Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#431

Post by natalyarostova » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

hjk05 wrote: post #100

sins wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on what Bitcoin failed at?

I tried to buy a cup of coffee recently at a bitcoin only cafe. Though I didn’t end up paying with bitcoin because it took a day for the bitcoin atm deposit to clear. So I asked a friend who worked in the building to spot me a cup of coffee, and he paid... by making a line on a piece of paper they used to do bookkeeping denoted in fiat because no-one wanted to go through the hassle of bitcoin transfers and no one had…

It doesn't matter what it was intended for, which it very well may have failed at. What matters is the value people see in it now. The claim is it represents digital gold bars.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#432

Post by zild3d » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 4:12 PM UTC

WA wrote: post #205

> "On the first point, Marcus said that Facebook is enforcing a strict separation between users’ social data—their Facebook likes, photos, etc—and the financial data that will be available on Libra’s network. There will not, he insisted, be a readily available data trove connecting users’ transactional data to their Facebook profiles, and users’ funds themselves will be cryptographically secured. “We don’t want finan…

>“We don’t want financial data and social data to be commingled”

Keyword is want. They don't want the data to be commingled, but alas, it will.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#433

Post by kickopotomus » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

pjmorris wrote: post #426

jayd16 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the world has never seen Credit cards already have similar data, no?

No. The credit card is limited to locations where it can be swiped. The phone is online everywhere, all the time.

No, it is not. You can use credit cards to buy things online.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#434

Post by T-A » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

pjmorris wrote: post #426

jayd16 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the world has never seen Credit cards already have similar data, no?

No. The credit card is limited to locations where it can be swiped. The phone is online everywhere, all the time.

... and can be used to buy stuff online using your credit card, everywhere, all the time.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#435

Post by la_barba » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

driverdan wrote: post #423

la_barba wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Conceptually this is a bank, but with no interest returned to users, no financial oversight from governments, controlled by Silicon Valley's top companies. How so? I don't think they have access to your digital wallet, unlike a bank.

It's funded by you depositing fiat currency with them, like a bank. They earn interest on your deposits, like a bank.

You convert your fiat currency into crypto currency. Once the exchange is done, you have no rights to the fiat currency. This is in no way similar to a bank. The bank can use your deposited money, whereas here the currency is always in your digital wallet, and only you can initiate a transaction in and out of it. Do you have any information that contradicts this? I've only skimmed the whitepaper.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#436

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

Yizahi wrote: post #209

Step 1 - say that your "coin" is not centralized Step 2 - proceed to contradict yourself in the next sentence How the hell is a an obviously centralized system with 3 dozens of privileged entities is not centralized... Also it is not only oligarchy, but completely unaccountable shady oligarchy. Why people continue to "want" it is beyond understanding.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#437

Post by conanbatt » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

Yizahi wrote: post #209

Step 1 - say that your "coin" is not centralized Step 2 - proceed to contradict yourself in the next sentence How the hell is a an obviously centralized system with 3 dozens of privileged entities is not centralized... Also it is not only oligarchy, but completely unaccountable shady oligarchy. Why people continue to "want" it is beyond understanding.

It's an oligarchy just like the nearest hotdog stand is a dictatorship.

Don't like it don't use it. Try saying the same to the governments come tax-time.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#438

Post by elwell » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 4:19 PM UTC

    (is-coincidence? (= (alpha->num-sum "Libra")
                        42
                        answers/life
                        answers/universe
                        answers/everything))

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#439

Post by floatrock » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

tsrautde007 wrote: post #417

Why Facebook’s Libra could be a runaway success https://medium.com/@tejas_rd/why-facebooks-libra-could-be-a-...

The last two points apply to any crypto, but the first two, Scale and Network, are plausible.

Basically the tl;dr is facebook and the other "tech titan" validator nodes provide a large, existing distribution channel, and presumably they can unleash their armies of developers to make all the techie crypto stuff Just Work.

A long running bitcoin criticism has been that it's been like PGP -- built on sound principles, but the usability has just been too hard. Coinbase took off because it made crypto easy to the average joe... HN people understand you should never leave your bitcoin on a centralized exchange, but the average user has difficulty understanding the idea of keys, wallets, dongles, etc.

If Libra's going to succeed, it's going to be because they're going to do what Apple did to Unix: take the good parts, leave them available to the powerusers, and wrap the rest with really friendly usability.

And they've already done something like this: one of the advantages of React has been the developer tooling. There's always going to be a subset of users that prefers to string a bunch of tools together themselves, but with a corporate backer, you can invest in solid developer experience.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#440

Post by sonnyblarney » Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 4:22 PM UTC

tetrisgm wrote: post #22

It’s going to be interesting. “Unlike previous stablecoins, Libra will not be issued by a central party. Instead, Facebook has enlisted 27 fellow Silicon Valley titans—among them PayPal, Visa, Spotify, Mastercard, Uber, and eBay—to operate as preliminary “validator nodes” who will each share a transparent copy of a vast ledger of transactions reflecting all the activity on the network.” That sounds amazingly dystopia…

"That sounds amazingly dystopian. I mean, that’s literally a money built on an oligarchy. By design."

To be fair, the Fed is kind of that.

It's a cabal of bankers who decided that the USA would be better of if they did the central banking.

In practice, it's not too-too far off how other central banks works, but technically it is a private entity, owned by the banks.

FB's new coin doesn't really have any real use other than basically dropping all of the ugly limitations of the regular financial system.

Though there are a lot of regulations there 'for our safety' - in reality, the flow of consumer money is just a huge pile of tangled cobwebs of stupidity.

This is will be a really great opportunity to do '21st century currency'. If it works, there's going to be a whole new way of doing money. The banks, in a way, should be afraid.

That said, there are huge privacy concerns as well which might very well kill the ostensible improvements to be had just by doing things in a new, clean, way.