Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

calibra.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 92 posts

Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#51

Post by sasasassy »

emerongi wrote: post #35
wickoff wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to ask Facebook permission to transfer the money, but they reserve the right to intervene if you commit fraud. That's why they are using a blockchain. The governments will love it because it allows for perfect surveillance, the people will love it because it makes international payments seamless, it can erase the predatory remittance business out of existence. If they can convince merchants to accept i…

How is that different from transferring money through a bank? I can understand the benefit of this from the standpoint that it will be essentially a global currency, which will reduce transfer times and just generally make it easier to send money, however I don't understand why a blockchain is involved. We already have similar solutions (Paypal, Transferwise etc), is blockchain just a way to market this thing?

It's just marketing. Of course if you really want to you can bend a blockchain for this purpose, eroding it as much as possible, with the central validators and what not. A rose by any other name...

Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#52

Post by rahimnathwani »

sprafa wrote: post #17
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…

Alipay appears to be available in Europe now, as the UEFA Nations League tickets could be bought using either alipay or card. source: I bought Nations League tickets.

Did you pay using Alipay? If so, are you a Chinese citizen?

I'm asking because I have never been able to use Alipay at retailers or web sites outside China. When I tried to pay with Alipay at Uniqlo in Japan, the transaction failed and I received an SMS explaining it was because I don't have a Chinese national ID card.

Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#53

Post by WAHa_06x36 »

croon wrote: post #15
dgellow wrote: post #11

From the FAQ: > Question: How will you prevent fraud? > Anwer: All accounts and transactions are verified, and fraud prevention is built in throughout the app. Accounts are verified with government-issued ID, so you know people are who they say they are. Facebook and WhatsApp account information are also used when available to verify identity and prevent fraud. Calibra also has in-app reporting and dedicated customer…

I would assume they have full control of the currency, but it doesn't negate the purpose of blockchain, but perhaps the purpose of proof-of-work, so I hope they use something different. But long and short I think is that people don't want to have the possibility of losing their wallet, meaning someone else needs to have authority over it. I dislike the slowness and transaction fees of banks, not the state backed secu…

It literally does negate all the purpose of a blockchain though. Blockchains do no not provide any value if you have a trusted party, they only make things less efficient.

Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#54

Post by literallycancer »

emerongi wrote: post #35
wickoff wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to ask Facebook permission to transfer the money, but they reserve the right to intervene if you commit fraud. That's why they are using a blockchain. The governments will love it because it allows for perfect surveillance, the people will love it because it makes international payments seamless, it can erase the predatory remittance business out of existence. If they can convince merchants to accept i…

How is that different from transferring money through a bank? I can understand the benefit of this from the standpoint that it will be essentially a global currency, which will reduce transfer times and just generally make it easier to send money, however I don't understand why a blockchain is involved. We already have similar solutions (Paypal, Transferwise etc), is blockchain just a way to market this thing?

A transatlantic bank transfer will cost you over 30 euros in correspondent bank fees, in addition to the fees your bank and their bank charge. And you'll get no receipt for that, because banks suck.

Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#55

Post by robin_reala »

ur-whale wrote: post #47
sametmax wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 in…

I’m not disagreeing, but have you got a reference for your first paragraph?

Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#57

Post by xyst »

I’m skeptical, but it’s too early in the morning to deep dive into the white papers. Will save it for later.

Based on what I have read though, this digital currency isn’t really a crypto coin. The users are verified through government issued identification and it appears the coin is issued by a centralized system.

Seems like the companies invested into this system are trying to act like the Federal Reserve in the United States.

Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#59

Post by sgeisler »

Let's see if they will allow non-custodial wallets for libra, that might make them the catalyst that enables real world bitcoin payments. There could be a service that pays libra invoices for you if you send them bitcoins. If this happens automated/transparently in wallets that would be a big step forward. Let the POS terminal tell you which currency it wants and your wallet will send it. If they want USD send libra, if they want BTC send BTC via lightning. Switching from accepting USD to BTC would become seamless (e.g. in case of increasing inflation).

Re: Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra

#60

Post by huis »

"We are working to bring Calibra to as many countries as possible, as soon as we can."

I hope my country won't allow a currency controlled by a foreign company.

The power of companies is already influencing democracy in a bad way.

Post reply on HN