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France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

reuters.com

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Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#31

Post by NeedMoreTea »

mrtksn wrote: post #10
ijonas wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very simple. Facebook is a company. You can legislate laws that determine what companies are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do. Particularly if it concerns financial instruments. A "ban" doesn't need to be technological.

How do you stop people obtaining it and using it through their buddies on the internet? Is libra tied to an account like game money? AFAIK it's a cryptocurrency? Haven't looked at the details but cryptocurrency implies it stays on some distributed ladger and no 3rd parties have control over the transactions. Isn't that the case?

Same as banks have to inform tax or money laundering authorities when certain types of transactions take place, you require any French bank to notify the currency crime unit of a transaction from a known Libra exchange. Maybe you fine the bank for accepting the transaction without proof it was a legal cryptocurrency.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#32

Post by kazen44 »

mrtksn wrote: post #10
ijonas wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very simple. Facebook is a company. You can legislate laws that determine what companies are allowed to do and what they are not allowed to do. Particularly if it concerns financial instruments. A "ban" doesn't need to be technological.

How do you stop people obtaining it and using it through their buddies on the internet? Is libra tied to an account like game money? AFAIK it's a cryptocurrency? Haven't looked at the details but cryptocurrency implies it stays on some distributed ladger and no 3rd parties have control over the transactions. Isn't that the case?

why would people want to use libra? Especially if the currency is declared illegal to use inside the EU/Eurozone.

Let's not forget that the euro is a stable currency compared to most other markets libra wants to compete in (the developing world). What is in it for me as a consumer? Atleast the Eurozone has rules in place to protect my savings (up to 10.000 euro[0]).

Libra brings nothing to the table in terms of transaction speed or costs either (for the consumer atleast).

1 https://www.ecb.europa.eu/explainers/tell-me-more/html/depos...

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#33

Post by _jal »

MaupitiBlue wrote: post #8

Dumbest move ever by Facebook to preanounce and give governments time to complain. They should have moved fast and dealt with the consequences later. They had a reasonable chance of being the dominant cryptocurrency, and instead they get to spend a year apologizing and backtracking before they ever deploy.

Even if FB were willing to take the risk, they partnered with institutions that understand the world a bit better than that.

Would-be volcano-dwelling evil geniuses in the tech world will learn patience eventually. (Arguably, some are - that's why Palantir is such a frightening entity that I'd like to see reigned at least as much as FB.)

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#34

Post by speps »

aazaa wrote: post #27

> “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations” What a bizarre statement. Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish. It's also odd in the context of Germany in particular where a private currency has been used for many years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiemgauer I suspect there's a lot more behind this sta…

Your German example is a bit silly to use here given that its exchange rate is 1:1 with euros. There are other regional currencies in other countries, they don't usually operate independently from the country's own currency though.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#36

Post by pjc50 »

aazaa wrote: post #27

> “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations” What a bizarre statement. Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish. It's also odd in the context of Germany in particular where a private currency has been used for many years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiemgauer I suspect there's a lot more behind this sta…

Germany has zero interest in devaluation; in fact they've been accused of being far too strict in Euro monetary policy, with the 0-2% inflation target.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#37

Post by baxtr »

Avamander wrote: post #26
aniforprez wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AH the bit about the goal being to make payments fast makes a ton of sense. The rest of the world has left the US in the dust with extremely fast payments systems. In India, the UPI system has taken the country by storm with direct,instant bank-to-bank money transfers which take seconds to complete and have no fees attached for the consumer

Europe has SEPA (Instant). The Chinese have WeChat Pay and similar? I'm curious, what other solutions other countries have?

PayPal?

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#40

Post by nextlevelwizard »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #14
mrtksn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you stop people obtaining it and using it through their buddies on the internet? Is libra tied to an account like game money? AFAIK it's a cryptocurrency? Haven't looked at the details but cryptocurrency implies it stays on some distributed ladger and no 3rd parties have control over the transactions. Isn't that the case?

I'm not sure why you think this is so hard? You pass a law. Most people don't break the law. You make it illegal for banks to transfer to known Libra things. You audit people. You apply big fines. Murder is illegal but that doesn't mean nobody can commit murder .

Murder is also immoral.

Libra is hardly morally questionable. If you want a better comparison take (software) piracy.

Piracy is illegal and while I'm sure Steam, Spotify, and Netflix has reduced it a lot it is still thriving and many people break the law if not daily at least monthly.

Best thing you can do is to make a law that forces banks to prevent payments to known Libra sellers, but again if there is value in Libra this hardly makes a difference.

For one unless there is official list of every entity that sells them and they get instantly blocked you could just buy them before they get blocked. Secondly you could just use PayPal to transfer the money (first to your PayPal wallet and then to the seller), EU is not crazy enough to block PayPal without an alternative in sight.

Secondly take any gray-market on the Internet. On these markets you can already use a range of payment methods starting with freaking Starbucks Gift Cards to just plain old cash.

Yes, yes, just like most laws it will keep the honest people honest and we can assume that at least in the start that will be most of the population, but such a law would be so trivial to bypass that if there is any benefit of having some Libra people will have it and outside of completely breaking privacy of EU citizens there is nothing they can do about it.

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