My immediate gut reaction to this entire thing (and again, this is only a personal viewpoint not held by others) is along the lines of: What could go wrong with giving one of the most shady corporations on the planet the permission to print its own currency?
Libra, 2 Weeks In
141–150 of 287 posts
Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In
#142I'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.…
We have an app called mobile pay in Denmark, which I guess is similar to Apple Pay in that you link a credit card and it lets you send money to friends or pay for stuff. It’s owned by our banks and it works most places a credit card wouldn’t, like in small stores that can’t really afford to have a credit card terminal. That’s it’s main uses, sending money to friends or buying things. Only they also have an API for th…
This seems doable without Libra. I'm in Australia and my local transfers from the bank app (ING) are both free and instant. At least to banks that joined Osko. That sorts out pretty much all simple/tiny transfers. If Libra can guarantee international transfers for free, I expect that fee will also go away from the banks.
Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In
#143> At the core, we believe that a network that helps move more cash transactions — where a lot of illicit activities happen — to a digital network that features regulated on and off ramps with proper know-your-customer (KYC) practices, combined with the ability for law enforcement and regulators to conduct their own analysis of on-chain activity, will be a big opportunity to increase the efficacy of financial crimes m…
Know your customer is BS. It's just an excuse to invade your privacy and ask you personal questions.
And all efforts to curb money laundering, and all AML compliance laws are just to invade your personal privacy and nothing more too, right?
Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have an app called mobile pay in Denmark, which I guess is similar to Apple Pay in that you link a credit card and it lets you send money to friends or pay for stuff. It’s owned by our banks and it works most places a credit card wouldn’t, like in small stores that can’t really afford to have a credit card terminal. That’s it’s main uses, sending money to friends or buying things. Only they also have an API for th…
> like in small stores that can’t really afford to have a credit card terminal Remember that most of those small stores are able to do this by breaking the terms of service. Accepting MobilePay is NOT free for business, it's not even cheap. As a customers is pretty easy to spot, if the stores MobilePay number is just their phone number, they're breaking the terms of service, and you should pay cash.
I understand it is a breach of terms of service but as a customer, why should you care? It is not like it is breaching the law. And small businesses live on a much smaller margin than banks.
Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In
#145This is the part where they reveal how they plan to negotiate with regulators: "At the core, we believe that a network that helps move more cash transactions — where a lot of illicit activities happen — to a digital network that features regulated on and off ramps with proper know-your-customer (KYC) practices, combined with the ability for law enforcement and regulators to conduct their own analysis of on-chain acti…
Not to defend them, but this is exactly what happens to all non cash transactions. Which you kind of have to do to with any sizeable quantity of money (say over 100k) for practical reasons, like theft.
Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In
#146Earlier 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.
I am confused. I live in a country with "banking services", but almost nobody here uses them. We get paid on debit cards, and then we immediately withdraw the sum in cash. We pay for everything in cash, why would we ever switch to something different? I can only see the negative consequences: the usual privacy implications (some guy can see what I spend my money on); the danger of not being able to spend money at all…
So you can participate in the digital economy, like using (the local equivalent of) Amazon or Spotify.
Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In
#147> Is this really a blockchain? It’s not open. It’s not decentralized! > While the initial mechanism by which organizations can run a node and become a member of the Libra Association, is definitely not as open as, say Bitcoin, where anyone can participate in the consensus algorithm, the Libra Blockchain is absolutely designed to be open. They skip the first question: Libra is not a block chain. It uses Merkel tree ac…
It doesn't matter really. It's a political/financial experiment. Tech is of little relevance to the success.
Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have an app called mobile pay in Denmark, which I guess is similar to Apple Pay in that you link a credit card and it lets you send money to friends or pay for stuff. It’s owned by our banks and it works most places a credit card wouldn’t, like in small stores that can’t really afford to have a credit card terminal. That’s it’s main uses, sending money to friends or buying things. Only they also have an API for th…
> like in small stores that can’t really afford to have a credit card terminal Remember that most of those small stores are able to do this by breaking the terms of service. Accepting MobilePay is NOT free for business, it's not even cheap. As a customers is pretty easy to spot, if the stores MobilePay number is just their phone number, they're breaking the terms of service, and you should pay cash.
Is is free for small businesses. They explicitly state that at least here in Finland. They also state that it is a temporary thing.
Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In
#149One thing that’s been nice since the Libra announcement is the number of knee-jerk reaction “cryptocurrency is 100% useless and look at this NIST blockchain flow chart hurrr hurrrr” comments have mostly disappeared. It seems like crypto is not totally useless after all, but the biggest threat to humanity ever created... or something...
Crypto isn't the reason why Libra is dangerous, Facebook is. If Facebook was launching their own business-controlled currency that was backed by an SQL database, you'd see the exact same reaction. The crypto part is just an implementation detail, what people are actually upset about is corporations trying to seize control of our currency.
Corporations are subjects to local laws, so what's the issue ? It seems people are afraid of the unknown more than Facebook.
My personal questions : If anything goes wrong with the Libra scheme, who will be responsible ? Who would be fined / sent to prison ?
Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In
#150In Portuguese, "libra" is the word for the British Pound Sterling (GBP).
I wonder how it is being branded here and whether there will be some kind of confusion, or mandatory differentiation.