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Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency: Privacy and stability concerns

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Re: Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency: Privacy and stability concerns

#141

Post by beaner »

gamblor956 wrote: post #97
beaner wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miners have to sell their coin to remain profitable. This distributes the coin well, and ensures a highly liquid market. The largest brokerage is US-based (coinbase) and the largest exchange is Binance, which has most of its funds auditable on various blockchains. Also just hold your own keys if you're worried about it. The ability to opt-out of custodianship is kind of the point.

Miners have to sell their coin to remain profitable. No, they don't. They just have to sell a notation in their database that a coin is owed to someone. This is what MtGox did, and it's what Coinbase still does. The trick is to maintain just enough coin to be able to transfer out coins on request (as MtGox tried to do), or to just claim that it will take a few days to process the transaction (as Coinbase does). Binan…

You're conflating miners and brokerages and they don't operate nearly anything like each other.

Miners do not custody funds. Large miners that control a farm can't run on empty, they need to pay for space, hardware, and electricity - they need to sell through crypto through a brokerage to end users to make a profit. The brokerage (e.g. Coinbase) may then custody those funds on behalf of brokerage users, but the miner no longer has it.

Mining pools directly pay out the pool contributors in crypto who then themselves decide to either save or spend.

There are some "cloud mining" services but they don't account for a lot of power and most end users play with them at a loss.

A brokerage does not own or generate new coin, it simply holds it on behalf of users and enables exchanges between users via the market.

"[Coinbase] claim that it will take a few days to process the transaction" -> This is very vague. When you withdraw crypto it generally happens near instantly. If you're talking about a purchase which involves processing a fiat withdrawal from a bank, that's not the same thing.

Re: Binance, you can audit it yourself at addresses like this: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/34xp4vRoCGJym3xR7yCVP...

Re: Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency: Privacy and stability concerns

#142

Post by jbusma »

pojzon wrote: post #39
jbusma wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's take a vote! Who votes to increase the 21M cap, devaluing your own holdings? Sir, it appears the nays have it..

I dont think anyone with such possibility would put it to vote. They would just do it because they can.

You would essentially "vote" with which fork you were choosing to acknowledge with your own node, should you be running one.

Also I'm fairly certain a majority of hashpower, not just users would need to be on board with the change.

You could argue that as the primary beneficiaries of such a change (increase cap => increased distribution to miners) they would be for it, but I think most rational actors see the catch 22 of trying to profit by removing one of the core attributes that makes bitcoin valuable (it's scarcity)

Re: Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency: Privacy and stability concerns

#143

Post by root_axis »

russdpale wrote: post #134
empath75 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been multiple forks.

Yeh and they all fuckin suck. I wonder why? Its because they compromise on the quixotic properties that make bitcoin valuable.

What is the substantive meaning behind "fuckn suck"? As an example, most exchanges and processors have both BTC and BCH so if you're not a speculator there isn't much functional difference. (I know there are technical differences, but those differences don't change the fact that they are fungible blockchain tokens)

Re: Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency: Privacy and stability concerns

#144

Post by buboard »

ForHackernews wrote: post #81
buboard wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's really mind boggling to me they take $1 at all. Why? Banks have a myriad ways to make money instead of taxing consumers (and overwhelmingly the small fish). It's 2019 and cash has 0 cost to transfer.

In the UK, the Faster Payments Service enables near-instant transfers (usually a few minutes) that are typically free to the consumer. This network has been operating for more than a decade. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_Payments_Service

yet it costs me $10 to send $500 to the UK and $39 to send to the US. And even more to receive.

Re: Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency: Privacy and stability concerns

#145

Post by Lordarminius »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #28
hanniabu wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin has not failed. I know several people personally that are paid in it. They can also use it to buy things.

And when they buy things, are those things denominated in fiat currency or in bitcoin?

> are those things denominated in fiat currency or in bitcoin

By your logic if I exchange dollars for euros to spend on a vacation somewhere that means the dollar has failed ?

Re: Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency: Privacy and stability concerns

#146

Post by polyomino »

throwawaylolx wrote: post #47
runeks wrote: post #25

The reason for Bitcoin’s design is precisely because a centralized/pegged alternative was tried and failed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecash Facebook’s currency is not a successor of Bitcoin, it’s an inferior reincarnation of a failed predecessor.

How is it inferior to Ecash? FB's coin is not meant to provide anonymity features like Ecash did, but that's just a design choice. Other than that, Ecash is often suspected to have died due to the lack of reach and partnerships, which is not something FB lacks. So far, FB's coin looks very interesting. >Facebook’s currency is not a successor of Bitcoin Yeah the title is just low-quality clickbait; it's got nothing to…

What makes this a cryptocurrency? It should be called facebook giftcard.

Re: Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency: Privacy and stability concerns

#147

Post by gesman »

polyomino wrote: post #146
throwawaylolx wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it inferior to Ecash? FB's coin is not meant to provide anonymity features like Ecash did, but that's just a design choice. Other than that, Ecash is often suspected to have died due to the lack of reach and partnerships, which is not something FB lacks. So far, FB's coin looks very interesting. >Facebook’s currency is not a successor of Bitcoin Yeah the title is just low-quality clickbait; it's got nothing to…

What makes this a cryptocurrency? It should be called facebook giftcard.

+1

Re: Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency: Privacy and stability concerns

#148

Post by ForHackernews »

easymodex wrote: post #125
ForHackernews wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that all of these random tokens are functionally identical from the perspective of most users. If you're claiming there's a hard limit on the number of limited edition funko pop action figures produced, you'd better be able to explain what makes them any different than these other identical clones. It'd be like if counterfeit designer clothes were actually indistinguishable from the "real" ones, and argu…

Yeah but they are not functionally identical as Bitcoin's value comes from it being immutable, decentralized and failure-proof. Also a better analogy would be that you can make 1000 copies of the Mona Lisa in whatever way you want, they will still be just copies and they will be worthless.

Bitcoin is just a shitcoin that happens to be popular right now. All the other altcoins make the same "immutable, decentralized and failure-proof" claims.

Re: Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency: Privacy and stability concerns

#149

Post by polyomino »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #120
driverdan wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those things except #1 can be accomplished with a standard virtual currency and a DB. There's no reason to use a blockchain.

I'd much rather buy a virtual currency (pegged or not) than values in Facebook's database. A cryptocurrency gives you a certain baseline level of reliability over value and function that values in a centrally controlled database do not. It remains to be seen how much control Facebook will ultimately have over their cryptocurrency, so this point may be moot.

Cryptocurrency only gives you more reliability if you actually run a full node. That's impossible at facebook scale, so facebook's giftcard is what they're stuck with.

Re: Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency: Privacy and stability concerns

#150

Post by travisjungroth »

root_axis wrote: post #122
travisjungroth wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s an interesting argument that a cryptocurrency designation is more political than a corporation! I argue that they’re about the same. A corporation is largely numbers in computers and how people feel about them. A cryptocurrency is numbers in computers and how people feel about therm. Typing this out makes me appreciate gold a bit more. Gold is gold, whether we give it a different name or not. It’s not pure thoug…

A corporation is not "pure thought-stuff"; it is a legal designation for a physical business process facilitated by people and machines in the real world. The legal entity "corporation" is purely political, but the thing we really care about (a business process) is ultimately pegged to physical reality. The legal corporate entity is the map, the business-process-in-action is the territory.

I totally agree with your map/territory analogy. When I’m referring to a corporation I’m not talking about all the physical things in the world (the company) but what you’re calling a legal entity.

I would also bet good money that most corporations in the world do not map directly to a business-process-in-action. Most corporations are a layer of abstraction of ownership. There are many more of these than real businesses in the physical world.

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