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Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

diem.com

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Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#131

Post by grey-area »

tomp wrote: post #56

Ok, so let's focus on the underlying idea, without the "Facebook is trying to rebrand their evil brand" cruft. Basically, I think the underlying idea is valuable - low-cost, fast, reliable, accessible money transfers - clearly something missing right now in this world, even for the "global rich" (citizens of first-world countries), let alone for the "unbanked". It could even scale even more to a money store but that'…

In the UK, I have low-cost, fast, reliable, accessible money transfers. Basic bank accounts are free, and come with reliable free instant transfers to any other UK bank. That may not be reality in all countries, but it is in many.

That's quite a high bar for rival payment methods to clear, but I think the main problem for corporate currencies like this will be rivalry from government issuers. Governments jealously guard the right to issue currency, as they rightly perceive it as one of their biggest holds over citizens. Any sufficiently powerful currency would attract their scrutiny.

I do think payments are ripe for disruption though - when money is sent over a free global network between pre-vetted partners (i.e. bank customers) there is no reason the transaction fees should be high, even internationally. I'm not clear how a blockchain based currency is going to help facilitate that, but would love to see a revolution in payments which made them simpler and not tied to archaic concepts like sort codes and account numbers, and reduced the fees charged to customers and merchants for payment networks or card issuers which don't do the hard KYC work (banks and payment processors do that).

The problems here are in verified identity tied to real people, not how to perform transactions quickly, or things like anonymous trust-free transactions which nobody actually wants.

Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#132

Post by Technically »

tomp wrote: post #56

Ok, so let's focus on the underlying idea, without the "Facebook is trying to rebrand their evil brand" cruft. Basically, I think the underlying idea is valuable - low-cost, fast, reliable, accessible money transfers - clearly something missing right now in this world, even for the "global rich" (citizens of first-world countries), let alone for the "unbanked". It could even scale even more to a money store but that'…

> Basically, I think the underlying idea is valuable - low-cost, fast, reliable, accessible money transfers - clearly something missing right now in this world

You could also mandate that wires are free as part of necessary banking structure. I don't see why this needs a new currency at all; our financial system is shitty because there's little political control exercised on behalf of consumers.

Still, papering over the mismanagement of government with predatory private services is the theme of the future of the US. We may as well accept that we have no control.

Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#133

Post by waihtis »

colordrops wrote: post #128
camgunz wrote: post #121

The core feature of any cryptocurrency is "money w/o state regulation", but when you're talking about selling it for any major currency (Dollars, Euros, Sterling, Yen, RMB) guess what, you're regulated. There is no way around this, regulators are wise (more than wise, hypervigilant) to it. As a result, this stuff is just cumbersome currency that roasts the planet. No thank you.

How is there still so much of ignorance over cryptocurrency this far along after its inception? Just because you buy and sell gold with major currencies doesn't mean gold is regulated. Crypto isn't much different. If you can get it anonymously, you can move it anywhere you want as long as you stay on the blockchain. Once you leave the blockchain, you aren't dealing with crypto anymore. Once you sell gold you aren't d…

Gold and crypto are hardly comparable. Start by factoring in all the crime & scams being done via crypto and you've got a general public practically begging for government intervention for cryptocurrencies.

Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#134

Post by ardy42 »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #100
eloff wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how finance works. If you don't follow the rules, you get cut off from the rest of the ecosystem which is tightly controlled by the US. So if diem wants to operate at all, they must adhere to the rules regardless of which countries they are operating in.

This is meant to be a completely different ecosystem, no? An ecosystem not controlled with the US. This isn't a normal financal service, it's not banking, it's outside of banking hence why it's aimed and people without banks. And other companies are already in this space providing basically the same service. It seems to me, people applying how companies 1st world countries + the US operate to how companies in 3rd wor…

>>> Says who? Who is going to enforce some random African country that is in the middle of a civil war to have those?

> This is meant to be a completely different ecosystem, no? An ecosystem not controlled with the US. This isn't a normal financal service, it's not banking, it's outside of banking hence why it's aimed and people without banks.

Last I checked, Facebook is a US company, with a US headquarters, publicly traded on a US stock market, and with an American CEO and controlling shareholder. So, unless they all want to relocate permanently to "some random African country that is in the middle of a civil war", they're going to have to deal with US regulations.

Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#136

Post by AtlasBarfed »

asciimov wrote: post #125

Diem/Libra seems like a convoluted scheme for Facebook to be able to globally repatriate money at will. Sure they would have to manage to grow it to a certain scale first, but by controlling the whole wooden nickel factory it wouldn't be hard nor detectable for them to do.

"We're a creepy Orwellian company with a demonstrated record of having no morals and psychologically manipulating people not only for profit, but for sport!

Have faith and trust in our cryptocurrency!"

Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#137

Post by [deleted] »

tomp wrote: post #56

Ok, so let's focus on the underlying idea, without the "Facebook is trying to rebrand their evil brand" cruft. Basically, I think the underlying idea is valuable - low-cost, fast, reliable, accessible money transfers - clearly something missing right now in this world, even for the "global rich" (citizens of first-world countries), let alone for the "unbanked". It could even scale even more to a money store but that'…

[deleted]

Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#138

Post by AtlasBarfed »

colordrops wrote: post #128
camgunz wrote: post #121

The core feature of any cryptocurrency is "money w/o state regulation", but when you're talking about selling it for any major currency (Dollars, Euros, Sterling, Yen, RMB) guess what, you're regulated. There is no way around this, regulators are wise (more than wise, hypervigilant) to it. As a result, this stuff is just cumbersome currency that roasts the planet. No thank you.

How is there still so much of ignorance over cryptocurrency this far along after its inception? Just because you buy and sell gold with major currencies doesn't mean gold is regulated. Crypto isn't much different. If you can get it anonymously, you can move it anywhere you want as long as you stay on the blockchain. Once you leave the blockchain, you aren't dealing with crypto anymore. Once you sell gold you aren't d…

He's right about roasting the planet though. Scarcity without computational (and literal) power is necessary.

Maybe if we could use the inherent incalculability of the three-body problem as the basis for a cryptocurrency. You'd need to observe the universe to "find" astrocoins.

It would be Astrology on steroids.

Of course that leaves out verifiability, encryption, anonymous identity yet ownership.

What if you (somehow) knew both parts of the quantum uncertainty portions of a particle because you initiated the system. Then you could demonstrate ownership by being able to predict the location or the momentum at any time based on that.

But it would be fun to hold cryptocoins called Heisenbergs

But that is an actual physical particle.

Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#139

Post by logifail »

colordrops wrote: post #128
camgunz wrote: post #121

The core feature of any cryptocurrency is "money w/o state regulation", but when you're talking about selling it for any major currency (Dollars, Euros, Sterling, Yen, RMB) guess what, you're regulated. There is no way around this, regulators are wise (more than wise, hypervigilant) to it. As a result, this stuff is just cumbersome currency that roasts the planet. No thank you.

How is there still so much of ignorance over cryptocurrency this far along after its inception? Just because you buy and sell gold with major currencies doesn't mean gold is regulated. Crypto isn't much different. If you can get it anonymously, you can move it anywhere you want as long as you stay on the blockchain. Once you leave the blockchain, you aren't dealing with crypto anymore. Once you sell gold you aren't d…

> If you can get it anonymously, you can move it anywhere you want as long as you stay on the blockchain

Q: Is this fundamentally different to having a suitcase full of cash?

Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#140

Post by baby »

tomp wrote: post #56

Ok, so let's focus on the underlying idea, without the "Facebook is trying to rebrand their evil brand" cruft. Basically, I think the underlying idea is valuable - low-cost, fast, reliable, accessible money transfers - clearly something missing right now in this world, even for the "global rich" (citizens of first-world countries), let alone for the "unbanked". It could even scale even more to a money store but that'…

1) think of it as a centralized database that needs replication, you’d be a bit worried if this central place got attacked, so then you need some gossip-based protocol in place to allow some users to police the system. Consensus is a simple one because it allows most users to trust that consensus was agreed on correctly, as opposed to systems like transparency protocols that require users to more willingly engage in policing.

2) it is tied to non profits as well! The whole point is to fund this project by companies, no a company

3) we will support single currencies (a USD coin, for example)

4) that’s what we’re working on!

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