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Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

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Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#391

Post by drcode »

beezischillin wrote: post #215

I would never ever ever ever trust PayPal, Spotify, Mastercard and the likes to manage my money. It simply sounds like lots and lots and lots of happy little "accidents" and "bugs" waiting to happen for political opponents as they lose their livelihoods. The people who came up with the whole "Manifest Observable Behavior" and random "Suspended for Breach of Community Standards" violations have no place around anyone'…

The important question isn't what you or I will do, but what the 90% of people will do who don't care about privacy/oligopolies.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#392

Post by ethanklitz »

avoutthere wrote: post #285
moosey wrote: post #233

If this succeeds, it will be a data collection tool the likes of which the world has never seen, which is why so many companies are willing to put their name on it. The data, along with ML/AI, and our contemporary understanding of the human mind, means that this is a major step towards control that we can't understand. Dr. Harari explains it better than I do in "21 Lessons for the 21st Century", but this tool is part…

> If this succeeds, it will be a data collection tool the likes of which the world has never seen I'm pretty sure that this type of data collection tool is in use today by the Chinese government.

VISA and other payment processors already collect and sell this data.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#393

Post by LinuxBender »

tommoor wrote: post #364
LinuxBender wrote: post #282

So Mark Z. wants me to buy his Chuck-E-Cheese(c) tokens, then see where I spend them. /s In all seriousness, are they offsetting the coin generation with windmills, sea turbines, or geothermal plants? How much power is being consumed by FB and the small handful of banks that are cranking out these tokens?

There is no mining, coins are "minted" by approved partners

Someone has to mine them though, right?

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#394

Post by mountainofdeath »

codethief wrote: post #333
mmsimanga wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From where I am standing I wonder if this is not reflection of the ineffectiveness of governments. In my part of the world there is a lot more talk about devolution, basically self governance of the different regions. Everyone is sick and tired of decisions being made from the capital city by people who do not have your interests at all.

Democracies need to be ineffective and slow to some degree in order to be stable and to allow all people to participate. Otherwise, a coup d'état would be far too easy because efficiency means that only little time would pass between a decision (whether legal or illegal) being made and it getting implemented.

There is a reason why it's much harder to change federal law than a local ordinance. The broader the effect, the more difficult it should be. Effective government should not be about kneejerk reactions.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#395

Post by riffraff »

supermatt wrote: post #378

So facebook (and partners) can mint their own money. Are we supposed to be OK with that? Wasn't this issue one of the primary reasons for crypto currency existing in the first place. This shouldn't be allowed to exist.

they cannot, in most (all?) jurisdictions you cannot mint your own money.

You can, however, in many places, create something that works like money for some use cases.

This looks like a case of the latter, and it doesn't seem so different from stuff like Amazon Coins[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Coin

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#397

Post by muratgozel »

scottrogowski wrote: post #206
muratgozel wrote: post #51

"it will be backed by a collection of low-volatility assets, such as bank deposits and short-term government securities in currencies from stable and reputable central banks." from the whitepaper: https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#the-libra-currency-and-... It's like one to one copy of the traditional monetary system with speed of transactions improved. The volatility of low-volatile assets still contradictive in…

So it sounds like Libra coins will be minted at a previously agreed-upon exchange rate by one of the consortium companies proving that they have bought one of these low-volatility financial assets. It does not sound like there will be any "mining" and the decentralization will be, for the time, in just a handful of large companies. Can someone validate that I'm understanding that correctly? If so, I'd agree with prev…

Exactly. In short, we spend much less time to buy a coffee and much more others will suffer and die to keep that "real" assets "low-volatile".

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#398

Post by lifty »

herrvogel- wrote: post #322
renaudg wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is at least this from Zuckerberg's announcement : "Calibra will be regulated like other payment service providers. Any information you share with Calibra will be kept separate from information you share on Facebook."

This statement does not include ads. Which is the real use case in my opinion. Facebook will link shown ads to purchases made with Calibra. This will allow them to target users even more and generate more revenue per ad.

They do mention in the customer commitment document that they will not use data from Calibra to improved as targeting on the Facebook platform.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#399

Post by cicero »

mmsimanga wrote: post #238
_bxg1 wrote: post #200

Terrifying, really. The world is hurdling back towards a feudalist society, with corporations instead of kings.

From where I am standing I wonder if this is not reflection of the ineffectiveness of governments. In my part of the world there is a lot more talk about devolution, basically self governance of the different regions. Everyone is sick and tired of decisions being made from the capital city by people who do not have your interests at all.

The problem is not government, but highly centralized government at near continental and global scales. Power needs to remain as local as possible. This Facebook move is not a solution because it just puts some global-scope power in another entity, that just happens to be an Internet company.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#400

Post by uptown »

mathnmusic wrote: post #308
_bxg1 wrote: post #200

Terrifying, really. The world is hurdling back towards a feudalist society, with corporations instead of kings.

Shouldn't Facebook be focusing on their previous project that promised to "connect the unconnected" (Internet.org / FreeBasics), rather than start another ambitious one "to bank the unbanked" ?

Zuck just wants to spend more time with your money.
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