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Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

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Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#231

Post by toomuchtodo »

gridlockd wrote: post #227
_bxg1 wrote: post #200

Terrifying, really. The world is hurdling back towards a feudalist society, with corporations instead of kings.

This is a bunch of nonsense. Actual banks are corporations like Facebook and they're far scarier .

Banks are heavily regulated [1]. Facebook is not.

EDIT: If Facebook wants to come to the finance party, I welcome them accepting the regulatory burden imposed by federal regulators and the finance industry itself.

Disclaimer: I work in financial services, specifically interfacing with regulatory bodies.

[1] https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/ (Example FDIC Laws, Regulations, and Acts, none of which currently apply to silicon valley corporations, but all of which apply to banking institutions)

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#232

Post by ghaff »

amasad wrote: post #226

Private money is not a new thing. In fact, the predecessor to paper money was retail bank issued notes. I think it's still the case in Scotland: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_Scotland The concept of nationalized central banks is new.

A couple years ago in London, I seriously confused a young retail clerk by presenting her with Scottish banknotes presumably left over from an earlier trip to Edinburgh. She had to go get her supervisor to assure her that this was indeed real money.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#233

Post by moosey »

If this succeeds, it will be a data collection tool the likes of which the world has never seen, which is why so many companies are willing to put their name on it. The data, along with ML/AI, and our contemporary understanding of the human mind, means that this is a major step towards control that we can't understand.

Dr. Harari explains it better than I do in "21 Lessons for the 21st Century", but this tool is part of a suite of data collection utilities that will be dissected and used in order to further subjugate our mental energies to the will of the tech giants running our phones. If you don't believe that this is already happening, hang out with some teenagers. I would say that there is a large contingent of people for whom this is already true, and once that group is large enough, then how can you assert yourself against that pipeline of information?

Every bit of data we give away for free is a massive mistake. I hope that Europe figures out a regulatory framework that works.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#234

Post by DenisM »

gridlockd wrote: post #225
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 [...…

> Conceptually this is a bank, but with no interest returned to users, no financial oversight from governments, controlled by Silicon Valley's top companies. I disagree that this is "conceptually" a bank. Facebook's business model isn't lending out the reserves. If it was, banking regulation would apply. Also, in a modern bank, reserves are maybe 10%, and you get less than zero percent interest after inflation for th…

> We've all seen in the past on how well "financial oversight" worked

It worked remarkably well - no consumer lost their deposits to a bank failure. The fact that banks lent out too much money had no impact on consumer deposits, thanks to oversight.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#235

Post by elliekelly »

gridlockd wrote: post #227
_bxg1 wrote: post #200

Terrifying, really. The world is hurdling back towards a feudalist society, with corporations instead of kings.

This is a bunch of nonsense. Actual banks are corporations like Facebook and they're far scarier .

Our banking system certainly leaves a lot to be desired but I’d take Bank of America over Facebook pretending to be a bank 100% of the time. And I have never said a nice thing about BoA in my life.

What’s scarier to me is that Facebook is deliberately and admittedly targeting the unbanked - the people most in need of a bank but also the people most at risk of being taken advantage of. I’m afraid this will be the silicon valley version of a prepaid debit card/check cashing business run by Facebook instead of Wal-Mart.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#236

Post by CaptainZapp »

username444 wrote: post #130
IAmEveryone wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s funny how one of the core believes of cryptocurrencies has always been that (a) government will fear and attempt to ban it, and (b) that the technology would make such attempts impossible. Yet what we have seen over the years is really more of a bemused interest from existing institutions, with targeted and rather effective interventions only where actual harm was done, such as ICOs. It’s almost as if these cons…

You're looking at the wrong timescale. Institutions and founders of powerful corporations have life long time scales to subtly tweak and manipulate their messaging and approach. Look back in 10 years to see whether the conspiracy theorist were wrong. I have no doubt the lobbying to exclude and put "regulations" in place is coming.

I have no doubt the lobbying to exclude and put "regulations" in place is coming.

I have no doubt that you're right. But not because of some evil conspiracy by a cabal of bankers, but in order to protect society as a whole.

Also, care to explain why you put regulations is scare quotes? In my book that disqualifies your comment pretty much.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#237

Post by [deleted] »

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 [...…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#238

Post by mmsimanga »

_bxg1 wrote: post #200

Terrifying, really. The world is hurdling back towards a feudalist society, with corporations instead of kings.

From where I am standing I wonder if this is not reflection of the ineffectiveness of governments. In my part of the world there is a lot more talk about devolution, basically self governance of the different regions. Everyone is sick and tired of decisions being made from the capital city by people who do not have your interests at all.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#239

Post by asaph »

> The aim, then, is to get to 100 new validators by 2020, and achieve something close to 1,000 transactions a second—roughly 200 times the sum Bitcoin can currently handle, and around half the capacity of Visa.

My reactions to the above:

1. 1000 transactions per second seems low. This doesn't feel very scalable to me.

2. Visa has capacity to handle only around 2000 transactions per second? I would have assumed it was higher. Matching or exceeding the capacity of Visa feels more within the reach of a startup than I thought.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#240

Post by kerng »

Facebook is notorious for not being able to control their platform and leak data for various reasons due to bugs and lack of due diligence (to keep at non-malicious).

If they become a bank I certainly would not put my money in there.

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