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Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

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Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#101

Post by yellow_postit »

csomar wrote: post #12

Here are some wild predictions I'm making + Many (or potentially all of the backers except Facebook) will withdraw from the alliance. + Facebook/Zuckerberg will defy the gov.s and launch Libra. + Libra might not dominate the world, but it'll be a success (at least a niche success) and it'll eat up some of the marketshare of these financial institutions. I think Zuckerberg has come (or already know) to the realization…

There's so many ways beyond Western Union already to avoid exorbitant fees, one example is TransferWise. While a very broad use case I'm not sold given the existing competition that FB has anything super unique or compelling when just restricted to the cross border money transfer space.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#102

Post by wpietri »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #29
nikanj wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FB is banking (pun unnintended) on the regulators and goverments being absolutely useless lately. Both AirBnB and Uber built empires on ”What if we just ignore the rules”

> Both AirBnB and Uber built empires on ”What if we just ignore the rules“ Municipal regulations. Not federal and state laws with criminal penalties. Wilfully breaching AML statute is arson to Uber’s parking tickets.

Exactly. Municipal regulators were unprepared for somebody with a billion dollars willfully breaking laws. And the laws were not a huge deal. For financial regulators, it's their bread and butter, and the laws are most definitely a big deal. Money laundering is a problem they are very serious about because it enables so much other crime.

I'm sure Facebook would not be dumb enough to step in front of that train, but if they did, it would run them flat.

There's also a sort of 9/11 effect going on here. The reason the 9/11 hijackers pulled it off was that nobody expected them to use the planes as giant suicide bombs. Previous hijackings generally ended peacefully, so everybody just stayed chill. But that window of opportunity expired before they managed to crash the 4th plane. Now nobody's just going to sit quietly through a hijacking.

Similarly, I think the reason Uber and Airbnb got away with so much lawbreaking is that it was novel to have nominally respectable companies blatantly committing a wide variety of crimes. But these days, tech companies get a lot of suspicion. Regulators are not interesting in getting caught flat-footed again. And that was true 5 years ago; SF vigorously shut down a bunch of entrepreneurs that wanted to sell public parking spaces back to the public: https://www.govtech.com/transportation/SF-Demands-MonkeyPark...

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#103

Post by wpietri »

ilaksh wrote: post #39
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think governments actually want Libra Which governments? Libra doesn’t benefit any government. While Libra is a “real” cryptocurrency (distributed, any user can exchange, etc) as opposed to schemes like Beenz, it’s closer to company scrip than to Bitcoin’s model of “digital gold”. Also - despite all the white-papers and hired evangelists - Facebook would still de-facto control Libra: not directly, of course - but…

"Address blacklisting" -- you just explained why governments actually DO want Libra. They will get that from Facebook. They will not get that from real cryptocurrency.

Is there any reason to think they're worried about cryptocurrency? I see no evidence that adoption is increasing.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#105

Post by chank »

worik wrote: post #94
chank wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's way more complex than that. Pretty much everyone in government and the crypto space doesn't want Libra to succeed under it's current stewardship. The implications are very far reaching. Also, there isn't a single cryptocurrency today that can't be tracked, even ones like Monero.

Also, there isn't a single cryptocurrency today that can't be tracked, even ones like Monero. Really?

Can be, yes. Through combining network and non-network meta-data. If anyone actually has the desire to do so is another question entirely, but I wouldn't be surprised if certain state-level agencies have already begun to compile such data.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#106

Post by asveikau »

eugeniub wrote: post #11
Retroity wrote: post #2

Interesting, but not surprising considering all the pressure from governments regarding Libra. I wonder if Facebook will ever back down from Libra considering how popular it is, or if they're going to adopt a "rain or shine" attitude and go forward with it regardless of what happens?

> considering how popular it is Excuse me, popular with whom?

Second most popular currency in Menlo Park, California.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#107

Post by rrdharan »

FillardMillmore wrote: post #81
aclsid wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The licensing is not the issue. It is the middleman charging fees for simple transactions that they will totally skip. Building that before was hard but the blockchain solved that

I think you're right on the money (no pun intended). The technology is there. If government doesn't get in the way (which they will), market forces would dictate that a company (Facebook or other) would use this technology (Blockchain) to make these sort of transactions more efficient and cost-effective for everyone willing to adopt them.

A distributed ledger is not more efficient than a centralized ledger. You give up efficiency in exchange for distributing the trust.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#108

Post by jcampbell1 »

csomar wrote: post #12

Here are some wild predictions I'm making + Many (or potentially all of the backers except Facebook) will withdraw from the alliance. + Facebook/Zuckerberg will defy the gov.s and launch Libra. + Libra might not dominate the world, but it'll be a success (at least a niche success) and it'll eat up some of the marketshare of these financial institutions. I think Zuckerberg has come (or already know) to the realization…

Libra is meant to be the m-pesa of the world. It is funny that the US government and CIA haven’t figured out how much Libra will offer US hegemony. At some point Sandberg will explain it to the political dopes and Libra will happen. That day is not today.

I don’t have time to explain this comment, but I am probably missing something in my thinking.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#109

Post by kccqzy »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #97
oceanplexian wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure Crypto backed by a particular company might not happen, but I don’t see BTC and similar P2P blockchain currencies going anywhere. It’s about as easy to stop as digital piracy, which is to say in other words physically impossible to regulate.

Corroborating ineedausername, Wikileaks seemed like they were unstoppable defying governments and all. Then, they said they were about to humiliate one of the U.S.'s most powerful banks. Then, Mastercard, Visa, and Paypal cut off all donations to them. Then, Wikileaks started dying off. The government and card networks might do something similar. They could get SWIFT in on it, too, since they cooperate with governmen…

Exactly. Imagine MasterCard and Visa blocking Facebook the merchant so advertisers can no longer pay Facebook. I'm sure Facebook will drop Libra like a hot potato.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#110

Post by SomeOldThrow »

csomar wrote: post #12

Here are some wild predictions I'm making + Many (or potentially all of the backers except Facebook) will withdraw from the alliance. + Facebook/Zuckerberg will defy the gov.s and launch Libra. + Libra might not dominate the world, but it'll be a success (at least a niche success) and it'll eat up some of the marketshare of these financial institutions. I think Zuckerberg has come (or already know) to the realization…

> Libra might not dominate the world, but it'll be a success (at least a niche success) and it'll eat up some of the marketshare of these financial institutions.

This relies on people consciously choosing to give money to libra rather than transferring directly. Why would anyone do this rather than use apple pay/cash/venmo/zelle with USD?

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