151–160 of 359 posts
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 i…
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…
Everyone should have anticipated that reaction. Finance is filled with smart people trying to pull fast ones. Regulators and lawmakers are sensitive to being blindsided, moreso with anti-money laundering.
The moment I saw the announcement I knew they screwed up. So did everyone in D.C. who isn’t selling blockchain consulting. It was hamfistedly introduced by the wrong people (Facebook) at the wrong time.
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> a digital currency backed by a floating basket of currencies This will be live by the end of 2019 in a similar form. The MakerDAO stablecoin system on the Ethereum blockchain produces the DAI stablecoin, with 1 DAI pegged at 1 USD. There's currently $85M of DAI in circulation. Each $1 of DAI is backed with $1.50 of Ether, the currency of the Ethereum blockchain. Later this year a major upgrade will go live named "M…
I’ve always found it very interesting. Do you have a good resource that explains how it really work?
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On the other hand if it weren't facebook they likely would not even have been interested in yet-another cryptocurrency. Especially if it's even not available, but just a work-in-progress thing.
If they had created this without FB (and didn't announce it at all), FB could have snuck in later and they would have taken over payments without anyone noticing
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How else can facebook prevent people from moving on to wechat with its internal payment system? Why should people stick to facebook if wechat can offer a whole bunch of services that need (micro) transactions?
Facebook can have an internal payment system that uses local currencies. There is no reason it needs to create its own currency, except as a power grab. Building out a Paypal clone is fine enough.
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There's a black market for drugs because people like taking drugs. On the other hand, people only like receiving cryptographic tokens on the assumption that they will be able to exchange them for something in future, something considerably less likely if giving away products and services for alphanumeric strings is illegal... and unlike drugs, the supply of cryptoassets doesn't shrink when the government makes them m…
> There's a black market for drugs because people like taking drugs. Perhaps this is somewhat pedantic, but I think it's more accurate to say that there's a black market for drugs because governments have passed laws to make certain drugs illegal and some groups of people have accepted the risks that come with supplying the demand for this particular market in order to make a profit. > On the other hand, people only…
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Bitcoin does not need to be killed because it’s dead already: proved to be useless for all practical purposes, now used mostly for money laundering or other criminal activities
That's an interesting claim, all the time regular banknotes and coins offer way better alternatives for doing just that (e.g. money laundering and black market transactions), due to their much better relative untraceability as compared to just about all cryptocurrencies, and even so-called privacy coins. The only thing cryptocurrency has clearly got going for it, is in relative better ease of use, and better security…
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It seems silly to say there is no audience because it’s already possible to transfer money. Facebook is all about cloning an existing product and making it easy for millions of people use it by putting it in an app they already use for an hour every day. I think if they are permitted to launch, they will get a lot of people to use it.
I am a happy customer of both a bank and a grocery store. If one day the grocery store decides to also open a bank, I won't suddenly move my accounts there just because I go to the grocery store every week. That's why the grocery stores trying to offer credit cards usually have some loyalty programs (e.g. points/discounts for in-store purchases). And BTW, they typically just partner with existing banks and not try to…