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Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

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Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#241

Post by staunch »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #231
gridlockd wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Among many other great crimes, U.S. banks have stolen hundreds of billions of dollars from the poorest people through overdraft and bounced check fees. The banks own the regulators.

If regular people can just have a safe place to keep their money, without being actively exploited, that would be a huge improvement.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#243

Post by camjohnson26 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #231
gridlockd wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

At best regulations act as a moat keeping competition away the entrenched banks. As soon as the government comes up with rules the smart people at the banks find a way to get around it and make money. Startups don’t have the legal expertise and can’t compete.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#245

Post by matz1 »

Kiro wrote: post #72
imw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of interesting physics in building thermonuclear weapons. Doesn't mean you should do it. Your talents could be used to help the world. Instead, they are being used to enclose common spaces and pull apart the fabric of society. Get a better job?

I can't believe the amount of "you are a horrible human being for working at Facebook" comments I keep seeing as soon as someone says they are working there. HN is great because you normally get comments straight from the source, but I'm worried we will inevitably shame Facebook employees into not posting here at all.

Its not surprising, there are many people who are fb haters in this forum.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#246

Post by gridlockd »

DenisM wrote: post #234
gridlockd wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That had nothing to do with oversight and everything to do with the fact that the government can just print the money to save a bank - and it did so. That expectation itself caused reckless behavior of the banks - and it still does. People just don't fully grasp the consequences.

Also, you may say this "worked" in the US, but other countries didn't get quite so lucky playing that game.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#247

Post by entropea »

jrvxo wrote: post #52

It was already tried. It was called Bitcoin. It failed spectacularly. At least this looks like it could work. I trust my government more than I trust these companies so I will keep using fiat, but this may be an option for other people.

The government is heavily lobbied by these companies, so essentially the government is mostly just these companies.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#248

Post by jmull »

yertletheturtle wrote: post #214

Maybe I'm an idiot and don't understand the marketing lingo but what exactly is the use-case for this? Why among all of the tech companies is Facebook the one to create a crypto currency? What do they plan on doing with this?

I think the idea is you're going to be able to "Message" other people "money", Straight from the Facebook app/website. It also should work seamlessly across the various other social networks that are partnering in this.

There are other ways to do this now, but if they are able to do it right, this would generally be more convenient and widely available. I would assume fees will be low to start with. (Note that Visa and Mastercard are partners, so you can safely bet the fees will go up quite a bit once this catches on.)

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#250

Post by wsy »

conanbatt wrote: post #244
_bxg1 wrote: post #200

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

Whats non-feudal about states in this conception?

Voting, equal rights, courts, published laws and regulations, just to name a few.
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