101–110 of 287 posts
Call me pessimist, but cartelized private global corporations owning and “printing” money can only bring bad things. It is centralized and is controlled by an elite.
I'm asking this in all seriousness. Why would anyone want to use Libra? Let's say a consumer wants to buy something. They can either pay with "normal" money in one step or they can use their phone to convert their money into Libra and then make the purchase with Libra. Why would they go through the extra step(s)? Am I to believe that the benefit is "lower transaction fees"? Because if so, Libra doesn't have a chance.…
The problem for Facebook is that these people can't buy anything online, because they don't have a bank account. If Libra launches successfully and remains stable, those same places selling X MB of data for cash, could easily start selling Libra too.
That's what so many people here are missing. Facebook isn't targeting this at people who have credit cards, Paypal accounts, and know what Bitcoin is, they're targeting the day laborer in a rural, 3rd world country, who might be enticed to part with some of their spending money for some Chinese plastic trinket that they never could have bought before, because none of the few stores in a 100 mile radius stock stuff like that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Literally what they say it's designed for: giving access to the digital economy to the 500m+ people in emerging markets that have internet + phone, but no banking services.
> giving access to the digital economy to the 500m+ people in emerging markets that have internet + phone, but no banking services. I don't really understand the flow. They are paid in cash for working their low wage jobs now. How is the cash going to become Libra? Through... what is basically a banking service? Which they don't have access to now?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The downside is that there is no market for watchtowers yet (so you need be online while having channels open). Another disadvantage is that if you control your key, you must be online. Like, if you run an HTTP server, you must have a machine. With plain Bitcoin you can spend to a pubkey and it doesn't have to be online
Having to be online to be secure is a pretty big hole, don’t you think? Sure you could outsource it to some trusted party, but that feels awfully bank-like and I thought bitcoin was all about being your own bank. Am I wrong?
To summarize.
1. Attacks are extremely unlikely in the first place.
2. Watchtowers can prevent them if they do happen.
3. Watchtowers are trustless. They in no way resemble banks.
4. Without a watchtower you are not required to be always online to be secure.
I'm asking this in all seriousness. Why would anyone want to use Libra? Let's say a consumer wants to buy something. They can either pay with "normal" money in one step or they can use their phone to convert their money into Libra and then make the purchase with Libra. Why would they go through the extra step(s)? Am I to believe that the benefit is "lower transaction fees"? Because if so, Libra doesn't have a chance.…
There are millions of people around the world that are unbanked. Especially in 3rd world countries, they get on the internet by buying the cheapest possible smartphone and data with cash. I was just in the Philippines, and I saw places selling access to only Facebook and WhatsApp, in increments of 30MB of data, for cash. The problem for Facebook is that these people can't buy anything online, because they don't have…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Why would anyone want to use Libra? Money laundering. You'd no longer need to buy a condo in New York to get your rubles into dollars.
I don’t understand, how buying a condo in New York helps you converting rubles into dollars.
Of course that only describes one "hypothetical" case but the mechanism is the same everywhere and for all pass through commodities.
This reference in context has the virtue of being slightly humorous IMO.
I have been following Libra very closely, and have read their white paper twice. There have been a few good discussions here on HN when it launched [0], but I think most of these have been very biased against anything Facebook-related. I find the launch of Libra a really interesting "experiment", with potentially big negative or positive consequences for the entire world. Right now, it's really hard to judge on the t…
When you're talking about controlling money, politics matter more than "technical merit". Libra is invite only and they invited their business friends. Libra consortium is based in Switzerland, so the businesses involved have guaranteed essentially zero government oversight. Libra's owners have complete control over how much currency, the currency exchange rate, and even inflation rates (note that inflation is actual…
But technically it lacks the ethnic hatred, anti-intellectualism and gleeful blood-lust of fascism.
I have been following Libra very closely, and have read their white paper twice. There have been a few good discussions here on HN when it launched [0], but I think most of these have been very biased against anything Facebook-related. I find the launch of Libra a really interesting "experiment", with potentially big negative or positive consequences for the entire world. Right now, it's really hard to judge on the t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t understand, how buying a condo in New York helps you converting rubles into dollars.
https://www.wired.com/story/if-trump-is-laundering-russian-m... Of course that only describes one "hypothetical" case but the mechanism is the same everywhere and for all pass through commodities. This reference in context has the virtue of being slightly humorous IMO.
I see how buying a condo helps to launder corrupt Russian money, but it is unrelated to the currency, it works the same regardless of what the currency is, dollars or libra. I don’t think Facebook (or whichever libra provider is) would allow users sending a million dollar worth of libra to another wallet without any explanations just using a phone app.
I'm asking this in all seriousness. Why would anyone want to use Libra? Let's say a consumer wants to buy something. They can either pay with "normal" money in one step or they can use their phone to convert their money into Libra and then make the purchase with Libra. Why would they go through the extra step(s)? Am I to believe that the benefit is "lower transaction fees"? Because if so, Libra doesn't have a chance.…
There are millions of people around the world that are unbanked. Especially in 3rd world countries, they get on the internet by buying the cheapest possible smartphone and data with cash. I was just in the Philippines, and I saw places selling access to only Facebook and WhatsApp, in increments of 30MB of data, for cash. The problem for Facebook is that these people can't buy anything online, because they don't have…