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Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

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Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#831

Post by lightedman »

somebodythere wrote: post #744
lightedman wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's still a permissionless distributed database and will suffer those same issues regardless. This is known since the 70s, when we first developed and tested this type of technology. To boot, the majority of power isn't in the mining of POW, but the supporting hardware to maintain the network.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#832

Post by arduanika »

chii wrote: post #813
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…

> Therefore, if Facebook's Libra is a countries main currency and social network, that country will be owned by Facebook. And if you swap Facebook with the Federal Reserve, the above is already currently true!

Really? Does the Federal Reserve control the flow of information in those countries?

GP's point is, if Libra achieves its vision of a global currency yet remains under Facebook's ultimate control, then a single entity centralizes not only [all the combined power wielded jointly today by the Fed / ECB / IMF / World Bank over a country], but also [its gateway to news and social life, with the power and evidently the willingness to bend all elections to its will].

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#833

Post by leovander »

danny8000 wrote: post #829

I remember Disney Dollars as a kid that were pegged to US 1:1 and could be used at any Disney-owned property. They were basically gift cards with no expiration date. They ended up not being cost efficient, so Disney discontinued them in 2016. So, if the Libra ends up costing more to run than in earns (hardware, software, labor, and the cost of pegging it to a basket of currencies), then they won’t continue funding it…

>Since it’s not going to be a speculative currency like bitcoin, how will they pay or it?

https://youtu.be/HnXKE0nfAjI?t=41

But seriously, an even more direct connection between ads and what you buy.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#834

Post by Vervious »

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!

There's also very cool cryptography and tech on other projects, that are actually decentralized. E.g. Algorand, where I work.

Facebook's protocol is permissioned - not so much theoretical novelty there over PBFT (or even non-Byzantine Paxos... companies are under contract anyways, why model them as Byzantine actors?) No way it will scale to 1000+ nodes, in a permissionless gossip network where you cannot directly unicast to the leader.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#835

Post by roberto »

_cs2017_ wrote: post #817
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…

> I think hackernews has a strong anti-facebook bias Is HN really more anti-Facebook than the general population? If so, why?

> Is HN really more anti-Facebook than the general population?

Yes, definitely.

> If so, why?

Because the general population cares less about privacy than HN. But I (not OP) think it goes deeper than that, and I've seen people here deliberately spreading lies about FB.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#836

Post by creato »

lawrenceg wrote: post #601
mattferderer wrote: post #595

What I haven't heard is how they plan to help US Citizens properly report taxes on any gain or loss when spending Libra. Either the IRS will need to look the other way or this will become a huge hurdle for mass adoption in the US. My hope is this helps get the IRS moving faster at making some laws based around using cryptocurrency to buy & sell goods. I do get that this isn't an easy decision to make. At some point s…

From my understanding, the US market is not a priority for them with this project. They're looking at the unbanked markets first and foremost.

I think that's PR bullshit to make this sound like a charitable endeavor.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#837

Post by DoreenMichele »

_cs2017_ wrote: post #817
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…

> I think hackernews has a strong anti-facebook bias Is HN really more anti-Facebook than the general population? If so, why?

Facebook never clicked for me.

I'm not really a proper programmer. I know a little HTML and CSS, but I seem to fit in here better than most places. I have a Certificate in GIS, I run my own websites and I seem to relate to the internet differently than most people who are into Facebook.

The comments I see on HN seem to generally agree with that pattern: It's seems like it's "just not my cup of tea" for a lot of people who are more computer literate than average. On top of that, the privacy issues have become such a big deal of late.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#838

Post by desdiv »

dan1234 wrote: post #728
taurath wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not 100% steeped in cryptocurrency theory, and so I don't understand why this is presented as if it's agreed on by everyone. What problems does the world have that would be solved by an online, independent [of any nation, presumably?] currency? Visa and Mastercard are taking a 3-4% cut of every single consumer payment made in much of the world. That ends up being a very, very big number. There are many people a…

> Visa and Mastercard are taking a 3-4% cut of every single consumer payment made in much of the world. That ends up being a very, very big number. I think you’re overestimating that rate, and by quite a bit. Mastercard’s fees seem to be between 0.2%-1.65%[0] depending on the card and transaction type. I didn’t bother to look for Visa’s rate, but I’d imagine it’d be similar. [0] https://www.mastercard.co.uk/en-gb/abo…

You are correct if you interpret "Visa and Mastercard" as literally Mastercard Incorporated and Visa Inc.

He used "Visa and Mastercard" as a metonymy for the entire payment processing network i.e. payment gateway + issuing bank + acquiring bank + card networks. The total fee for the entire network is indeed 3-4%, and as you rightly pointed out, Mastercard Incorporated and Visa Inc. fees actually only make up for less than half of the total transaction fees.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#839

Post by noob_slayer »

fnord77 wrote: post #767
taurath wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not 100% steeped in cryptocurrency theory, and so I don't understand why this is presented as if it's agreed on by everyone. What problems does the world have that would be solved by an online, independent [of any nation, presumably?] currency? Visa and Mastercard are taking a 3-4% cut of every single consumer payment made in much of the world. That ends up being a very, very big number. There are many people a…

> Visa and Mastercard are taking a 3-4% cut have you tried buying anything with bitcoin? currently the transaction fee is almost $2 to have your transaction confirmed within 10 minutes. Not a lot on big purchases, but that's 20% if you're say trying to buy a $10 lunch with bitcoin.

Have you tried buying anything with Bitcoin Cash? Currently the transaction fee is under 500 satoshi (about 1/5 of 1 US cent) to have your transaction included in the next block.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#840

Post by provolone »

WA wrote: post #205

> "On the first point, Marcus said that Facebook is enforcing a strict separation between users’ social data—their Facebook likes, photos, etc—and the financial data that will be available on Libra’s network. There will not, he insisted, be a readily available data trove connecting users’ transactional data to their Facebook profiles, and users’ funds themselves will be cryptographically secured. “We don’t want finan…

They've already asserted that FB data will be used to verify your identity for Libra. Sounds contradictory.
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