181–190 of 359 posts
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Then let’s have the central banks of the G7 set up a cryptocurrency that’s backed by actual reserve currency. Why put Facebook in the middle?
If the central banks of the G7 are the authority, then why bother with any crypto nonsense? You've just described the Euro, more or less. No need to burn any electricity on a proof of work & public ledger system.
I hope this doesn't cause Facebook to give up on Libra. I personally have no desire to own Libra. But traditional bank accounts kind of suck as a product and I would like to see more tech companies competing with them. The problems with bank accounts: 1. They charge you fees for things 2. They try to upsell me stupid financial products 3. They are not easy to use in other countries 4. Typing in my credit card number…
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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…
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…
And here I thought the whole idea of Libra is to take marketshare from WeChat & M-Pesa.
I'd argue the outcome of this will be that Facebook will launch their own payments infrastructure on top of WhatsApp. There was no need for crypto or a Libra association to begin with. According to the leaked Facebook all-hands audio, Facebook is already planning to launch payments in Mexico by end of 2019 ( https://qz.com/1719731/zuckerberg-confirms-facebook-payment-... ). I wouldn't be surprised if this goes extrem…
If you're in control of the currency it provides you more flexibility and the blockchain aspect arguably makes it easier to manage the accounting as well.
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Funny. The USA seems to have the complete opposite view to yours! :D The Federal Reserve is just about as close to a private company as any, running your entire economy. Certainly it's a for profit venture. But then that's profits funneled away from public coffers, and not to it. Sure, the Fed has a pretty clear mandate from the Congress, deputizing them into a certain public role, but other than that, they receive l…
You do realize that FED transfers it's profits to US Treasury to the tune of 100 billion dollars per year?
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…
The fate of Libra isn't tied to Visa/Mastercard's withdrawal. It's ultimately about whether there is a market for a new mechanism for international money transfers. As someone who runs a business that has (small) offices both in EU and North America, let me share a quick overview of the current state of things. When you want to transfer a non-trivial amount of money between 2 countries, you have likely received it in…
AML/KYC requirements took a scan of my passport, and two days to get verified. At which point, I was good to go.
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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…
In the U.S. it is quite common for grocery stores to have a small bank branch inside them for exactly the reason you cite.
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…
"You might want to ask yourself why the pressure has been so intense. And read some history that Bitcoin pioneers were aware of, for example the failure of e-gold. Your failure to learn from history has caused you to at great cost recapitulate the failures of the past.":
https://twitter.com/NickSzabo4/status/1182776582932332544?s=...