Just wanted to say that the logo is not Libra's symbol; it's very similar to Aquarius though. While I maintain my horoscope-hater attitude, I am still disappointed
Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra
671–680 of 1001 posts
Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra
#672Again: 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.
The thing that separates this from a bank database is a small thing, but important, and that's that even the bank cannot reduce your balance in secret without your authorization, since transactions are signed and the ledger is public. That's because of the cryptographic primitives used.
I think in the end we have to accept that taxonomies are going to have rough edges because the map is not the territory. With Bitcoin as the canonical cryptocurrency there have been a number of experiments that have removed or added guarantees. A distributed, verifiable, immutable chain of history is basically git with a couple of extra features, so the lines are necessarily blurry.
Rather than arguing semantics, the main questions are to what degree it is censorship-proof, permissionless, and scarce. The third one is the one that is least clear from the description and whitepaper. It sounds like they're trying to get the first two as well, but the designation of initial stakeholders might make that tricky until they can transition to proof-of-stake.
Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra
#673Why in God's name if we can't trust FB with privacy of our kids photos should we trust them to handle our finances? This deserves all of the mockery that it will receive.
I'd love to see what the actual incentive structure is here. What are they hoping to get out of the investment? Data? Fraud prevention fees?
Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra
#674Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it makes perfect sense for Coinbase to tap into this flow.
I mean, I'm more surprised they were invited to the party. You know something like this will immediately spur countries to denounce it as facilitating money laundering, terrorism, the collapse of the civilized world, etc. I would have thought they'd stick with PayPal as their main partner to interface with banks. It's a huge opportunity for Coinbase but they bring the political baggage of every other cryptocurrency a…
Yeah, but Libra could do due diligence when the money enters their system. Sure, things are a bit "informal" on the BTC/ETH side, but I'm pretty sure Libra will strive to meet the demands from governments.
That being said, yeah, wild claims can and probably will be made by various entities.
Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra
#675Why didn't they just use bitcoin?
Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra
#676This reads a lot like the founding of the Federal Reserve: > [The Federal Reserve] had several key components, including a central bank with a Washington-based headquarters and fifteen branches located throughout the U.S. in geographically strategic locations, and a uniform elastic currency based on gold and commercial paper. 1. Geographically dispersed 2. Value elastic but secured by assets 3. Controlled by a small…
Can we just call it the global reserve?
Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra
#677Earlier 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 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? Visa and Mastercard are taking a 3-4% cut of every single consumer payment made in much of the world. That ends up being a very, very big number. There are many people a…
The true value of any currency is what you can do with it. If someone owns some coin and wants to buy some food to feed their family, the seller of the food first has to accept the coin, but regardless what value the rest of the world places on the coin, the seller of the product is still in control of what they will accept. I am not sure how using a cryptocurrency solves the problem of hyperinflation. It is still not going to be cheap or easy to purchase items in the areas these problems exist. I think your other points about access to banking and storing/transferring money are valid. It implies the person has a working mobile phone and access to a network though too.
Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra
#678Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment is meaningless. Cryptos in general are a cool, top 25 Silicon Valley are the opposite of cool.
Why are so many people working for such uncool companies?
Often because they pay well. Sometimes because you want to work on a big project that is out of reach of most companies.
Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra
#679This 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…
Until cryptocurrencies can deal with 51% attacks they are a waste of time in my mind. The technology is interesting, and that's about it.
Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra
#680Earlier 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 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? Visa and Mastercard are taking a 3-4% cut of every single consumer payment made in much of the world. That ends up being a very, very big number. There are many people a…
> Visa and Mastercard are taking a 3-4% cut of every single consumer payment made in much of the world. That ends up being a very, very big number.
In Denmark we solved this the lowtech way. Visa cards have to be Dual visa/dancard, where the dancard has extremely low cut limited by law(0,055$/transaction flat rate)
It’s not hard, it just requires you have politicians capable of dodging the huge piles of cash MasterCard and Visa throw at them whenever talk of breaking the duopoly hits the table.
But maybe for the US, something like bitcoin will be the only way forwards, using technology to try to solve a market problem though “disruptive technology” when what is really needed is just disruptive politicians.