11–20 of 821 posts
Dumbest move ever by Facebook to preanounce and give governments time to complain. They should have moved fast and dealt with the consequences later. They had a reasonable chance of being the dominant cryptocurrency, and instead they get to spend a year apologizing and backtracking before they ever deploy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very simple. Facebook is a company. You can legislate laws that determine what companies are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do. Particularly if it concerns financial instruments. A "ban" doesn't need to be technological.
How do you stop people obtaining it and using it through their buddies on the internet? Is libra tied to an account like game money? AFAIK it's a cryptocurrency? Haven't looked at the details but cryptocurrency implies it stays on some distributed ladger and no 3rd parties have control over the transactions. Isn't that the case?
Can someone familiar with Libra speculate how a ban can be implemented? What comes to my mind is forbidding Facebook selling and processing it for EU users but beyond that, I am not sure how a "black market" could be prevented.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very simple. Facebook is a company. You can legislate laws that determine what companies are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do. Particularly if it concerns financial instruments. A "ban" doesn't need to be technological.
How do you stop people obtaining it and using it through their buddies on the internet? Is libra tied to an account like game money? AFAIK it's a cryptocurrency? Haven't looked at the details but cryptocurrency implies it stays on some distributed ladger and no 3rd parties have control over the transactions. Isn't that the case?
You pass a law. Most people don't break the law.
You make it illegal for banks to transfer to known Libra things. You audit people. You apply big fines.
Murder is illegal but that doesn't mean nobody can commit murder.
I wish they just blocked facebook altogether. It has caused people more pain than good
Blocking a communication platform doesn't sound right in a free society. There's nothing inherently wrong with connecting people. On the other hand, there should be heavy regulation and enforcement in place so that users don't get their data unknowingly exploited for commercial interest.
Maybe that wouldn’t be an issue if Europe was the best of friends with America, but as that’s obviously not the case. I don’t think our relationship will fully deteriorate, but we can’t ignore the fact that we may have to prepare for a Europe which is less reliant on American tech companies.
Can someone familiar with Libra speculate how a ban can be implemented? What comes to my mind is forbidding Facebook selling and processing it for EU users but beyond that, I am not sure how a "black market" could be prevented.
In the end, it doesn't really do much but slow things down for some users or add extra steps to the process of extracting value out of Libra as long as somewhere is willing to run a quasi-legal exchange. There is also the option to threaten Facebook/Libra with sanctions if accounts can be proven to have been made/facilitated for Citizens.
Another possibility is the requirement to maintain access to the blockchain for mining and analysis against other financial activity the respective governments have the capability to audit.
Hence is the danger of something like Libra combined with Nation State scale actors.
The common person on it may not see anything but addresses, but given enough out-of-band info, the potential for government use as surveillance (or any large organization really) is far too large.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very simple. Facebook is a company. You can legislate laws that determine what companies are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do. Particularly if it concerns financial instruments. A "ban" doesn't need to be technological.
How do you stop people obtaining it and using it through their buddies on the internet? Is libra tied to an account like game money? AFAIK it's a cryptocurrency? Haven't looked at the details but cryptocurrency implies it stays on some distributed ladger and no 3rd parties have control over the transactions. Isn't that the case?
The theme here is that Facebook has lost the trust of too many important people, and maybe they just want to hurt what looks like another enormous American tech company that has been too careless and too aggressive.
Can someone familiar with Libra speculate how a ban can be implemented? What comes to my mind is forbidding Facebook selling and processing it for EU users but beyond that, I am not sure how a "black market" could be prevented.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you stop people obtaining it and using it through their buddies on the internet? Is libra tied to an account like game money? AFAIK it's a cryptocurrency? Haven't looked at the details but cryptocurrency implies it stays on some distributed ladger and no 3rd parties have control over the transactions. Isn't that the case?
You make its use a criminal charge.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very simple. Facebook is a company. You can legislate laws that determine what companies are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do. Particularly if it concerns financial instruments. A "ban" doesn't need to be technological.
How do you stop people obtaining it and using it through their buddies on the internet? Is libra tied to an account like game money? AFAIK it's a cryptocurrency? Haven't looked at the details but cryptocurrency implies it stays on some distributed ladger and no 3rd parties have control over the transactions. Isn't that the case?
It's about time we all disabused ourselves of the libertarian utopian dream that just because cryptocurrency is on a distributed ledger than governments can't control it. "How do you stop people obtaining it and using it through their buddies on the internet" - quite simply, by telling them they'd go to jail, or get a hefty fine, for doing that.
Companies are even easier to control than people because their whole existence is made possible by laws and regulations of governments.