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Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

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Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#201

Post by Shivetya »

nofunphil wrote: post #193
tetrisgm wrote: post #22

It’s going to be interesting. “Unlike previous stablecoins, Libra will not be issued by a central party. Instead, Facebook has enlisted 27 fellow Silicon Valley titans—among them PayPal, Visa, Spotify, Mastercard, Uber, and eBay—to operate as preliminary “validator nodes” who will each share a transparent copy of a vast ledger of transactions reflecting all the activity on the network.” That sounds amazingly dystopia…

Exactly. What this does is create a wide open space for a "anti-establishment" crypto payments system. But one that people actually understand and trust. Fiat will likely be UOA for stage one of the transition to crypto. But as more people get educated we'll move to fully Open payments. Many will use Libra. But many will use other services. It's not binary. Multiple winners will emerge. Brand identity will be huge he…

if governments weren't already on Facebook's back this will certainly get them there. Governments, read : politicians, already are incensed at Facebook and similar because they cannot control the message. Now Facebook wants to give people security in their funds?

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#202

Post by bradenb »

loceng wrote: post #161
rollulus wrote: post #50

How is this going to fly with the constant flood of (justified) hate that Facebook is receiving the past year? Apart from the technology, I feel like they have more chance if they'd brand it without the Facebook name on it.

Well, if an army of HODLers develops who buy into this Facebook coin think they can make profit off of holding it - then there will be a growing body who promote it and speak positively of it, and not care about Facebook's other wrongdoings because money. Those big name brands also already buying into it means quite the global powerhouse of marketing ability to onboard people into something that is relatively unknown…

Libra is a stablecoin, holding it isn't going to make you rich.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#203

Post by _bxg1 »

acesubido wrote: post #57
tetrisgm wrote: post #22

It’s going to be interesting. “Unlike previous stablecoins, Libra will not be issued by a central party. Instead, Facebook has enlisted 27 fellow Silicon Valley titans—among them PayPal, Visa, Spotify, Mastercard, Uber, and eBay—to operate as preliminary “validator nodes” who will each share a transparent copy of a vast ledger of transactions reflecting all the activity on the network.” That sounds amazingly dystopia…

> That sounds amazingly dystopian. I mean, that’s literally a money built on an oligarchy. By design. IMO, it's a small step towards a better direction. The "validator" consensus (oligarchy) is a much more transparent/inclusive solution compared to the closed financial ecosystems of Wechat/Alipay/Paytm/Grab. If Libra is an oligarchy, closed financial systems are dictatorships

And existing non-corporate democracies are... democracies.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#204

Post by JaimeThompson »

Given the absolutely horrible record of many of the companies involved in this in regards to not abusing our private information, Facebook using phone numbers given for 2FA is but one example, why should we trust this?

I am sure that if they leak or misuse our private information that the TOS will protect them from having to make us whole again...

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#205

Post by WA »

> "On the first point, Marcus said that Facebook is enforcing a strict separation between users’ social data—their Facebook likes, photos, etc—and the financial data that will be available on Libra’s network. There will not, he insisted, be a readily available data trove connecting users’ transactional data to their Facebook profiles, and users’ funds themselves will be cryptographically secured. “We don’t want financial data and social data to be commingled,” he explained."

WhatsApp showed that eventually, the data is likely to be merged.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#206

Post by scottrogowski »

muratgozel wrote: post #51

"it will be backed by a collection of low-volatility assets, such as bank deposits and short-term government securities in currencies from stable and reputable central banks." from the whitepaper: https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#the-libra-currency-and-... It's like one to one copy of the traditional monetary system with speed of transactions improved. The volatility of low-volatile assets still contradictive in…

So it sounds like Libra coins will be minted at a previously agreed-upon exchange rate by one of the consortium companies proving that they have bought one of these low-volatility financial assets. It does not sound like there will be any "mining" and the decentralization will be, for the time, in just a handful of large companies.

Can someone validate that I'm understanding that correctly?

If so, I'd agree with previous commenters that we're not looking at anything which can shift the power structure of monetary policy but improvements in transaction speed and cost could have some real social benefits - especially in the developing world.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#207

Post by mensetmanusman »

fnoof wrote: post #195

From the white paper: > "Libra’s mission is to enable a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people." They do this by issuing coins in exchange for fiat money, which is held by the reserve. > "Interest on the reserve assets will be used to cover the costs of the system, ensure low transaction fees, pay dividends to investors who provided capital to jumpstart the ecosystem [...…

There would be savings for cross border transactions. If governments aren’t going to support banking the poor, then why does it matter who does it?

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#208

Post by m-i-l »

acesubido wrote: post #57
tetrisgm wrote: post #22

It’s going to be interesting. “Unlike previous stablecoins, Libra will not be issued by a central party. Instead, Facebook has enlisted 27 fellow Silicon Valley titans—among them PayPal, Visa, Spotify, Mastercard, Uber, and eBay—to operate as preliminary “validator nodes” who will each share a transparent copy of a vast ledger of transactions reflecting all the activity on the network.” That sounds amazingly dystopia…

> That sounds amazingly dystopian. I mean, that’s literally a money built on an oligarchy. By design. IMO, it's a small step towards a better direction. The "validator" consensus (oligarchy) is a much more transparent/inclusive solution compared to the closed financial ecosystems of Wechat/Alipay/Paytm/Grab. If Libra is an oligarchy, closed financial systems are dictatorships

> If Libra is an oligarchy, closed financial systems are dictatorships

Given the global financial system is not controlled by one individual, it isn't a Dictatorship (power of one) but is more like a form of Oligarchy (power of the few). As for which form of Oligarchy each are, I'd argue that the existing financial system is more of a Technocracy (i.e. you need to know what you are doing to be one of the few) whereas Libra is a Plutocracy (you need to be wealthy to be one of the few) or even possibly a Kleptocracy depending on how they actually run it and what their true motives are.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#209

Post by Yizahi »

Step 1 - say that your "coin" is not centralized Step 2 - proceed to contradict yourself in the next sentence

How the hell is a an obviously centralized system with 3 dozens of privileged entities is not centralized... Also it is not only oligarchy, but completely unaccountable shady oligarchy. Why people continue to "want" it is beyond understanding.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#210

Post by thefounder »

seanalltogether wrote: post #181

> Indeed, that’s why Calibra, the wallet software that will hold Libra Coins, was made a subsidiary of Facebook The big question for me is whether or not wallets and therefore transactions can be created without needing an 'account' somewhere, just like all other cryptocurrencies. Can I participate in the economy anonymously or do all wallets need to be registered like a traditional bank account.

You need to sign up and verify your account before you can do anything. Think of this like paypal with blockchain behind the scenes instead of Oracle/Sql or whatever they use as db
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