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

Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game

stratechery.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 313 posts

Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game

#251

Post by snarf21 »

creeble wrote: post #250

Forgive my stupidity, but I don't understand this statement by Ben (Stratechery): "In practice, it is much more complicated: while a limited set of “validators” — aka miners — share a history of transactions in (individual) blocks that are chained together (i.e. a blockchain), what Libra actually exposes is the current state of the ledger. In practice this means that adding new transactions can be much quicker and mo…

Libra intends to use Proof of Stake. This means that the initial members will "stake" some amount of Libra and now all transactions can only be validated by them. You as an individual can't validate any new transaction. The assumption is that because the PoS validator has a huge stake in this currency, they will behave rationally or otherwise they would devalue their own stake. The trust here is completely centralized and is a rich get richer model. If FB or PayPal or a member doesn't want to add your transaction, they can completely block you. They control what is true.

Bitcoin uses Proof of Work. Consensus is decentralized. Anyone can do some "work" (hashing in this case). If they find the magic number to get the right hash, they get rewarded by the Bitcoin protocol itself. This is also the only way new Bitcoins are created. It is only when one of these magic numbers gets found that transactions get added to the Bitcoin ledger (every 10 minutes). The rule is that the longest ledger chain wins so everyone is running in parallel. You don't need to own any Bitcoin to do mining to get "free" Bitcoin. The trust is decentralized (in terms of control) and no one can prevent anyone else from validating Bitcoin transactions as long as you follow the same rules as everyone else.

Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game

#252

Post by Sargos »

chasing wrote: post #75
svd4anything wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're also not going to partner with an international consortium to have them replaced with something they only partially control. It seems that Libra is going to demonstrate exactly why only a decentralized design like Bitcoin’s or other similar cryptocurrencies has any chance of breaking that control. They will be much much harder to attack and shutdown once governments decide this competition in their monopoly…

Government control over currency is a good thing.

Are you going to back up your argument or just state it like it's a fact? (It's not)

Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game

#253

Post by nine_k »

RobertoG wrote: post #85
nine_k wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold coins can be minted at multiple places, or admitted foreign, because their value is gold by weight. Mass fiat money are no more than 2 centuries old, in most places less than 60 years (see Bretton-Woods). They have to be tightly controled by state.

>>"Gold coins can be minted at multiple places, or admitted foreign, because their value is gold by weight." If the value of the coin come from the gold in it, why mint them instead of using the gold directly?

Gold was used directly, too, as ingots, and as bullion (check out the gold rush of 1849).

But coins show the insignia of the state (and usually the monarch) that minted it; this is an important symbol, and also a guarantee of purity and weight, at least nominally.

Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game

#254

Post by oarabbus_ »

simias wrote: post #74
gooseus wrote: post #45

> The largest leap will come last: Libra as a genuine currency, not simply a medium for transaction. This will be function of volume in the previous two use cases, and is understandably concerning to governments all over the world. Well that's certainly an understatement. This is literally the only mention of government through-out the entire article. The only mention of banks is in the previous paragraph stating the…

>I really don't know why this isn't a larger part of this conversation. That's been the elephant in the room ever since Satoshi published its paper more than a decade ago. When I discuss with cryptocurrency enthusiasts I often get the impression that they think that banks are this kind of useless parasite body that somehow appears like mosquitoes around a pond in summer. That they only serve to basically operate ATMs…

You've said what banks are _not_ and the gross misunderstandings people have about what banks (aren't).

But you didn't actually tell the reader what banks _are_.

Care to elaborate?

Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game

#255

Post by danans »

creeble wrote: post #250

Forgive my stupidity, but I don't understand this statement by Ben (Stratechery): "In practice, it is much more complicated: while a limited set of “validators” — aka miners — share a history of transactions in (individual) blocks that are chained together (i.e. a blockchain), what Libra actually exposes is the current state of the ledger. In practice this means that adding new transactions can be much quicker and mo…

> You are still trusting the validators (miners) either way, correct? And how is it more efficient?

Who can be a validator (miner) is controlled by the consortium, and therefore the blockchain algorithm doesn't need be to as computationally expensive as bitcoin's proof of work, which is designed to contend with the fact that anyone can be a miner.

Instead it can just serve the purpose of enabling a distributed ledger.

Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game

#256

Post by treelovinhippie »

scarface74 wrote: post #49
warp_factor wrote: post #11

I'm crossing my fingers that this pseudo crypto money never takes off. Having Facebook control this would be so terrible and the proof that we didn't learn anything over the last couple months. Don't fool yourself even though they released a white paper and some pseudo decentralized schemes this is no different than a casino chip. Unfortunately I feel like it might pick up and become a thing.

The article specifically says that FB does not have a controlling interest or the ability to decide who joins the consortium.

Will Facebook make Libra the default payment method across its ecosystem of ~3 billion users? Yes.

Is Libra a digital currency created and controlled by an oligarchy ("consortium") of mega-corporations? Yes.

Everything else is propaganda.

Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game

#257

Post by chachachoney »

creato wrote: post #184
panarky wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is one of the reasons I dropped out of crypto for years, most of its supporters were completely delusional and tragically uninformed about actual banks. The reason I stayed in is because Bitcoin solved a seemingly intractable problem, it works in the real world, and it's survived and even thrived in the face of fierce attacks for a decade. Yes, there are many shills who are delusional and ignorant. Yes, specul…

> and it's survived and even thrived in the face of fierce attacks for a decade What fierce attacks has bitcoin faced? Sure, lots of people mock and criticize it, but no real action has been taken. The people criticizing it have just as much influence (or maybe even less) than the delusional and ignorant true believers. To me, a fierce attack would be regulatory action taken by various world governments, but that has…

>> What fierce attacks has bitcoin faced?

There was a near constant stream of FUD from the finance sector. Nationstates flirted with banning crypto, Senators asked financial regulators to ban bitcoin, etc...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2014/02/26/senato...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/12/06/bitcoin-...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/currency/11097208/Why-Ba...

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/cryptocurrency-round-bolivian-bitc...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/currency/10210022/Bitcoi...

Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game

#258

Post by jacques_chester »

MBCook wrote: post #52
drcode wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No worries, they're just gonna take a pic of your government ID and fingerprints for KYC requirements which are securely isolated in a vault in Switzerland where they will remain 100% safe, except in that rare instance where you need to buy a cup of coffee, and they therefore need to inspect all your records to make sure you're not funding terrorism. /s

From the various articles I’ve seen it looks like they don’t think they need to follow KYC because it’s not ‘real’ money. I’m sure the government will have something to say about that.

New York State already requires KYC for crypto transactions.

And since a certain amount of banking takes place hereabouts, that law has wider influence than New York.

Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game

#259

Post by headsoup »

sprafa wrote: post #149
panarky wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is one of the reasons I dropped out of crypto for years, most of its supporters were completely delusional and tragically uninformed about actual banks. The reason I stayed in is because Bitcoin solved a seemingly intractable problem, it works in the real world, and it's survived and even thrived in the face of fierce attacks for a decade. Yes, there are many shills who are delusional and ignorant. Yes, specul…

Yes true, this is why I “dropped out of it” then eventually came back to it. The fact that I have Venezuelan friends who started hoarding it to avoid capital controls in their country convinced me of its usefulness and long-term viability.

So long as someone is there willing to pay the same price for those coins. Do the grocery stores, butchers and other providers accept Bitcoin there? How do they value their goods against a 'currency' that is growing X00% weekly?

Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game

#260

Post by headsoup »

CodiePetersen wrote: post #229
sprafa wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The transaction rate is deadly in my opinion, not just bad. A year or so ago the rates were running at ridiculous prices. It’s a black eye on the Bitcoin Core that they haven’t fixed this nor do they seem inclined to (the Bitcoin Cash Core seemed convinced they wanted nothing else but to control Bitcoin entirely).

I do agree the transaction rate and fee are horrid. But there are other coins that solve this problem in a dectralized manner. Also there are some block chains that all cross chain atomic swaps. I've been working with a blockchain called Xaya and there is mentions of maybe implementing that as well. I might help on that front after my game is finished. More importantly though. Xaya implements merged mining and you ca…

How does that help reduce fees? Excuse my naivety, but can you share a bit more about cross-chain atomic swaps, what does that mean?
Post reply on HN