Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency • Hacker News Board

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#81

Post by FillardMillmore » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 1:30 AM UTC

aclsid wrote: post #73

vertex-four wrote: post #20

If Facebook attempts to become a money transfer service or bank without the required licensing, they will have their offices raided and their doors locked on them. This is something Governments don't tend to mess around with.

The licensing is not the issue. It is the middleman charging fees for simple transactions that they will totally skip. Building that before was hard but the blockchain solved that

I think you're right on the money (no pun intended). The technology is there. If government doesn't get in the way (which they will), market forces would dictate that a company (Facebook or other) would use this technology (Blockchain) to make these sort of transactions more efficient and cost-effective for everyone willing to adopt them.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#82

Post by iikoolpp » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 1:30 AM UTC

drdeca wrote: post #56

vertex-four wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the regulators let them get away with that, nobody in Europe is particularly in need of a cryptocurrency for moving money around Europe, we have near-instant money transfers for free (or close to it) through our banks. I guess they could go for the remittances market, but that's really not where I see Facebook wanting to go.

Oh, that's neat. Is it easy for an individual to set up like, a program to automatically do money transfers that way, in a for-profit way? Because if so, that's pretty cool. I mean, I understand that most people don't particularly want to do that, but I still think it could be cool to have it as an option.

If your bank provides an API, sure.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#83

Post by axaxs » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 1:33 AM UTC

nikanj wrote: post #22

vertex-four wrote: post #20

If Facebook attempts to become a money transfer service or bank without the required licensing, they will have their offices raided and their doors locked on them. This is something Governments don't tend to mess around with.

FB is banking (pun unnintended) on the regulators and goverments being absolutely useless lately. Both AirBnB and Uber built empires on ”What if we just ignore the rules”

This is not a smart position to hold. This administration hates big tech (perhaps fairly, lets not debate politics) and Warren isn't much friendlier.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#84

Post by adventured » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 1:33 AM UTC

jklein11 wrote: post #63

nikanj wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FB is banking (pun unnintended) on the regulators and goverments being absolutely useless lately. Both AirBnB and Uber built empires on ”What if we just ignore the rules”

The difference is that Airbnb and Uber has a lot less to lose. If they got shut down by the govt they could just lose some VCs money. Facebook has a lot more on the line.

Further to that point, Airbnb and Uber are primarily dealing with issues related to local laws, for example in New York City or San Francisco.

New York City shutting down Airbnb doesn't shut them down in the thousands of other cities they're active in. If Boise Idaho restricts Uber, that doesn't suddenly restrict them in Chicago.

The US Government has an entirely different kind of power and when it comes to protecting the global reserve currency, the one guarantee is that they will use it.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#85

Post by oneplane » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 1:39 AM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #54

oneplane wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Messenger isn't all that popular outside of north america. Doesn't matter how much money transfer options you add to a program if nobody is using it. I do wonder what happens if any non WeChat thing starts going for banking type functionality (legal or not).

Multiple search results lead me to believe Facebook Messenger is the second most popular messaging app after WhatsApp. Are you able to provide references supporting your claim?

Sure but you could plug that into google as well you know. Here is the first hit: https://www.messengerpeople.com/global-messenger-usage-stati...

Edit: oddly enough, that hit wasn't the one where I read about it last week... But any page with sources works I suppose.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#86

Post by 8ytecoder » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 1:42 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #24

csomar wrote: post #12

Here are some wild predictions I'm making + Many (or potentially all of the backers except Facebook) will withdraw from the alliance. + Facebook/Zuckerberg will defy the gov.s and launch Libra. + Libra might not dominate the world, but it'll be a success (at least a niche success) and it'll eat up some of the marketshare of these financial institutions. I think Zuckerberg has come (or already know) to the realization…

+1 for the first and second points, but I think it will play out much differently. Facebook will try to defy regulators, but I think the SEC will stomp on them, hard. It will end up a hybrid battle in the courts and Congress between libertarians, a few flavors of privacy advocates, US regulatory concerns, and ultimately land on US power projection concerns. I think the US will eventually shape the law and regulatory…

A good number of countries will outright ban it for fear of the US governments control (warranted or not).

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#87

Post by foobarian » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 1:43 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #38

wmf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the US will eventually shape the law and regulatory environment to prevent the existence of any cryptocurrency with its own valuation - distributed ledgers denominated in central bank currencies will be all that is allowed at the end. Existing SEC/CFTC/FinCen rulings seem to point in a very different direction. They've had many opportunities to shut down Bitcoin and have not done it.

Nobody actually uses bitcoin in the US for anything besides investment speculation and really rare toy applications. It isn't being seen as a threat to anybody's central bank, because for all its enthusiasts and speculators, it hasn't developed into any sort of competition for the existing financial system unless you are doing something really illicit.

> unless you are doing something really illicit.

Actually I wonder if the intelligence agencies of the world like the cryptocurrencies because it lets them find illicit activity more easily.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#88

Post by amluto » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 1:45 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #24

csomar wrote: post #12

Here are some wild predictions I'm making + Many (or potentially all of the backers except Facebook) will withdraw from the alliance. + Facebook/Zuckerberg will defy the gov.s and launch Libra. + Libra might not dominate the world, but it'll be a success (at least a niche success) and it'll eat up some of the marketshare of these financial institutions. I think Zuckerberg has come (or already know) to the realization…

+1 for the first and second points, but I think it will play out much differently. Facebook will try to defy regulators, but I think the SEC will stomp on them, hard. It will end up a hybrid battle in the courts and Congress between libertarians, a few flavors of privacy advocates, US regulatory concerns, and ultimately land on US power projection concerns. I think the US will eventually shape the law and regulatory…

> Congress isn't going to give that power away to Facebook

I would say that Congress shouldn’t give that power to Facebook. Congress isn’t very good at doing anything lately.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#89

Post by colechristensen » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 1:47 AM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #87

colechristensen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody actually uses bitcoin in the US for anything besides investment speculation and really rare toy applications. It isn't being seen as a threat to anybody's central bank, because for all its enthusiasts and speculators, it hasn't developed into any sort of competition for the existing financial system unless you are doing something really illicit.

> unless you are doing something really illicit. Actually I wonder if the intelligence agencies of the world like the cryptocurrencies because it lets them find illicit activity more easily.

Nothing like an indestructible globally replicated register of your transactions to help make yourself discoverable

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#90

Post by ineedasername » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 1:53 AM UTC

csomar wrote: post #12

Here are some wild predictions I'm making + Many (or potentially all of the backers except Facebook) will withdraw from the alliance. + Facebook/Zuckerberg will defy the gov.s and launch Libra. + Libra might not dominate the world, but it'll be a success (at least a niche success) and it'll eat up some of the marketshare of these financial institutions. I think Zuckerberg has come (or already know) to the realization…

">If Libra ignored these rules..."

This isn't like Uber silently encroaching on a city's taxi medallion laws with grey-area definitions of "taxi" and "employee". Facebook cannot do something like this without attracting scrutiny at every stage, and as we saw with Robinhood, the financial regulation systems are relatively quick to act. Especially if they "defy govs", then those government's will have every reason to come down hard.

This is one area where Facebook will need to finesse their way through-- moving fast and breaking things is not a winning strategy.