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France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

reuters.com

21–30 of 821 posts

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#21

Dumbest move ever by Facebook to preanounce and give governments time to complain. They should have moved fast and dealt with the consequences later. They had a reasonable chance of being the dominant cryptocurrency, and instead they get to spend a year apologizing and backtracking before they ever deploy.

Alternatively, they should have worked with governments to make sure to address their worries before announcing it publicly.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#22

Dumbest move ever by Facebook to preanounce and give governments time to complain. They should have moved fast and dealt with the consequences later. They had a reasonable chance of being the dominant cryptocurrency, and instead they get to spend a year apologizing and backtracking before they ever deploy.

Had they done this, they might have risked a full on ban on any monetization in those nations. The blue app has negative growth in those markets, and no surplus of goodwill.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#23
post #10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very simple. Facebook is a company. You can legislate laws that determine what companies are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do. Particularly if it concerns financial instruments. A "ban" doesn't need to be technological.

How do you stop people obtaining it and using it through their buddies on the internet? Is libra tied to an account like game money? AFAIK it's a cryptocurrency? Haven't looked at the details but cryptocurrency implies it stays on some distributed ladger and no 3rd parties have control over the transactions. Isn't that the case?

AFAIK, the Libra design is very centralized (which follows from the throughput requirements). All usage of it would be through Facebook's servers. So that would be where you can implement any censorship.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#24

Dumbest move ever by Facebook to preanounce and give governments time to complain. They should have moved fast and dealt with the consequences later. They had a reasonable chance of being the dominant cryptocurrency, and instead they get to spend a year apologizing and backtracking before they ever deploy.

“Move fast and break things” is a massive liability when it comes to financial law.

"invest a lot of money and get fined"

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#25
post #4

Can someone familiar with Libra speculate how a ban can be implemented? What comes to my mind is forbidding Facebook selling and processing it for EU users but beyond that, I am not sure how a "black market" could be prevented.

If Libra Euro conversions are made illegal and fined, Libra won't be an option for the usual Facebook user. There might be a "black market" but the few people that would go through a black market are probably not the target audience of the currency.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#26

Best thing I've read on Libra: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/24/971554-facebook-bitcoin...

AH the bit about the goal being to make payments fast makes a ton of sense. The rest of the world has left the US in the dust with extremely fast payments systems. In India, the UPI system has taken the country by storm with direct,instant bank-to-bank money transfers which take seconds to complete and have no fees attached for the consumer

Europe has SEPA (Instant). The Chinese have WeChat Pay and similar? I'm curious, what other solutions other countries have?

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#27
> “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations”

What a bizarre statement. Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish.

It's also odd in the context of Germany in particular where a private currency has been used for many years:

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

I suspect there's a lot more behind this statement than meets the eye:

Inflation, and the ability of the state to force it upon its citizenry by forbidding the use private money - has come to be viewed as inherent to the sovereignty of nations. The world's governments are now entering a new phase in which none can afford to hold the more valuable currency due to the damage caused to export business. Net importers like the US have been holdouts, but even it too will have to bow to reality.

This conflict means that, no matter how well intentioned, policy makers will be feel compelled to devalue their own currencies. It's a race to the bottom, but without a bottom. Alternatives, especially private alternatives readily available to citizens, will increasingly be viewed as the enemy.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#28
post #10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very simple. Facebook is a company. You can legislate laws that determine what companies are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do. Particularly if it concerns financial instruments. A "ban" doesn't need to be technological.

How do you stop people obtaining it and using it through their buddies on the internet? Is libra tied to an account like game money? AFAIK it's a cryptocurrency? Haven't looked at the details but cryptocurrency implies it stays on some distributed ladger and no 3rd parties have control over the transactions. Isn't that the case?

> Haven't looked at the details but cryptocurrency implies it stays on some distributed ladger and no 3rd parties have control over the transactions. Isn't that the case?

Not quite, in the case of Libra. Only a handful of companies control the nodes. Which makes it relatively easy to enforce a ban.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#29

Best thing I've read on Libra: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/24/971554-facebook-bitcoin...

FYI: I collect (awesome) articles about Libra incl. official posts and pro & contra. See https://github.com/openblockchains/awesome-libra#articles
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