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Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

calibra.com

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Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#41

Post by mike-cardwell »

pmlnr wrote: post #9

> Imagine if cash became digital. Been there, in China, with Alipay. Absolutely no way for an EU person to pay with it: doesn't accept European phone number for sign up and since the end of 2018 one can not get a proper Chinese SIM with a passport. Don't touch cash. That's the only fallback we have for outages, when someone is without data connection (ghasp!) or for scenarios where politics or decisions make it impos…

I went to a music festival last weekend. All of the vendors had machines for taking card payments, and none of them worked because there was no phone signal.

Of course, I had a pocket full of cash, so didn't care, but a lot of people didn't.

Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#42

Post by rahimnathwani »

pmlnr wrote: post #16
rahimnathwani wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"since the end of 2018 one can not get a proper Chinese SIM with a passport" I took my passport to a China Unicom shop in Beijing a few weeks ago, to get a SIM for a visiting relative. The process took about 10 minutes. "Alipay is that it requires data connection from both sides" No it doesn't. If I print out my payment QR code, you can scan it and pay me even if my phone is off. When I buy vegetables at the market,…

> I took my passport to a China Unicom shop in Beijing a few weeks ago, to get a SIM for a visiting relative. The process took about 10 minutes. Tried to do the same in a tourist city (not a tier 1 city), beginning of May, didn't work. I wanted a full SIM, not a data only SIM though, which one did you get? > No it doesn't. If I print out my payment QR code, you can scan it and pay me even if my phone is off. When I b…

"Tried to do the same in a tourist city (not a tier 1 city), beginning of May, didn't work."

I'm curious - did you go to an official China Unicom store (i.e. owned and operated by China Unicom) or an independent retailer that happens to sell SIM cards?

"I wanted a full SIM, not a data only SIM though, which one did you get?"

A regular SIM with a voice+data plan.

Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#44

Post by microwavecamera »

laurent123456 wrote: post #39

What's the use case for it? It looks like the point is to send money from people to people easily. But how about businesses? Currently I can pay with Contactless in shops, and on online services, paying by debit/credit card is straightforward. So I'm not seeing exactly what it will be used for.

More data mining?

Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#45

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

rahulkapil wrote: post #38
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably by giving your money back to you. That's generally how a refund works. Did you have something else in mind?

That would mean they are an intermediary in the blockchain.

They create a new transaction from their probably inexhaustible wallet to your wallet.

I don't know much about Calibra, is it a public blockchain? Can anyone build a client to generate transactions and mine blocks?

Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#46

Post by lvturner »

pmlnr wrote: post #9

> Imagine if cash became digital. Been there, in China, with Alipay. Absolutely no way for an EU person to pay with it: doesn't accept European phone number for sign up and since the end of 2018 one can not get a proper Chinese SIM with a passport. Don't touch cash. That's the only fallback we have for outages, when someone is without data connection (ghasp!) or for scenarios where politics or decisions make it impos…

> Been there, in China, with Alipay. Absolutely no way for an EU person to pay with it: doesn't accept European phone number for sign up and since the end of 2018 one can not get a proper Chinese SIM with a passport.

This is not true.

I got a "proper Chinese SIM" and new bank account two months ago in Shenzhen. Both Alipay and WeChat pay work fine. Whole process took under two hours, including getting the sim and I had bank card in my hand by the end of it.

Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#47

Post by ur-whale »

sametmax wrote: post #30
pmlnr wrote: post #9

> Imagine if cash became digital. Been there, in China, with Alipay. Absolutely no way for an EU person to pay with it: doesn't accept European phone number for sign up and since the end of 2018 one can not get a proper Chinese SIM with a passport. Don't touch cash. That's the only fallback we have for outages, when someone is without data connection (ghasp!) or for scenarios where politics or decisions make it impos…

Also cash is the only thing that works if your system gets unfair in some way. It's the only thing that allows a hobo to stay in touch with society, paying in a gay bar without trace, setup a political group that the state would deem immoral, experiment with banned drugs, buy censored books and journals, etc If you like democracy, you need a small, but resiliant grey zone. You need to allow a few people to take the r…

>Do not outlaw cash

As much as I agree with you, cash is unfortunately already well on its way out: in many EU countries (Italy, France), cash transactions above 1.5k euros are illegal. For example, buying a car cash is illegal. The US won't be far behind, imho.

For small transactions (eg buying a loaf of bread), something flipped in small business owners minds: they used to hate plastic for small stuff, and I can increasingly feel that today, it's the exact opposite: people let out a small sigh of annoyance when they see you pull out your coins.

This is a freedom almost as important as free speech that's slowly and silently being choked to death by big govt and not a single so-called freedom fighter out there, be they on the left or on the right of the political spectrum is picking up on the significance of the issue.

Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#48

Post by 1in21m »

Open access? NO

Decentralized? NO

Censorship resistant? NO

Fixed monetary policy? NO

Unseizable? NO

Transaction fee market? NO

There's no point in FB using a blockchain for their digital payments network, other than touting it as a 'cryptocurrency'. A centralized or federated database is all they need.

Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#49

Post by chvid »

pmlnr wrote: post #9

> Imagine if cash became digital. Been there, in China, with Alipay. Absolutely no way for an EU person to pay with it: doesn't accept European phone number for sign up and since the end of 2018 one can not get a proper Chinese SIM with a passport. Don't touch cash. That's the only fallback we have for outages, when someone is without data connection (ghasp!) or for scenarios where politics or decisions make it impos…

Last that I was in China I used my standard Danish phone subscription from 3. Fast, flat rate data and full access to Google etc. in mainland China.

https://www.3.dk/abonnementer/fordele/3likehome/

Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#50

Post by tomjohnneill »

pmlnr wrote: post #16
rahimnathwani wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"since the end of 2018 one can not get a proper Chinese SIM with a passport" I took my passport to a China Unicom shop in Beijing a few weeks ago, to get a SIM for a visiting relative. The process took about 10 minutes. "Alipay is that it requires data connection from both sides" No it doesn't. If I print out my payment QR code, you can scan it and pay me even if my phone is off. When I buy vegetables at the market,…

> I took my passport to a China Unicom shop in Beijing a few weeks ago, to get a SIM for a visiting relative. The process took about 10 minutes. Tried to do the same in a tourist city (not a tier 1 city), beginning of May, didn't work. I wanted a full SIM, not a data only SIM though, which one did you get? > No it doesn't. If I print out my payment QR code, you can scan it and pay me even if my phone is off. When I b…

For what it's worth (and this was in 2018), I tried to buy a SIM in Changsha, and was told that I had to go to a specific China Unicom shop - apparently only one of them was allowed to register foreigners' details.
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