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Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

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Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#281

Post by mareko »

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'…

These are great questions. Here are my thoughts / answers:

> 1. Is there a reason this is tied to the blockchain

For FB, you're 100% right. FB could have likely just used a relational DB in the short term. However, if you don't want to tie this to a single company (your second question), then a blockchain does make it easier for multiple entities to agree on the state of the db. I would argue that modern Proof of Stake protocols are starting to be competitive with Proof of Work in terms of security, in large part because unlike Proof of Work, they allow for both positive _and_ negative incentives for incentivizing behavior. For example, we've yet to see the types of double spend attacks on newer PoS chains (e.g. Cosmos) like the ones we saw on Ethereum Classic a few years ago.

> 2. Is there a reason this would be tied to a company

No, and in fact, this is what makes most permissionless blockchains so valuable. The problem is that most of them are not useable enough for what Facebook wants to accomplish. I say most because, in my view, Celo (https://celo.org and https://valoraapp.com) does. It's permissionless, programable, highly scalable, has a built in stablecoin and identity protocol, and most importantly, uses new zk-SNARK cryptography to let mobile apps sync trustlessly and near instantly. It also offsets 100% of its carbon emissions by buying carbon credits using block rewards.

> 3. Why a "new currency" ("stablecoin")?

I agree 100% and already the market is starting to tell us that USD pegged stablecoins are the most interesting of stablecoins.

> 4. I'm sure there are many issues with fraud/reversible transactions/KYC/anti-terrorism/anti-money-laundering that would need to be resolved somehow

Yes! This is an interesting read on the topic: https://www.coincenter.org/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-an...

Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#282

Post by TuringNYC »

grey-area wrote: post #131
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 gu…

even in the countries where you do have this, what about cross-border transactions...those usually again become messy. Even between two countries which each have a good internal system as you describe.

Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#284

Post by colordrops »

littlestymaar wrote: post #194
colordrops wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ever try to cross any border custom with more than a certain amount of gold, you'd realize that it's more regulated than you think it is.

That is obvious, but that is not something especially unique to gold - pretty much everything physical is regulated at the border. Yours is more of a statement about border security than gold. To bring it back to crypto, you can easily cross a border without your crypto being touched.

Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#285

Post by superkuh »

retube wrote: post #261
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'…

I believe WeChat allows anyone to send and receive money, make payments etc, and at huge stale. No idea how implemented, but no blockchain nonsense.

No, Bitcoin allows anyone to send and receive money. WeChat allows some people to send and receive money.

Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#286

Post by clashmeifyoucan »

tomp wrote: post #262
gonehome wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zelle, Venmo, PayPal, Square, Apple Pay - there are a ton of companies that all do this same thing in the US because the bank software is terrible and expensive. I thought stellar was similar to what the parent comment describes, but it’s also not proof of work (which makes need for blockchain unclear). https://www.stellar.org/

I just checked out Stellar... sounds really interesting actually, very much in line with what I described (except blockchain - I can't see if it's public (not good) or private (not much point in it then) but I'm open to being convinced otherwise), there's just one problem... how do I even use it?? There's no app, no nothing. Ideally, I'd like something like TransferWise "I'd like to send money to X" just non-profit.

fwiw, Stellar integrates directly with Keybase.¹ I remember they did an airdrop when they launched and deposited ~100$ worth of XLM into every Keybase users' wallet.

Not sure how interesting Keybase is now, but it does allow sending money to other Keybase users directly through chat.²

[1] https://keybase.io/blog/keybase-stellar-launch

[2] https://book.keybase.io/wallet#chat

Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#287

Post by pwm »

cortesoft wrote: post #188
samatman wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2% annual debasement rate of modern state currencies would have been a massive crisis in the era of metals. Imagine a king putting 2% less silver in the coin, year over year. We're just used to it. But leave that aside, you said you like government-managed currency and I believe you. Venezuelans don't. The way I see it, what's stopping the EUR and USD from going down that spiral is momentum, rather than some law…

Having some inflation is important, though, to prime the economy for growth. Low level, consistent, inflation is a good thing.

Depends on the use-case. Bitcoin's current zeitgeist is digital gold/store of value and from that point of view deflation is a strength that complements inflationary currencies.

Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#288

Post by everfree »

flixic wrote: post #103
x87678r wrote: post #31

Are any crypto currencies widely used for transactions these days? ie the classic coffee shop purchase. BTC had a start but now seems only useful for people buying as an asset.

Today's Bitcoin's average transaction fee is $6.34. For "coffee shop purchases" that is horrendous. Ethereum is better, at $1.43, but still not usable for coffee. Only highly-centralized cryptocurrencies, such as Stellar, have reasonable transaction fees. I think for the time being it's meaningful to think of cryptocurrency transactions as stock purchases / fees to the stock exchange.

A simple native payment on Ethereum is only $0.16 right now, complex transactions inflate the average.

And roll-up transactions are currently sitting at less than a penny.

Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#289

Post by hakfoo »

jMyles wrote: post #278
noelsusman wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be good to free currency from government regulation? This is something I often see crypto advocates blow right past as if it's self explanatory, but I don't think it is. I like that the currency I use is managed by my government. Why should I want to switch?

> Why would it be good to free currency from government regulation? Obviously this is a huuuuge question, but it's such a good one. The simplest compact answer, at least to me (and it may in fact be an oversimplification) goes something like this: * Nearly invariably (and with a decreasing number of exceptions as technology advances), states which have control over both sides of the economic equation (ie, monetary co…

I'm not sure I understand the welfare-warfare model. It seems like it requires a bunch of preconditions:

* The cycle of debt needs to be bootstrapped. You need some initial borrowing well beyond current (expected) repayment capacity. This implies both some overspending and lack of due diligence by lenders willing to extend the rope.

* The debt is denominated in a currency the borrower doesn't control. If you're American borrowing dollars, or Russia borrowing roubles, you can always deflate the currency to moot the debt.

* The state has no legal leverage against lenders. A continuation of the tactics above-- I could imagine a desperate nation simply refusing to redeem its bonds, or even prosecuting people attempting to claim then.

There may be incentives and default-approaches that encourage the growth of empire to feed a debt addiction, but it's far from the only way. In the worst case, you end up with a default and limited to dealing with lenders who are legally required to deal with you (i.e. requiring pension plans or state-owned enterprises to sponge up government bonds) until someone else is willing to take a punt.

Re: Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

#290

Post by baby »

tomp wrote: post #162
baby wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

2) Does Facebook (or any other for-profit company) get access to the data (now or ever in the future)? 3) So if I want to send money (from say GBP) to someone in Japan, what would happen? Is the FX exchange seamless or will I need to use some intermediary coin?

2) It's a transparent payment network, so everybody (even you) gets access to the data on the network

3) That's a complicated answer that involves more than just the blockchain (as you need to convert fiat from/to digital currency) so it depends on the VASPs (the wallets) not on DIEM.

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