Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#301

Post by olalonde » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 12:28 AM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #295

olalonde wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Well that's precisely what I have issue with.

No I don't think a "blockchain" is merely a public database nor that git is a "blockchain". The term "blockchain" was initially defined as the proof-of-work data structure that Bitcoin uses to store transactions and its definition was later slightly expanded to describe that same data structure used in other cryptocurrencies. If it now just means "public database" then we've lost a useful word.

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

Git also uses merkle trees but the similarity pretty much ends there.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#302

Post by cdiddy2 » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 12:35 AM UTC

acdha wrote: post #274

stanleydrew wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a crypto fan so don't take this the wrong way, but I think the crypto answer to "someone stole your private key and is stealing your money" is the same as the non-crypto answer to "someone stole your ATM PIN and is stealing your money." Namely, you ask police and prosecutors to track down the perpetrator to get your money back.

ATMs have security measures like daily download limits, unusual locations triggering denials or ID checks, etc. which cryptocurrencies lack. There's a really big difference between your potential losses being capped zero to a few hundred dollars vs. “everything you own and half of the community will say it was your fault”.

No reason you couldn't have some of these features in a crypto wallet. Lots of schemes are being created with with multisig, smart contracts, and social recovery methods. Here is one around freezing transfers not to a known address. https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-startups-team-to-offer-ban...

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#303

Post by stale2002 » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 12:35 AM UTC

onion-soup wrote: post #284

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.

>You can't buy a cup of coffee without paying large confirmation fees or delaying the transaction for day to weeks Yes you can. On BSV which is the legacy bitcoin

Hahahah!

Let me know when Craig Wright actually signs the genesis block, and cryptographicly proves that he is Satoshi, and does so publicly in a way that I can personally verify.

When that happens, I will give you 1000$ worth of BSV.

It won't happen though.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#304

Post by Barrin92 » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 12:56 AM UTC

zeroxfe wrote: post #154

fullshark wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

wait a second, when did facebook say that the ledger will be visible to the public?

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#305

Post by baby » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 1:10 AM UTC

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 is really bad... nothing compares to Monzo and Revolut in the US.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#306

Post by baby » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 1:11 AM UTC

dalyons wrote: post #291

013a wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Being banned from using their app because I’m not a US citizen, I really do not feel for them at all.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#307

Post by np_tedious » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 1:29 AM UTC

m3kw9 wrote: post #298

Not sure how they can solve the 51% attack in the beginning when you have massive asic farms ready to roll in an instance

You have to pay $10 million, and presumably enter into some contracts / business arrangements, to run a full node

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#308

Post by spookybones » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 1:52 AM UTC

Will there be any financial advantage to owning Libra coins (or whatever they’ll be called) early?

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#309

Post by throwaway122378 » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 2:47 AM UTC

Facebook will be able to pair transaction data (consumer, product, cost, merchant) with their entire social graph. They can then offer licenses to run nodes with the ability to access all that data.

Re: Facebook plans cryptocurrency debut

#310

Post by 52-6F-62 » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 2:48 AM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #243

52-6F-62 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Kik try and do something similar as well and came under fire from the SEC?

The main issue with SEC is that everything that claims or "wink wink nudge nudge" implies that you should buy The Thing from them because it's going to jump in value is essentially an investment proposal that's potentially fraudulent and thus needs to meet SEC regulations. Stablecoins, where you explicitly state that it's never ever going to appreciate and make you richer by just holding it, don't meet that criteria…

Thanks for the clarification, both.