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Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

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Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#151
post #138

What 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?

A rational person would observe that something with no intrinsic value could very well be overpriced far longer than you can afford to short.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#152

I’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?

I use Facebook. Is there any way they can harm me as a result apart from maybe trying to show adverts which I don't see. (I use uBlock and fbpurity).

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#153
post #77
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…

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…

> This project and stablecoins in general have nothing to do with cryptocurrencies.

I would disagree, using a central authority to sign transactions and exchange crypto back to fiat is fine, but the real power of a cryptocurrency is the ability to generate wallets and create transactions without having to register a profile with a central authority. Whether facebook allows that or not would really determine whether they are a cryptocurrency or just a normal bank.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#154

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.

Two things I can think of:

- you can get transparency (the entire ledger must be public, so you reduce the risk of many kids of internal fraud and manipulation.)

- you can use these coins outside the facebook ecosystem -- I can't think of immediate value here, but I can see a long play where Facebook can turn into a bank

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#155
post #138

What 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?

Ironically it may be to buy something like bitcoin and sell when it goes up. Reasoning: a) there are obviously hype believers who will buy and push the price up when optimistic and b) they tend not to sell being believers whereas as a skeptic you can.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#156
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…

But that doesn't really answer the question being asked. If the cryptocurrency is completely controlled by a centralized authority who has absolute rights over the system, why bother with the technical and cognitive hurdles of using a blockchain? A standard ledger in a centralized database is more than adequate for that task, and much easier to maintain.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#157

I’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?

Society is addicted. Many people even consider Facebook so vital to everyday life that they believe access to Facebook is a right that the government should guarantee to its citizens. This is a cultural problem that is difficult to tackle, but I think it'll require a cultural shift before people realize that Facebook is just a website that they don't have to use.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#158
Payment system built into Facebook will be incredibly successful. Most small businesses don't even bother with a website, nowadays a Facebook group and Instagram account is enough - so it's only natural to process payments there as well.

However, it is not going to damage Bitcoin in any way. Main use case for Bitcoin is buying drugs. No one is going to be paying for drugs with a currency tied to their real-world identity.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#159
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also allows for the possibility of selling at discounted rates for volume. $1 for 4 tokens, but $10 gets you 50 instead of 40. There is _some_ inherent value in this. Decoupling the currency rate from a unit of time play provides an entrypoint for the store to incorporate value models that aren't captured by currency alone. In the volume discount case, this allows them to incorporate fixed overhead models into the…

Plus the regulatory checks can be limited to cashing out and converting the coins to fiat. Instead of within each geographic or existing regulatory boundary within the network.

Is that actually true?

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#160

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.

Cryptocurrencies are trustless in principle. You don’t have to trust that FB updated your balance in their database correctly or tampered with historical data when you can simply pull all the transaction history from the blockchain and verify for yourself and with peers from the network.
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