Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency • Hacker News Board

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#241

Post by Iv » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 1:46 PM UTC

Mengkudulangsat wrote: post #178

Iv wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either Zuckberg has a geeky naive understanding of financial institutions to think this will go easily, or he is ready to use blackmail material. Libra is something I wish we fight to the death.

What is so hateful about Libra when compared with the People Bank of China's digital currency project? When that is launched, any non-chinese can hold digital yuan without a bank account. Wouldn't the west want something equivalent for geopolitical reasons?

I know what is the PCC's ideology. And it is socially more acceptable to dislike it than to boycott Facebook.

I don't even know what is Zuckberg's ideology. And I am actually more confident about the Chinese knowing what they are doing than about Zuck.

Yeah, I want something equivalent. I want digital euros. I get to vote for the guys who put that into place.

I don't care that a solution is "western" if it is not democratic.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#242

Post by vageli » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 1:53 PM UTC

asjw wrote: post #188

alwillis wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been a little over 10 years since the first bitcoins were mined and today's market cap is $147,490,754,701. Given that there are now bitcoin investment products like ETFs, some folks have a portion of their 401k's invested in bitcoin. It certainly will be competition for central banks, especially in countries where the monetary policy is kinda wacky, like Venezuela, where bitcoin is breaking usage records. Here'…

Bitcoins are valued 40 billion dollars right now, it's less that the net worth of Larry Page and less that the GDP of Myanmar, one of the poorest countries in the world. If some folks risked their 401k on bitcoin it changes nothing. If you own bitcoins in countries where inflation is double digit and you think they will save your family, think again: they would most probably get you killed or robbed.

> If you own bitcoins in countries where inflation is double digit and you think they will save your family, think again: they would most probably get you killed or robbed.

How so? It's not like correlating who owns which address is easy, and any smart person has their funds distributed across several wallets. So if you rob me of my bitcoins and I give you access to a wallet that doesn't contain all of my funds, how would you know any better?

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#243

Post by ineedasername » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 1:54 PM UTC

scottmcf wrote: post #141

ineedasername wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has a tremendous amount of power in the world financial system. If they want to inhibit crypto currencies, they can make it illegal to use credit cards to buy them, illegal for US banks to transfer to or from an exchange, and illegal for US banks to deal with any bank in any country that allows such activity, or any bank that deals with another bank that allows it.

It was illegal to privately own actual gold anywhere in the world as a US citizen between 1933 and 1975. That's absolutely an approach they could take.

Well, that depends. You could have gold teeth, and jewelry, so if you were really determined... though having all your teeth hollowed out and filled with gold doesn't strike me at scalable strategy, at least not unless you have a lot of kids. But all that was also only because we were on the gold standard. Which, contrary to gold-bug belief, wasn't immune from currency manipulation. The US government arbitrarily increased the value from about $20/ounce to about $30/ounce at on point, making the government suddenly richer in a way not much different than printing more money in today's fiat system.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#244

Post by vageli » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #172

alwillis wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasabi and other modern bitcoin wallets run over Tor and have built-in features (like CoinJoin, coin control, etc.) to defeat blockchain analysis companies: https://docs.wasabiwallet.io/why-wasabi/ There are also decentralized, Tor-encrypted exchanges to buy and sell bitcoin like Bisq: https://bisq.network/ .

Either it works and you'll find it impossible to defend legalizing cryptocurrencies with money-laundering-as-a-service in front of Congress, or it doesn't work and prosecutors will slap money laundering charges on top of any crime that matters and you'll have a lot more difficult time defending yourself and your intent when you go to such lengths to hide your financial transactions.

> Either it works and you'll find it impossible to defend legalizing cryptocurrencies with money-laundering-as-a-service in front of Congress, or it doesn't work and prosecutors will slap money laundering charges on top of any crime that matters and you'll have a lot more difficult time defending yourself and your intent when you go to such lengths to hide your financial transactions.

Why? In most modern financial systems the ledger is not public. Why would I have to defend attempting to bring that level of privacy to bitcoin? It seems reasonable to want similar levels of privacy across instruments and doesn't seem illegal to use tumbler services, etc. I don't even see how that can be construed as money laundering. I imagine courts disagree but would love to read their reasoning.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#245

Post by SiempreViernes » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 2:01 PM UTC

mminer237 wrote: post #113

toast0 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The feds can come and shut down all of FB over money transmittal, they don't have to limit the shutdown to only the money parts. That's a huge risk to take. If Uber was shut down for violating taxi rules, they only had an unlicensed taxi business.

Could they? Wouldn't Facebook would only be an investor and Libra would be a separate company?

Seems hard to have any prominent integration without having libra related infrastructure on fb servers, and all infra with ”libra” on it is likely to get seized in a raid.

But sure, if libra is just an altcoin on unrelated hardware then fb won’t be affected.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#246

Post by vageli » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

SiempreViernes wrote: post #245

mminer237 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could they? Wouldn't Facebook would only be an investor and Libra would be a separate company?

Seems hard to have any prominent integration without having libra related infrastructure on fb servers, and all infra with ”libra” on it is likely to get seized in a raid. But sure, if libra is just an altcoin on unrelated hardware then fb won’t be affected.

> Seems hard to have any prominent integration without having libra related infrastructure on fb servers, and all infra with ”libra” on it is likely to get seized in a raid.

> But sure, if libra is just an altcoin on unrelated hardware then fb won’t be affected.

A company as large as fb has the means to segregate application hardware. Hell, even smaller companies do this for liability reasons. If fb didn't it would be pretty lazy and ill conceived.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#247

Post by alwillis » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 2:27 PM UTC

asjw wrote: post #188

alwillis wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been a little over 10 years since the first bitcoins were mined and today's market cap is $147,490,754,701. Given that there are now bitcoin investment products like ETFs, some folks have a portion of their 401k's invested in bitcoin. It certainly will be competition for central banks, especially in countries where the monetary policy is kinda wacky, like Venezuela, where bitcoin is breaking usage records. Here'…

Bitcoins are valued 40 billion dollars right now, it's less that the net worth of Larry Page and less that the GDP of Myanmar, one of the poorest countries in the world. If some folks risked their 401k on bitcoin it changes nothing. If you own bitcoins in countries where inflation is double digit and you think they will save your family, think again: they would most probably get you killed or robbed.

You’re missing a digit—it’s $140+ billion, not $40 billion.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#248

Post by HeWhoLurksLate » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 2:29 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #174

vinniejames wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree, the biggest concern here is the goverment will create overly broad legislation with the only purpose of leveraging it against truly decentralized cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts (and... Facebook) are actively inviting legislative overreaction with their actions. Don't poke the bear.

Much.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#249

Post by alwillis » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 2:31 PM UTC

vageli wrote: post #242

asjw wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoins are valued 40 billion dollars right now, it's less that the net worth of Larry Page and less that the GDP of Myanmar, one of the poorest countries in the world. If some folks risked their 401k on bitcoin it changes nothing. If you own bitcoins in countries where inflation is double digit and you think they will save your family, think again: they would most probably get you killed or robbed.

> If you own bitcoins in countries where inflation is double digit and you think they will save your family, think again: they would most probably get you killed or robbed. How so? It's not like correlating who owns which address is easy, and any smart person has their funds distributed across several wallets. So if you rob me of my bitcoins and I give you access to a wallet that doesn't contain all of my funds, how…

Also, most people who have considerable wealth in bitcoin has them in a multi signature wallet, like a 3 of 5—spending the money requires the use of 3 of the 5 authorized private keys.

Re: Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency

#250

Post by flatfilefan » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 2:35 PM UTC

xlc0212 wrote: post #111

tanilama wrote: post #80

Libra can be a good idea, but probably not from Facebook. What Facebook lacks among Big Techs the most, is public trust. In an era where anything from Big Techs are meticulously scrutinized, something that seems to aim to bypass government regulation is probably the last thing people want.

What I don’t understand is, the whole point of using blockchain technology is it doesn’t matter who creates it, as long as the code does what it intend to do, there are no trust needed. (Assuming Libra eventually actually become a decentralized network)

There is the time dimension to the adoption. So Facebook already having billions of users is in a position to monetize that relationship. In fact that’s the proclaimed goal of serving underbanked (India and Pakistan e.g.) that use Facebook but can’t be targeted with ads because they can’t buy online. Whether these people start using the new currency is probably less about algorithms and more about trust in the sense of ubiquity of acceptance.