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Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

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Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#441

Post by solidasparagus »

tetrisgm wrote: post #22

It’s going to be interesting. “Unlike previous stablecoins, Libra will not be issued by a central party. Instead, Facebook has enlisted 27 fellow Silicon Valley titans—among them PayPal, Visa, Spotify, Mastercard, Uber, and eBay—to operate as preliminary “validator nodes” who will each share a transparent copy of a vast ledger of transactions reflecting all the activity on the network.” That sounds amazingly dystopia…

That's more decentralized than Bitcoin is - there you have 6 pools in control. Global financial systems are expensive and high-reward (not to mention technically challenging since there is not a single proven cryptocurrency that could handle Visa's current TPS - AFAIK). Decentralization makes very little economic sense (at least all the models I've heard so far).

True believers forget that normal people have zero interest in spending energy thinking about their financial system. Just give me a card backed by a company whose name I've heard of and who I can sue if I have to and then let me focus on my life.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#442

Post by kobasa »

supermatt wrote: post #378

So facebook (and partners) can mint their own money. Are we supposed to be OK with that? Wasn't this issue one of the primary reasons for crypto currency existing in the first place. This shouldn't be allowed to exist.

They aren't minting their own money out of thin air - it's fully backed by existing currencies like the Dollar/Euro/Yen/Pound. They're just making it easy to send this across borders digitally.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#443

Post by sonnyblarney »

sins wrote: post #67
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.

Could you elaborate on what Bitcoin failed at?

"Could you elaborate on what Bitcoin failed at?"

BTC failed to be a currency that could be used for practical purposes. There's really nowhere to spend BTC today that matters.

If Amazon, Costco and AirBnB etc. allowed BTC, well, others might join, and we'd possibly see real circulation. For whatever reason, it was never meant to be.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#444

Post by sonnyblarney »

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 [...…

If it's considered to be a currency by the gov. then regular financial regulations will apply.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#445

Post by geggam »

pjmorris wrote: post #426
jayd16 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the world has never seen Credit cards already have similar data, no?

No. The credit card is limited to locations where it can be swiped. The phone is online everywhere, all the time.

Not really, the data miners link your CC to your email, WIFI cell MAC, Bluetooth MAC, Cell ID and many other data points.

Think of it like a DNA string of datapoints about you online. Stored in a hash so it can be shared across platforms.

If $USER meets this CONDITION then show THISAD

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#446

Post by sctb »

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.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20210979 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#447

Post by supermatt »

wuliwong wrote: post #425
supermatt wrote: post #378

So facebook (and partners) can mint their own money. Are we supposed to be OK with that? Wasn't this issue one of the primary reasons for crypto currency existing in the first place. This shouldn't be allowed to exist.

In the US, cryptocurrencies are treated as assets, they are taxed every time you exchange them for something or even each other. I would disagree that libra coin is akin to Facebook and partners creating their own money.

Clearly you didnt read the whitepaper. Facebook (and partners) literally mint libra. You give them a dollar, they mint a dollars worth of libra and stick the dollar in their "reserve". What stops them minting more libra than they actually hold fiat reserves for?

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#448

Post by hobofan »

newscracker wrote: post #310

> Facebook says its “stablecoin,” will empower billions and underpin a stunningly ambitious global economy, without selling your data. I wonder how many millions of people were drinking their favorite beverage while reading this and spat it out on whatever/whoever was in front of them! It’s astonishing that after all these years and all the scandals, they’re deluded enough to write such lines with a straight face. Th…

I mean technically sharing the data between the validators _for free_ doesn't count as selling.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#449

Post by la_barba »

tetrisgm wrote: post #22

It’s going to be interesting. “Unlike previous stablecoins, Libra will not be issued by a central party. Instead, Facebook has enlisted 27 fellow Silicon Valley titans—among them PayPal, Visa, Spotify, Mastercard, Uber, and eBay—to operate as preliminary “validator nodes” who will each share a transparent copy of a vast ledger of transactions reflecting all the activity on the network.” That sounds amazingly dystopia…

>That sounds amazingly dystopian. I mean, that’s literally a money built on an oligarchy. By design.

You can already kind of do that with other crypto currencies. For e.g. > 70% of bitcoin mining happens inside China, and the currency is susceptible to a 51% attack (in theory anyway). This site calculates the cost of executing such an attack.

https://www.crypto51.app/

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#450

Post by imjustsaying »

>A smattering of nonprofits, which didn’t have to pay the $10 million entry fee, also populates the consortium to make sure not everyone can be corrupted by financial incentives.

Is this a euphemism for 'stuffing the ballot box with nonprofits your wife and friends and are on'?

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