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Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

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Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#611

Post by Zyst »

gaogao wrote: post #569
ChainOfFools wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the "decentralization is a spectrum" crowd has already furnished the fintech narrative with the arguments necessary to justify calling this "decentralized." The "decentralization" quality should not be used to describe any system that doesn't exhibit a permanent, irreversible systemic trend towards greater decentralization of all the levers, concentrations and bottlenecks of power within itself over tim…

Could you give an example of something with this decentralization quality as you described?

Git comes to mind as well, I can go to Bitbucket or Gitlab and upload my repository with its full history in seconds. Or my own self-hosted repository if I wanted.

I don't agree with grandparent for what it's worth, just thought this might work as a reply to your question.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#612

Post by conanbatt »

hinkley wrote: post #537
conanbatt wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an oligarchy just like the nearest hotdog stand is a dictatorship. Don't like it don't use it. Try saying the same to the governments come tax-time.

Deflection 101: 1) Tell people to vote with their feet/wallet 2) Ridicule them for spending more The dark side of the network effect is that as the network grows it becomes harder and harder to be a conscientious objector. Also abstaining isn't really participating. And by not participating you get no say in the narrative. When you have a coherent thought on the subject, let us know.

A new currency is what makes it easier to be an objector. Why do you want to be tied to only the dollar?

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#613

Post by conanbatt »

camgunz wrote: post #534
conanbatt wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an oligarchy just like the nearest hotdog stand is a dictatorship. Don't like it don't use it. Try saying the same to the governments come tax-time.

In the US, we have a democracy, so we have at least some say in how things go: the government is us. Facebook is not us, we obviously didn't elect Zuck or anyone else there. This is a tired, old, fallacious comparison.

I didn't select the US government. I have no ticket to that ride.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#614

Post by imaginator »

ilaksh wrote: post #567
jpmattia wrote: post #546

Again: A ledger that is not decentralized is a bank database, not a cryptocurrency. As near as I can tell, Zuckbucks are nothing more than the JPMorganCryptocurrency but with a bigger consortium. The only difference seems to be who is given write privileges to the database.

Correct. Libra coin is backed by Visa. The whole point of cryptocurrency to avoid having to go through middlemen like Visa or even require banks. This is a way for the intermediaries to cash in on the cryptocurrency hype and squash it before cryptocurrency payments become mainstream. They want to insert their own thing that looks like a cryptocurrency but will allow them to continue to profit from and control the exc…

This sounds like AOL in 1997 saying "We are the Internet", when the real internet was accessed using Netscape.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#615

Post by dang »

Calib3r wrote: post #366

I sincerely doubt David Wong will offer any rebuttals to your very valid points.

Publishing someone's name in a thread as a weapon in an argument is a personal attack and the sort of thing we ban accounts for. Please don't do that again.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20213673 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#616

Post by BackBackBack »

dang wrote: post #545
BackBackBack wrote: post #540

For free! Edit: Due to censorship I request you to remove this account since you've not constructed a way to do it ourselves. http://remove.org/removal-requested

Could you please not post unsubstantive comments to HN? We're trying for a more thoughtful sort of discussion here. If you'd read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and post in the intended spirit of the site, we'd be grateful. I noticed a thread from a few days ago where this account got involved in a religious flamewar. That's just what we don't want on HN. You might also find these links helpful for…

Due to censorship I request you to remove this account since you've not constructed a way to do it ourselves.

http://remove.org/removal-requested

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#617

Post by kolinko »

jpmattia wrote: post #591
0xDEFC0DE wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why the ledger being run by ~27 different entities is NOT decentralized? How many governing entities (or validators; or people running blockchain servers) do you need before it qualifies as decentralized? I'm wondering about your definitions, not defending Facebook here.

> Can you explain why the ledger being run by ~27 different entities is NOT decentralized? 27 entities? Not decentralized. $10M fee to run a node? Not decentralized. Anyone can run a node from their computer? Decentralized. Blockchain validity is determined by mass consensus? Decentralized. 51% of the hash power is considered an attack rather than a feature of the system? Decentralized. Edit: Removed item about forki…

You may be confusing permissionlessness with decentralisation.

A system can be decentralised and permissioned at the same time.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#618

Post by simias »

vivekd wrote: post #557

This is an interesting story and I would like to learn more about libra-coin. Unfortunately I think hackernews has a strong anti-facebook bias that is making the opinions here nearly universally one sided. I think we can say three things fairly uncontroversially in favor of this 1. The world could use an online independent currency 2. Adding stability to blockchain currencies and having that work on a large scale is…

>Unfortunately I think hackernews has a strong anti-facebook bias

And a strong anti-cryptocurrency/blockchain bias. I'd argue that both are for good reasons however, the burden of proof that this is actually something positive for the world is very clearly in the other camp as far as I'm concerned.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#619

Post by jonas_kgomo »

Zittrain and Zuckerberg discussed encryption, ‘information fiduciaries’, interesting part is that Mark didn't mention nor support cryptocurrencies but he argued that the blockchain would incredibly help with security on Facebook. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGchhsKhG-A

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#620

Post by b3lvedere »

kaolti wrote: post #41
baby wrote: 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!

Your comment is meaningless. Cryptos in general are a cool, top 25 Silicon Valley are the opposite of cool.

Why are so many people working for such uncool companies?
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