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Facebook’s New Cryptocurrency Gets Big Backers

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211–220 of 277 posts

Re: Facebook’s New Cryptocurrency Gets Big Backers

#211

So a cryptocurrency that is more currency than crypto? Again, back to the argument that the market is the same as in-game currency, store gift cards, Chuck-E-Cheese tokens, etc. Let's be honest, most of the hype around cryptocurrency is for speculation and not as a legitimate means of exchange. Normal money works fine for means-of-exchange barring a few exceptions e.g. capital flight, money laundering, generally esca…

People are using the wrong term here. Stablecoins (what Facebook has made here) aren’t cryptocurrencies in-and-of themselves; they’re systems that expose regular fiat currency to smart contracts, so that you can pass e.g. “5USD” from one contract to another without it losing value; or so that exchanges don’t all have to have their own relationships with physical payment-processors and banks, instead just allowing you to “buy in” and “cash out” in stablecoin assets, which you can then take to some other service to trade for physical dollars.

As such, stablecoins have entirely different requirements and properties than regular cryptocurrencies; for one, you usually want one big well-known entity backing them, because for the stablecoin to be stable, someone needs to back the coin with liquidity.

“Liquidity” is something Facebook obviously has more of than most others, so they’re an obvious party to build a stablecoin.

(Really, though, the best stablecoin for USD, would actually be run by the US government. There’s no reason for them not to do so, and no reason for people to reject them doing so. One could even interpret running a wrapped-USD stablecoin on any popular-in-the-US blockchain as being an obligation of the US Mint, given their mission. They’re currently failing to “print money” for these US markets!)

Re: Facebook’s New Cryptocurrency Gets Big Backers

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that "global" would be a better word than "central", but that doesn't really affect treelovinhippie's point. > If you don't have central consensus you can't have digital currency. From what I can tell, the Holochain developers agree with this: you can't have a single global currency without global consensus. Their approach seems to be: rather than having a single global currency, have a network of IOUs, trust…

I started reading with that article but it doesn't really seem to answer the questions it's claiming to answer. It's talking about how Bitcoin et al. have a shared consensus that's updated once every 10 minutes, and how everyone needs to validate everything which is inefficient (I agree). But while trying to explain how holochain does it different I don't read how except for insect analogies, for example: > ## Order…

I think their point is that the Order of Operation matters for global currencies, but not for mutual credit systems like theirs. But don't quote me on that.

Re: Facebook’s New Cryptocurrency Gets Big Backers

#213
post #197
post #102

> It has been a decade since bitcoin was born, yet consumers hardly use it—or the hundreds of other cryptocurrencies—to pay for things. And why would they? Adding two extra steps to paying someone -- the buyer converting local currency to bitcoin, and then the seller converting bitcoin to local currency -- can never compete with just transferring local currency directly. Cryptocurrency was meant to be much more than…

There's no way to close the loop unless governments also agree to accept tax payments directly in cryptocurrency (not just a conversion). And that's never going to happen, at least not in any major industrialized country.

The idea would be to start with less developed countries -- who lack both strict taxation rules and retail financing.

Re: Facebook’s New Cryptocurrency Gets Big Backers

#214
post #184
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As someone with a split existence between North America and the Euro Zone, I was sincerely hoping that cryptocurrency would at a minimum be a reliable medium of exchange: i.e. a way to convert dollars into euros and vice-versa in a matter of minutes with very low fees. You're not looking for a new currency, you're looking for a regular currency exchange. Whatever fees your currency exchange charges for going from E…

So the promise of Bitcoin when I started reading up about it was that the fees could be close to zero. It's become less of an issue, because there are some traditional currency exchange services out there which have reasonable flat-rate offerings nowadays, but I would still be happy to pay less.

> So the promise of Bitcoin when I started reading up about it was that the fees could be close to zero.

I don't see why this would be the case. Neither when talking blockchain-fees nor exchange-fees.

Re: Facebook’s New Cryptocurrency Gets Big Backers

#215

Is it really a cryptocurrency when it's completely centralized? No. This is just Facebook-bucks. Store dollars. It's has absolutely none of the benefits of a real cryptocurrency.

I can't read the article in it's entirety but decentralisation is not what makes a crypto currency a crypto currency. Visa, Master card, Joe shmoe, anyone can start a centralized ledger that uses crypto.

I would strongly disagree here. Decentralization, though a term fraught with poorly acknowledged and contradictory premises, is essentially the defining value proposition of cryptocurrency.

Take away decentralization (which I would be more comfortable calling "aspirational decentralization" to reflect actual practice) and cryptocurrency is indistinguishable from conventional electronic currency.

Re: Facebook’s New Cryptocurrency Gets Big Backers

#216
post #194

About the name - Libra IIRC the Winklevoss twins have a Bitcoin exchange called Gemini Surely a coincidence brb going all in on tokenized cults

IIRC the Winklevoss twins have a Bitcoin exchange called Gemini Gemini = "sign of the twins" (And, according to Wikipedia, is Latin for "twins" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(constellation) ) It's probably just narcissism in that case. I'm guessing "Libra" in this case is probably a variation of Libre -- free -- rather than an astrological reference. But that's totally a guess and could be completely wrong. If…

The joke (maybe, maybe not) in drawing the presumably intentional astrological connection has to do with the fact that the Winks and Zuckerberg have some ... shared history.

Re: Facebook’s New Cryptocurrency Gets Big Backers

#217
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC the Winklevoss twins have a Bitcoin exchange called Gemini Gemini = "sign of the twins" (And, according to Wikipedia, is Latin for "twins" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(constellation) ) It's probably just narcissism in that case. I'm guessing "Libra" in this case is probably a variation of Libre -- free -- rather than an astrological reference. But that's totally a guess and could be completely wrong. If…

The joke (maybe, maybe not) in drawing the presumably intentional astrological connection has to do with the fact that the Winks and Zuckerberg have some ... shared history.

Well, I have no idea what you are talking about. Care to elaborate?

I just find how things get named interesting. I did realize it was a joke, but that doesn't preclude actually discussing why these things got the names they have.

Re: Facebook’s New Cryptocurrency Gets Big Backers

#218
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2019/02/16/exp-gps-0217-ga... > Bill Gates explains how no one knows how to stop bovine flatulence, a major contributor to climate change. I doubt we need to prevent cows from farting. As I understand it, all we need to do is stop killing naturally occurring methanotrophic[1] fungi[2] with pesticides and chemical fertilizers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanotroph [2] https…

Or have fewer cows in the first place by eating less meat.

And we could reduce foul gas emissions by eating cryptocurrency shills.

Re: Facebook’s New Cryptocurrency Gets Big Backers

#219

Finally! A cryptocurrency with the ethics of Uber, the censorship resistance of Paypal, and the centralization of Visa, all tied together under the proven privacy of Facebook. Just what I’ve been waiting for.

And the magnanimousity of Oracle. And the carbon footprint of cow farts. https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2019/02/16/exp-gps-0217-ga...

It's not the fart, it's the burp!

Re: Facebook’s New Cryptocurrency Gets Big Backers

#220
post #128
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a joke about fiat currencies and their tendency to suddenly become valueless and cryptocurrencies tendency to suddenly become valueless by making a cross language pun connecting the owner of a new cryptocurrency and the name of a currency most famously known for a hyperinflation.

Papiermark ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Papiermark ) pre 1924 was the hyperinflated currency, then followed the stable Reichsmark and after World War II Deutsch Mark and East Deutsch Mark. Deutsch Mark remained until 2002 when the Euro got introduced. For Germans Mark is just a name for currency like Kronas (Sweden), Francs (France), Lira (Italy). Hyperinflation is too long ago to remember.

I think Hyperinflation fears are ingrained into EU policymakers DNA. They are so afraid to create demand in the macro economy via deficit spending because of the legacy of the Weimar Republic and what it led to. Looking at the WR case, they had to pay war reparations in hard currency not fiat. Because of this, you have Germany pushing for very dovish fiscal policy limits on Greece and the PIGS. And to make things worse, monetary policy, doesn't work even with negative interest rates.
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