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Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and eBay exit Facebook’s Libra project

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Re: Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and eBay exit Facebook’s Libra project

#51

Post by jeremyjh »

Barrin92 wrote: post #44
jeremyjh wrote: post #31

It looks like a misstep followed by a hasty and ignominious retreat because thats exactly what happened - no one anticipated the reaction from lawmakers and rules agencies. Its kind of hard to see this from the perspective of people who follow tech and HN, but Libra really may have been the first occasion that the possibility of crypto as anything other than an investment instrument - e.g. an actual usage as currency…

>no one anticipated the reaction from lawmakers and rules agencies. if that's really the case at the Facebook headquarters they need to do some soul searching about how in touch they are with the world at large. Because when I read that the biggest social network on the planet is going to try to introduce its own currency it took me and I think a lot of other people exactly two seconds to figure out that Uncle Sam an…

Why would Visa, Mastercard and others agree to participate if they believed it was doomed in this way? I do not think it was nearly so obvious as you suggest. The way rules agencies had treated crypto so far looked accommodating.

Re: Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and eBay exit Facebook’s Libra project

#53

Post by _bxg1 »

john_moscow wrote: post #39

Call me cynical, but the whole idea of Libra would be disruptive to the existing international payment businesses, such as the ones that just exited. So the only reason for them to join in the first place would be to basically "know your enemy" - make certain you get the first-person intel on the project's vitals and to know what to expect. Now that a couple of governments made it clear that there would be roadblocks…

Probably true, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good thing. Despite the marketing about distribution, this was a power-grap by Facebook.

Re: Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and eBay exit Facebook’s Libra project

#54

Post by CodiePetersen »

I'm actually glad it's dead/dying. It was always going to be controlled by an elite group who answered to no one but themselves. They had the ability to monitor all of your transactions and if they didn't like you they could roll back or block your transactions.

People keep saying oh this is proof crypto can't ever work because government. This was never a true crypto currency. It was just a private ledger tracking where actual money went. It was a stable coin at best. Its centralization is what got it killed.

Re: Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and eBay exit Facebook’s Libra project

#55

Post by lucasverra »

David Marcus update [1] :

Special thanks to @Visa and @Mastercard for sticking it out until the 11th hour. The pressure has been intense (understatement), and I respect their decision to wait until there’s regulatory clarity for @Libra_ to proceed, vs. the invoked threats (by many) on their biz.

I would caution against reading the fate of Libra into this update. Of course, it’s not great news in the short term, but in a way it’s liberating. Stay tuned for more very soon. Change of this magnitude is hard. You know you’re on to something when so much pressure builds up.

[1]https://twitter.com/davidmarcus/status/1182775728431087623

Re: Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and eBay exit Facebook’s Libra project

#56

Post by capableweb »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #43
celticninja wrote: post #40

The centralisation of Libra made it easy to kill. Bitcoin can be hampered but not outright killed, at least not over night. A death by a thousand cuts is the most likely solution but by no means guarantees Victory.

Bitcoin can be "killed" in the sense that it can become useless for the 99.99%. Simply hunt down vendors who accept Bitcoin and organizations who facilitate its exchange. At that point, Bitcoin would be essentially dead as a rival to any currency.

> Simply hunt down vendors who accept Bitcoin and organizations who facilitate its exchange.

This is commonly a argument for having drugs illegal too. "If we hunt them down, eventually there will be no one left"

What we know now, is that making something illegal, could make it stronger. If Bitcoin becomes illegal in most country, would the price go up or down? Suddenly there is a black market, and opens up a whole other can of worms, so governments might not be able to simply outlaw it.

Re: Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and eBay exit Facebook’s Libra project

#57

Post by [deleted] »

echelon wrote: post #6
justinzollars wrote: post #3

I'm actually kind of bummed out about this. I may not like FB, but I like the idea of a digital currency backed by a floating basket of currencies.

Not one that isn't regulated and that is controlled by a company with a penchant for walking the legal gray area line.

[deleted]

Re: Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and eBay exit Facebook’s Libra project

#58

Post by avhwl »

celticninja wrote: post #40

The centralisation of Libra made it easy to kill. Bitcoin can be hampered but not outright killed, at least not over night. A death by a thousand cuts is the most likely solution but by no means guarantees Victory.

>Bitcoin can be hampered but not outright killed, at least not over night. A death by a thousand cuts is the most likely solution but by no means guarantees Victory.

Ignoring policy attacks, and focusing on the purely technical:

A useful metric here is to compare the cost of executing a 51% attack on Bitcoin long enough to erode confidence in the software to the military budget of the top nation states.

Additionally, the broadly assumed consistency properties of Proof-of-Work cryptocurrencies fall apart in the face of a powerful network adversary who can cause arbitrary segmentation.

Re: Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and eBay exit Facebook’s Libra project

#59

Post by SomeOldThrow »

jeremyjh wrote: post #31

It looks like a misstep followed by a hasty and ignominious retreat because thats exactly what happened - no one anticipated the reaction from lawmakers and rules agencies. Its kind of hard to see this from the perspective of people who follow tech and HN, but Libra really may have been the first occasion that the possibility of crypto as anything other than an investment instrument - e.g. an actual usage as currency…

A more accurate term than “crypto” would be “private currency”. It offers very few of the benefits other cryptocurrencies offer (to non capitalists) except for resilience to the failure of a single state issued currency. “Crypto” is a complete red herring.

Re: Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and eBay exit Facebook’s Libra project

#60

Post by Swenrekcah »

jeremyjh wrote: post #51
Barrin92 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>no one anticipated the reaction from lawmakers and rules agencies. if that's really the case at the Facebook headquarters they need to do some soul searching about how in touch they are with the world at large. Because when I read that the biggest social network on the planet is going to try to introduce its own currency it took me and I think a lot of other people exactly two seconds to figure out that Uncle Sam an…

Why would Visa, Mastercard and others agree to participate if they believed it was doomed in this way? I do not think it was nearly so obvious as you suggest. The way rules agencies had treated crypto so far looked accommodating.

I think there are two strategic reasons for joining even if they believed it was doomed.

1. Like someone said above, know your enemy.

2. In the 0.1% offchance that it took off they really don’t want to be left out.

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