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Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

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Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#741

Post by [deleted] »

tjkrusinski wrote: post #729
ei8htyfi5e wrote: post #720

I've lived in China and seen how this plays out. Facebook's new Libra Blockchain will be a centralized bank but way more dangerous. It will allow for a worldwide social credit system. If Facebook decides to remove you for wrong speak or wrong think, your money and many services will be inaccessible. Further, they have no mandate like the central bank does to increase employment. Their mandate is to make money for cor…

This isn't the case, your wallet is not tied to your Facebook account.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#742

Post by camjohnson26 »

jpmattia wrote: post #714
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the bank cannot reduce your balance in secret without your authorization, since transactions are signed and the ledger is public This capability is pretty pointless when the bank can indefinitely suspend your ability to make transactions. The ability to block transactions is an essential part of compliance with anti-money-laundering and other banking regulations.

> This capability is pretty pointless when the bank can indefinitely suspend your ability to make transactions. You beat me to it: Having cryptographically signed transactions simply does not matter when you have to submit the transaction to what Zuck calls a "validator". The validator will just refuse to validate if your address is on a blacklist. The net effect is that the coins are frozen. And since this is a back…

Maybe we need to question whether the government should have the power to unilaterally block a transaction. Just because they’ve been able to in the past doesn’t mean we have to artificially limit technology to let them keep that power.

In the same way they used to be able to tap your phone, but now we can encrypt our calls and make that much more difficult. That doesn’t mean encryption should be illegal.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#743

Post by wmf »

lightedman wrote: post #178
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!

Here's something for you to discover - cryptocoins have single-handedly wiped out and exceeded all progress we gained in Photovoltaic technology. Thanks for helping destroy the planet and undoing what we've been working so hard to achieve, all in the name of some pet project.

Note that Libra doesn't use energy-sucking PoW.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#744

Post by somebodythere »

lightedman wrote: post #178
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!

Here's something for you to discover - cryptocoins have single-handedly wiped out and exceeded all progress we gained in Photovoltaic technology. Thanks for helping destroy the planet and undoing what we've been working so hard to achieve, all in the name of some pet project.

You know that Libra is a POA coin and does not require mining, correct?

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#745

Post by m3kw9 »

Looking at this as a black box, you buy credits using real money, and you can transfer the credits with less fees than tradition banks. Except you have one extra step on conversion of money into credits.

If there are enough people and places that accepts this credit, you eventually don’t need to ever convert it back to real money. Therefore when there is a lowered chance people would do a bank run, they can lower the backing requirement, like how banks are, and can reinvest the money. Here is the main point, they probably won’t dare issuing coins ie print money as that would immediately could be deemed a national security issue as now you are competing against a nations money supply.

You gonna say, wait, this is how bitcoins work, but nobody is giving bitcoin any respect. This libra thing will get respect, so regulation may just stop it in its tracks as soon as it gets too far.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#746

Post by medion »

cafed00d wrote: post #623
vgoh1 wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly why I would love to see this fail. I try to be a non-Facebook user, but everyone uses Messenger, and my local Craigslist has deteriorated because everyone sells on Facebook now, so I use it for certain things. Every once in a while, I find myself getting sucked into the "feed" view on my way to the Facebook Marketplace, especially since on mobile, every time I press "back" from a listing that I go into detail…

One of the best things I did was unfollow everything (i.e. friends, family, pages, celebrities, the kitchen sink, EVERYTHING) on Facebook. This explicit unfollowing took a few weeks and wasn't something done in a day. Now, I have the advantage of using facebook for all the useful things I need such as "Login with Facebook" and Messenger without having the risk of ever succumbing to the "Feed" Part of my experience he…

News Feed Eradicator essentially does this (browser extension) - I've used it for years can't tell you how much time it has saved me from the FB timeline!

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#747

Post by dang »

_Microft wrote: post #66
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!

How good can the judgement of someone still working for Facebook be?

Personal attacks will get you banned here, regardless of how made you are at someone's employer. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't post like this to HN.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#748

Post by rdm_blackhole »

randomvectors wrote: post #406
gridlockd wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Conceptually this is a bank, but with no interest returned to users, no financial oversight from governments, controlled by Silicon Valley's top companies. I disagree that this is "conceptually" a bank. Facebook's business model isn't lending out the reserves. If it was, banking regulation would apply. Also, in a modern bank, reserves are maybe 10%, and you get less than zero percent interest after inflation for th…

> At this point, I think I'd honestly rather put my money with Facebook than many of those actual banks out there. This is so ridiculous that I don't even know how to argue with it.

Is it because you trust the banks to keep your money safe? Have a look at what happened in 2013 in Cyprus where they did a bail-in with their customer's money to "save" a bank that was too big to fail.

I am with parent on this one.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#749

Post by dang »

_Microft wrote: post #73
rollulus wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Let me guess: "We try to stay away from such pesky questions but are convinced that the amount of good that Facebook can do is unlimited" Yeaah.

One of these is a guideline violation (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20219023); two is already harassment. People have a right to post here regardless of who they work for. If other users hound them away, will that make HN more or less interesting? Obviously less.

Please don't do this again so we don't have to ban you!

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#750

Post by m3kw9 »

m3kw9 wrote: post #745

Looking at this as a black box, you buy credits using real money, and you can transfer the credits with less fees than tradition banks. Except you have one extra step on conversion of money into credits. If there are enough people and places that accepts this credit, you eventually don’t need to ever convert it back to real money. Therefore when there is a lowered chance people would do a bank run, they can lower the…

So this thing is probably not going anywhere fast, in order to be useful, it needs to go beyond America. Every country will be scare of this possibility becoming a currency they have no control over. I’m not even sure if America will allow this to even take off without severe regulations that crippled the development
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