Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game

Post by dandandaml » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 6:46 PM UTC

Despegar wrote: post #123

adventured wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No government is going to let FB and any coalition do an end run around their national currency and their banking institutions. That's the point of confusion. This is not an end around. This is about extracting tolls - slivers - from economic activity. They will all comply with the status quo, they will say what needs to be said, they will bow as they need to bow, they merely want to get their little cut on a billi…

>That's the point of confusion. This is not an end around. Whether that's the intention or not doesn't matter, it has the potential to be and that is simply not acceptable. When a developing world country like India needs to use monetary policy to stimulate their economy but those transmission mechanisms aren't working because a significant part of the economy is using Libra, that's a major threat to their sovereignt…

Post by nybble41 » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 6:51 PM UTC

sigmar wrote: post #130

ghayes wrote: post #87

My primary concern is that with a set of 20 or 100 validators, you can’t call it a decentralized platform (it’s a blockchain run exclusively by a centralized consortium). The article discusses the fact they intend to to decentralize it in 5 years, but that would be the equivalent of a dictator stepping down and promoting democracy which... doesn’t always come to pass.

I've been wondering about this too. I don't see how the incentives are setup that the Association would want to move towards an entirely permissionless network. Especially if Libra gets heavily adopted at 100 nodes (as they don't need to improve trust at that point and letting more companies into the association will decrease transaction throughput).

Post by kobasa » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 6:56 PM UTC

sprafa wrote: post #107

aserafini wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding a country’s ability to manipulate their own currency or execute monetary policy which is mostly in the direction of printing more: the end game of crypto seems to take this option off the table for all governments in the long term. Why? Because assuming all other things being equal (convenience as medium of exchange etc.), an individual is always going to prefer holding currency that isn’t subject to inflat…

Governments can easily ban and pursue anti-crypto measures to prevent anything such as money they can't control. Yannis Varoufakis said it best: the idea of apolitical money is a fiction and a dream. Money has always been associated to and controlled by governments. Bitcoin currently is actually heavily manipulated/moved by Tether which is controlled by Bitfinex.

Post by abecedarius » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 7:00 PM UTC

yingw787 wrote: post #139

svd4anything wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Government's grasp on what money should mean is one of the primary ways democratic governments exercise power. Could you explain that statement? I can’t help but counter that isn’t often the government’s control of money that enables the rise of authoritarian governments! Perhaps privatization of currency might strengthen democracy not undermine it.

...I really don’t agree with that counter. Many, and probably most, governments on this earth today have divergent understandings of money and power. You can be rich in Russia, but that money can be easily rendered worthless by somebody pointing a gun at you or your family. There is no comfort in being rich if you are not politically connected, and even then you have to be more connected than the other guy otherwise…

Post by jbverschoor » Tue, Jun 25, 2019, 7:05 PM UTC