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Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

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Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#51
"it will be backed by a collection of low-volatility assets, such as bank deposits and short-term government securities in currencies from stable and reputable central banks." from the whitepaper: https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#the-libra-currency-and-...

It's like one to one copy of the traditional monetary system with speed of transactions improved. The volatility of low-volatile assets still contradictive in the long term (I mean just ~5 years) So I don't see any innovative approach in the terms of social order and decentralization.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#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.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#53
post #21

I'm biased as I'm working on this project. But I'm super happy it's finally out there :) There's a lot of really cool cryptography and tech on this project and there's still a lot for people to discover!

I've always wondered, the people who work on this project do they understand what cryptocurrencies and are they secretly embarrassed?

Apparently you're not embarrassed...

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#55
post #21

I'm biased as I'm working on this project. But I'm super happy it's finally out there :) There's a lot of really cool cryptography and tech on this project and there's still a lot for people to discover!

Apart from the cool crypto and tech, can you tell a bit what you're ethical viewpoints are on what your work is going to do to the world?

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#56
I'm curious how it will work exactly. I guess people will need to buy this currency with real money, and then they can spend it on these services. But why would anyone bother to do this when they can directly use their debit/credit card? Or is the plan to someone push people to use this currency by either giving them discount initially, or by not giving any other alternative means of payments?

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#57

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.

IMO, it's a small step towards a better direction. The "validator" consensus (oligarchy) is a much more transparent/inclusive solution compared to the closed financial ecosystems of Wechat/Alipay/Paytm/Grab. If Libra is an oligarchy, closed financial systems are dictatorships

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#58

Their next efforts will probably be lobby like crazy to ban any other coin that is not "Approved".

I really wonder whether cryptocurrency would have been better received if it were named differently. From inception, I’ve only heard it pitched as a currency replacement. This immediately marred it with all of the currency “counterculture”/conspiracy theories. But it seems better suited as a way to trustless-ly track and verify transactions in an actual, traditional currency. That there are ultimately finite amounts of crypto coins available for transaction better serves this purpose.
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