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Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

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Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#121

Post by temptiayruro »

kumarvvr wrote: post #72

Facebook has already wreaked havoc with it's power, it has shown how deceptive it is, it has resisted regulation, it's chief executives have refused to testify to governments. Now them having a cryptocurrency is alarming. Why does it really need to do this? There is nothing anonymous about facebook. Whatever transaction is done, will be linked to your account. This is dangerous. Whether they start or not is irrelevan…

When I think 1984, I think Facebook more than anything else. It has users all over the globe with 2 billion users. That’s more users than the most populous country in the world. If they succeed, there will be no privacy left. Evil will have won.

Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#122

Post by tomjen3 »

cwkoss wrote: post #41
dmitrygr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

statistically, so few people use bitcoin, that one might as well round to zero, so governments do not need to care. FB has 2.5B users whom they can easily manipulate, hence governments care.

I don't think governments 'dont care' but rather they are powerless to act effectively against Bitcoin. A ban would legitimize its utility to people skeptical of central banking. Because Satoshi is anonymous, there is no person or team to attack with legal or extralegal coercion. Only way to effectively take down bitcoin is to spend ~$1B building a huge mining operation with the purpose of launching a 51% attack, but…

A billion is not much once you get to Pentagon scale budgets and is probably cheaper than going to war with Iran.

Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#123

Post by ionised »

stevesimmons wrote: post #88
ahartmetz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy them off, but successful lobbying probably takes years of relationship building to make it look like marriage, not prostitution, to those corruptees that think of themselves as ethical people. You can't just arrive and buy some legislation.

In October last year, Facebook hired Nick Clegg, former UK Deputy Prime Minister and well-known Europhile, as head of Global Affairs and Communications. So that's your years of relationship building, acquired in one go.

Nick Clegg isn't exactly well thought of. They goofed hiring him, which is great because the more Facebook fucks up the better the world becomes.

Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#124

Post by deevolution »

orbifold wrote: post #11

There is basically no way that a self respecting first world country will allow this to happen. The national federal reserves in Europe are still responsible for international settlements, that gives a tremendous amount of power and oversight, they won’t allow a third party to take that away from them. Facebook may be able to buy off US regulators, but they won’t be able to convince the EU.

The great thing about bitcoin is theres no central actor for the state to target. Libra's biggest weakness is its connection to facebook.

Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#125

Post by rchaud »

john_minsk wrote: post #96
chris_wot wrote: post #66

I cannot understand why you would want to use Facebook's "currency". I'd just use what we currently have.

Biggest bank in Russia (Sberbank) introduced a simple feature: if you know a phone number of a person, you can enter it on their website and if the owner of the phone number has any account with Sberbank you can send him money. The convenience of such feature was so big that it caused people move from other banks to Sberbank just to use it. Eventually leading to government regulation making this feature bank-agnostic…

Same thing in Canada. It's called Interac Etransfer. Link your email account to a bank account, and you can send someone money for $1.50 per transaction. Made it much easier to pay back friends if you don't have exact change, or a remote landlord as I don't have to mail paper cheques and wait for confirmation.

Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#126

Post by huis »

koonsolo wrote: post #92
huis wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes ofcourse they will. When a county doesn't receive tax it will be a very big problem. So countries need to be in control of the flow of money. It is also a very big problem is an outsider can change the value of your own currency. So you don't want US companies taking over your money flow.

It's my money, so also my flow of control, not that of the country I live in. I know this is open ups the whole discussion about cryptocurrenies all over again, but maybe some people don't want government to have the monopoly on storing and transferring 'money'.

Yeah well those people who don't want governments to have control benefit and make use of everything tax has built.

Anarchy is a voice against too much control but as a solution to world problems a very stupid idea.

Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#127

Post by codesushi42 »

pathseeker wrote: post #84
codesushi42 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It will allow for a worldwide social credit system. If Facebook decides to remove you for wrong speak or wrong think, your money and many services will be inaccessible. How is this different than what we have today with banks and credit card companies? The government can already freeze your funds. And now there are examples of people being censored online by being dropped by PayPal, which sets a scary precedent no…

>the Fed has shown no concern for those who save by keeping interest rates so dangerously low There is no such thing as a dangerously low interest rate. The atmosphere won't suddenly catch on fire if you don't get a certain percent of risk free money. Additionally, "those who save" is not part of their mandate. They target unemployment and inflation. >The Fed is also here to make money for huge banks and corporations…

>There is no such thing as a dangerously low interest rate. The atmosphere won't suddenly catch on fire if you don't get a certain percent of risk free money.

You are completely delusional. There is a huge risk to global liquidity. We won't be able to rely on printing money to get us out of the next downturn.

>There has been plenty of evidence of money shortages causing lots of unemployment (see all busts of the early 1900s).

As Edward Thorp would tell you, bubbles thrive during times of cheap leverage (read: credit). Look at the crises of the last century.

>High interest is absolutely terrible for wealth disparity. It's literally free money for people with money.

You seem completely unaware that low interest rates are a tax on you in the form of inflation. The wealthy have enough to hold other assets that can more than offset this, and they can hold much more leverage. The average person, not so much.

Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#128

Post by nabakin »

ei8htyfi5e wrote: post #81
nabakin wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cant you google some of the text to find the original comment? Or are you saying the original comment was deleted?

Not sure. It's on a facebook group and I couldn't find it in search and I looked in the group I thought it was posted in, but I can't find it.

Ooh Facebook. By thread I thought you meant reddit or HN.

Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#129

Post by twox2 »

deevolution wrote: post #124
orbifold wrote: post #11

There is basically no way that a self respecting first world country will allow this to happen. The national federal reserves in Europe are still responsible for international settlements, that gives a tremendous amount of power and oversight, they won’t allow a third party to take that away from them. Facebook may be able to buy off US regulators, but they won’t be able to convince the EU.

The great thing about bitcoin is theres no central actor for the state to target. Libra's biggest weakness is its connection to facebook.

If only that were true:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockstream

Re: Facebook Cryptocurrency Plan Faces Opposition in France

#130

Post by cwkoss »

tomjen3 wrote: post #122
cwkoss wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think governments 'dont care' but rather they are powerless to act effectively against Bitcoin. A ban would legitimize its utility to people skeptical of central banking. Because Satoshi is anonymous, there is no person or team to attack with legal or extralegal coercion. Only way to effectively take down bitcoin is to spend ~$1B building a huge mining operation with the purpose of launching a 51% attack, but…

A billion is not much once you get to Pentagon scale budgets and is probably cheaper than going to war with Iran.

I am really looking forward to seeing the declassified memos in 30 years where DoD war-gamed ways to take down the Bitcoin network.
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