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Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

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Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#291

Post by dalyons »

013a wrote: post #283
baby wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying that yet Monzo and Revolut (the cool iOS apps you're mentioning) are killing the banking system already in Europe/UK.

"Killing" is a pretty funny word to use. Everything is easy when you're small. Look at Simple in the US; they have an awesome iOS app, a few interesting features, they gained customers, became more popular, and... feature development stopped. Their pace of externally-facing innovation has DRAMATICALLY slowed over the past three years. They've done automated expense allocating w/ recurring goals, family accounts, and…

Simple got acquired by BBVA(a giant 150 yrold banking conglomerate) in 2014. That’s my guess as to why they’ve stopped innovating, it’s a tale as old as acquisitions have existed. Also, they got acquired because they had no profitable business model.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#292

Post by pmorici »

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…

Is Facebook going to get a banking license? If not this lets them offer bank like services while holding everyone's deposits and making money off the interest.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#293

Post by HALtheWise »

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…

I think the primary value from having a public hash chain in this case is that Facebook can't really do malicious things secretly. If they were to perform the procedure you describe, it would require very publicly listing all the accounts they are devaluing, and it isn't actually obvious that the impact on the value of the coins in those accounts would be significant. The value of the USD didn't instantly drop when it stopped being backed by the gold standard, and a coin that Facebook refuse to trade for cash would just be a "fiat" version of the currency, which could definitely retain value.

Today, when PayPal or Patreon shuts down an account, we only find out if that person complains and anybody pays attention. I imagine creators might prefer a platform that doesn't have obvious ways to easily shut them down, and where Facebook can claim to a court that doing so requires fundamentally compromising the security of the system.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#295

Post by stale2002 »

olalonde wrote: post #271
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…

Funny how 90% of the commenters seem to totally miss parent's point. We get why a pegged digital currency is useful, just not why it has to be a "blockchain". A pegged "cryptocurrency" can just be designed as a centralized service (e.g. a REST API backed by a traditional database) without losing any of its properties. The "crypto" and "blockchain" bits are marketing. A good rule of thumb is this: could someone have c…

A "Blockchain" is merely a public database. That's it.

Git is a Blockchain. Do you think that git is useless?

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#296

Post by dbt00 »

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…

The point was to reduce the opportunity for insider cash theft while servicing machines?

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#297

Post by stale2002 »

elliekelly wrote: post #106
peteretep wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you transferred money across borders to an individual lately? Yes, frequently. Using TransferWise or FairFx, depending on where the recipient was, but inclusive of Thailand, USA, Ecuador, and Canada. The process was entirely painless, fast, and the transfer was cheap as chips, while bringing to bear the full weight of European bank regulations to protect me as a customer.

> The process was entirely painless, fast, and the transfer was cheap as chips, while bringing to bear the full weight of European bank regulations to protect me as a customer. I wish more people on HN would understand the importance of this. I've said it here before but I think it's worth repeating. Banks want to send your money internationally and, as you've said, are more than capable of sending your money quickly…

Ok, well what if I want to send money cheaply? Lol, it seems like that is a good usecase....

I don't care about the reason that banks have for sabotaging their own service. That is not my problem.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#299

Post by stale2002 »

wz1000 wrote: post #29
mbrock wrote: post #23

Facebook's blockchain will most likely be a consortium of corporate validators. In this case you could say that the blockchain is "just" a normal distributed append-only hash-linked ledger with public verifiable records, but nowadays the more concise term for that is "blockchain."

Every git repository counts as a blockchain by that definition.

Yes! They are!

Git repos are absolutely Blockchains!

People don't understand how simple the concept of Blockchain is.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#300

Post by stale2002 »

wz1000 wrote: post #50
mbrock wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed you could even think of them as embodying the "proof of work" principle in that you naturally look for the branch with the most work done to find the true Schelling point fork for your own contributions. (By the way, I often see these two points in the same thread: "blockchains should be replaced with centralized SQL databases" and "Git repositories are just like blockchains" which makes me wonder if Git repos…

> blockchains should be replaced with centralized SQL databases Blockchains whose tokens are subject to the authority of a central issuer anyway should be replaced with centralized SQL databases. Bitcoin/namecoin/etc. can't be replaced with centralized databases. FBCoin can, as can any blockchain that is supposed to track meatspace resources(since physical resources are subject to the authority of the local governmen…

A centralized SQL server isn't public.

Turning it into a Blockchain makes it public, which is a significant advantage.

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