61–70 of 81 posts
Imo, Facebook released its plans in the last minute, so that it can have time to launch before regulator catches up. The later they catch up, the more likely Facebook is going to dominate the market and become harder to roll back the currency. Facebook is probably aware of government regulators looking to control it more and certainly anxious about voices looking to break it. The Libra coin being established as a pse…
Could the government effectively regulate/curtail libra by essentially telling Facebook's financial partners like Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Stripe, etc that they risk losing their licenses by promoting/handling Libra?
The Financial Times speculated that Libra transactions - because they involve some currency risk - will incur capital gains taxes (CGT). Although the CGT absolute amounts are likely to be very small, and in some countries will be covered by a personal allowance, this will still cause tremendously fiddly problems when filing taxes. I'm afraid the link to the FT article is behind a paywall, but this blog post summarise…
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This might depend on what you consider a “regular bank” but every bank and exchange I’ve ever come into contact with requires documentation and vetting to ensure that I am who I say I am and that I’m not not laundering money, and if the police come with a warrant they get everything they ask for. I think you might be thinking of specific banks and shell company schemes in Panama and not what most people would describ…
Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and Know Your Customer (KYC). I'm going out on a limb to say that most tech companies have no idea what BSA or KYC means and the paperwork involved.
Source: https://www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org/EntityDetails.aspx/COMPAN...; https://www.fincen.gov/msb-registrant-search
But I hope they don't figure that out, and give Ethereum and Bitcoin time to finish their scaling efforts.
This is not surprising. The minute Libra starts operating it becomes the main money laundering tool in the world. Depending on how it's implemented it could easily topple the economies of smaller countries, and significantly increase funding for terrorist organizations and garden variety criminals. I don't see how any government, and especially the US government, agrees to any of that anytime soon.
The only reason the Russian agents involved in the 2016 misinformation campaign got caught was because they used Bitcoin to purchase their equipment.
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Facebook is just as much protected by people with guns as any government.
I don't think I'd hold the position I do if protecting was all that the guns were used for.
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As someone who works for Google (opinions are my own) on the payments team, I disagree. :) Due to P2P, and disbursements we do for Play developers and AdSense, we are heavily invested in KYC. And we have to comply with the regulations of all countries we do business in, not just the US.
Just curious, do you have to deal with OFAC controls?
Source: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Sanctions/Page...
People here are talking like the government is trying to do something bad. If this were goldman sachs instead of facebook, we'd be cheering. The financial system is complex and having the wrong incentive systems (regulations) in place can lead to trememdous harm throughout the world. If you were working when the 2008 recession hit, you're familiar with the kinds of issues that financial regulation works to deter.
> People are talking like the government is trying to do something bad. Based on 1 article you read
> This is why we believe in and are committed to a collaborative process with regulators, central banks, and lawmakers to ensure that Libra helps with the kinds of issues that the existing financial system has been fighting, notably around money laundering, terrorism financing, and more. This was inevitable, but it's surprising to see them acknowledge it. > combined with the ability for law enforcement and regulators…
Once again a shift in technology is used to throw away old privacy safeguards and consumer rights and protections.