Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

decrypt.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–650 of 1001 posts

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#641

Post by jpmattia »

kolinko wrote: post #617
jpmattia wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you explain why the ledger being run by ~27 different entities is NOT decentralized? 27 entities? Not decentralized. $10M fee to run a node? Not decentralized. Anyone can run a node from their computer? Decentralized. Blockchain validity is determined by mass consensus? Decentralized. 51% of the hash power is considered an attack rather than a feature of the system? Decentralized. Edit: Removed item about forki…

You may be confusing permissionlessness with decentralisation. A system can be decentralised and permissioned at the same time.

Fine, add that to my spec sheet above:

Need to ask an authority for permission to do something within the system? Not decentralized.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#642

Post by pelasaco »

jpmattia wrote: post #546

Again: A ledger that is not decentralized is a bank database, not a cryptocurrency. As near as I can tell, Zuckbucks are nothing more than the JPMorganCryptocurrency but with a bigger consortium. The only difference seems to be who is given write privileges to the database.

I thought a cryptocurrency was a currency using cryptography to solve some basic issues related with trust.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#643

Post by jonas_kgomo »

imw wrote: post #37
baby wrote: post #21

I'm biased as I'm working on this project. But I'm super happy it's finally out there :) There's a lot of really cool cryptography and tech on this project and there's still a lot for people to discover!

There's a lot of interesting physics in building thermonuclear weapons. Doesn't mean you should do it. Your talents could be used to help the world. Instead, they are being used to enclose common spaces and pull apart the fabric of society. Get a better job?

When Chamath was asked about working at Facebook @Stanford. What soul searching are you doing right now on that? "I feel tremendous guilt. I think we all knew in the back of our minds, even though we feigned this whole line of there probably aren't any really bad unintended consequences. I think in the back deep, deep recesses of our minds we kind of knew something bad could happen. But I think the way we defined it was not like this. It literally is a point now where I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. That is truly where we are. And I would encourage all of you as the future leaders of the world to really internalize how important this is. If you feed the beast, that beast will destroy you.If you push back on it, we have a chance to control it and rein it in. And it is a point in time where people need to hard brake"

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#644

Post by grey-area »

ChainOfFools wrote: post #561
jpmattia wrote: post #546

Again: A ledger that is not decentralized is a bank database, not a cryptocurrency. As near as I can tell, Zuckbucks are nothing more than the JPMorganCryptocurrency but with a bigger consortium. The only difference seems to be who is given write privileges to the database.

Unfortunately the "decentralization is a spectrum" crowd has already furnished the fintech narrative with the arguments necessary to justify calling this "decentralized." The "decentralization" quality should not be used to describe any system that doesn't exhibit a permanent, irreversible systemic trend towards greater decentralization of all the levers, concentrations and bottlenecks of power within itself over tim…

Bitcoin doesn’t fulfil these criteria either - the devs and miners have not become more decentralised over time, if anything more centralised. Of course it is far more decentralised than this ersatz cryptocurrency from Facebook in both spirit and actions.

However the number of people who want a decentralised currency (with the many, many compromises it requires) is globally very close to 0%, so despite wailing on HN about the true meaning of cryptocurrency, this is not a reason to oppose this Facebook coin.

There are much more pressing ones to oppose it IMO - handing control of your transactions and/or finances to an org as amoral and duplicitous as Facebook, or indeed to any global corporation or cabal thereof, is a very scary idea.

I sincerely hope this dystopian effort to impose a global corporate currency fails.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#645

Post by Jeff_Brown »

2a96eb7d685a49c wrote: post #256
losvedir wrote: post #252

I don't get why it has to be a "cryptocurrency". I see the value in some sort of token that you buy and can then exchange without fees, but couldn't that just be a simple DB? What does it being a cryptocurrency on a blockchain get you?

Multiple validators with byzantine fault tolerance.

Multiple, but not necessarily very many -- the validators are an exclusive club.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#646

Post by kemonocode »

I hope this gets anywhere, not because I'm particularly enamored with Facebook (In fact, I hate them and their skeevy practices) but because I want PayPal to feel the squeeze. I just happen to hate PayPal a little bit more than Facebook and any competition in that department is good in my opinion.

I don't see Libra being remotely any competition against Bitcoin, but as an alternative to current centralized payment processors? Sure, and it wouldn't be a huge stretch considering the amount of sensitive information people already entrusts (with or without merit) with Facebook.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#647

Post by astrange »

mdorazio wrote: post #639
generalk wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. The world could use an online independent currency I'm not 100% steeped in cryptocurrency theory, and so I don't understand why this is presented as if it's agreed on by everyone. What problems does the world have that would be solved by an online, independent [of any nation, presumably?] currency? > 2. Adding stability to blockchain currencies and having > that work on a large scale is a good thing Having a blo…

I'm fairly anti-crypto, but there are a couple items in favor of #1: - A currency outside of traditional governments would theoretically be free of currency manipulation by those governments (ex. China and the Yuan) - An international currency can sidestep the artificial middleman fees and friction caused by traditional monetary exchanges. Ex. my friend who is currently studying in Japan wanted to get some money from…

> - A currency outside of traditional governments would theoretically be free of currency manipulation by those governments (ex. China and the Yuan)

You can't live your life outside your country's currency though. It has a built-in demand because you have to pay taxes in it. So you're going to have to buy some of it somewhere.

> - An international currency can sidestep the artificial middleman fees and friction caused by traditional monetary exchanges. Ex. my friend who is currently studying in Japan wanted to get some money from her US bank account to Japan to pay for tuition and not only had to wait for banks to be open, but also had to pay exchange and transfer fees.

Try TransferWise.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#648

Post by ilaksh »

wmf wrote: post #631
ilaksh wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Libra coin is backed by Visa. The whole point of cryptocurrency to avoid having to go through middlemen like Visa or even require banks. This is a way for the intermediaries to cash in on the cryptocurrency hype and squash it before cryptocurrency payments become mainstream. They want to insert their own thing that looks like a cryptocurrency but will allow them to continue to profit from and control the exc…

If Libra ends up with 10x more users than all other cryptocurrencies combined, who are you to say what the point is? The existing cryptocurrency space has spent a decade building something that a relatively small number of people are really passionate about but it's the opposite of what the masses want.

In my opinion, the main thing holding back cryptocurrency is scalability. They are working on that. The other thing is just social momentum.

Popularity and merit are two completely different things. It waxes and wanes. The masses will adopt anything that is convenient and popular (regardless of whether its really great or not).

Look at the #1 Billboard song right now. "Old Town Road". This is the most popular song. Its "what the masses want". What's it about? "Can't nobody tell me nothin'" "Cheated on my baby" "Cowboy hat from Gucci".. Its teenage defiance, materialism, and "macho" unfaithfulness. What happens to be popular right now might mean something important, but it also might just be garbage as usual. (By the way, at the moment, it is popular for humans to create literal mountains of actual garbage.)

The people who created cryptocurrency said what the point was. Its to give us control over our digital money and remove the intermediaries.

People who know better should strive to make things that are worthwhile more popular.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#649

Post by smsm42 »

vivekd wrote: post #557

This is an interesting story and I would like to learn more about libra-coin. Unfortunately I think hackernews has a strong anti-facebook bias that is making the opinions here nearly universally one sided. I think we can say three things fairly uncontroversially in favor of this 1. The world could use an online independent currency 2. Adding stability to blockchain currencies and having that work on a large scale is…

> 1. The world could use an online independent currency

Maybe, but "Facebook" and "independent" hardly go together.

> Unlike government issued currencies, any monopoly or control facebook derives isn't done through force

True, but the measure of control average person has over facebook is also close to zero. With government, you at least have courts, elections, Constitution finally... it is usually hard to go against the government, but it is possible and at least the presumption is that the government is there to the benefit and by the consent of the people (it's not very useful for a random citizen but at least that's the principle which can have some useful consequences sometimes). Facebook is there for whoever owns Facebook, and has zero obligations to anybody else. It could completely block you any time it wants to for any reason it wants to, could deny you use of any of its resources with no explanation needed and no recourse possible, it could change its policies any time with zero concern for your interests, etc.

> I just wish there could be a deeper exploration of both the pros and cons.

What are the pros of specifically this Facebook proposition that can not be achieved without Facebook being in the picture?

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#650

Post by kodz4 »

dmje wrote: post #542

Kind of interested in what this means for a non Facebook user. As one of those I already feel sometimes marginalised when content is shared on their walled garden and I need my wife to look at the dates for my kids’ sporting events because they’re only published on Facebook. Now I’m going to be unable to carry out financial transactions, too.

Come on. You think Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, the Chinese and whoever else are going to let Facebook alone have this cake. We are not even talking about what the Big Banks think yet.

This is just the first page of whats going to be a very interesting story.

Post reply on HN