.com. The only way to bring PayPalUSD outside of Paypal is to call in your debt to PayPal and withdraw the money to your bank.
PayPal has always said that their success relies on people holding PayPalUSD. People who keep their money in PayPalUSD are the ones making PayPal bank. First of all, it costs Paypal next to nothing if that user sends their PayPalUSD to another user. Yet they collect transaction fees. Furthermore, PayPal can throw this money into low-risk investments and earn 3-4% on it.
Facebook tokens are PayPalUSD 2.0. They can be used within the Facebook.com ecosystem. But on top of that, people can withdraw them and use them outside of Facebook.com. Basically, any website can start integrating these FacebookCoin. It means less people will need to cash out, and will instead keep their money in FacebookCoins.
Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut
#149I don’t think this will be particularly successful. We already have a variety of ways to send money. Yes Facebook is big, but so is, say, Apple and it’s Apple Pay functionality.
I don’t know what use case this solves that isn’t fairly competitive already although it will probably have a bitcoin style valuation bubble. It’s also sort of capped in its utility. If it overshadows national government currencies... the governments will be incentivized to block it. That was true of Bitcoin but it’s doubly true of Facebook. And Facebook has to abide by laws so it can’t just quietly work regardless of regulations like other crypto.
And what can I buy with this? If I need to convert to dollars, is an easy facecoin swap plus a facecoin to dollars swap really be more convenient?
Edit: on Apple Pay, I’m pretty sure you can send cash. But I don’t know, because I haven’t ever had the need to do this... which is I suppose my point.
Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, there’s obvious benefits for FB. What are the benefits for users? Are people actually going to want to use this?
For users, the advantage would be an easy to use stable-coin, that is more accessible to the average person. Right now, most crypto currency has plenty of complexity to it. FacebookCoin will probably work more similarly to CashApp vs. Bitcoin. It means most people using it won't even realize it's a Blockchain token. It'll be like "Facebook Bucks". But then it also offers the flexibility of a blockchain token to more…
This is the same reason why cryptocurrencies haven’t seen general adoption: none of that has any inherent value to someone who isn’t already a convert.
Things which would matter are “can transfer real money to a friend with less markup than Apple/Google/PayPal”, “can sell things online at better terms than PayPal”, “can make transactions at a low enough rate that a business model requiring micro-payments is viable”, etc.
Facebook has a few wrinkles where that could be interesting - micropayments for games and content in particular - but it’s unclear what a blockchain adds to that since you’re already centralized on a single massive company which negotiates on take-it-or-leave-it terms.