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

Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

decrypt.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

841–850 of 1001 posts

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#841

Post by delfinom »

provolone wrote: post #840
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.

I fail to see how a social media profile can be used to verify financial identity for shit.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#843

Post by dgzl »

dgzl wrote: post #521
moosey wrote: post #233

If this succeeds, it will be a data collection tool the likes of which the world has never seen, which is why so many companies are willing to put their name on it. The data, along with ML/AI, and our contemporary understanding of the human mind, means that this is a major step towards control that we can't understand. Dr. Harari explains it better than I do in "21 Lessons for the 21st Century", but this tool is part…

> If you don't believe that this is already happening, hang out with some teenagers. Ever since I moved away for college (2009) I had started becoming curious how the lives of today's American youth were interacting, and how that was different from my own experience. Unfortunately it's not easy getting close to that age group without raising flags for being creepy.

Or, I guess it is fortunate, but less insightful.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#844

Post by vel0city »

edmundsauto wrote: post #786
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…

Was it the data that was merged with WhatsApp, or was it the infrastructure? AFAICT, FB can't connect what I said on whatsapp to what I say on Messenger because everything is e2e encrypted. They have metadata (would need it to route the messages, and for providing the service). What am I missing?

Don't brush off metadata as useless information. They know who you talk to when you send these WhatsApp messages. They know how often you talk to these people. They know when you talk to these people. From this information they are more able to glean who are the important people in your life, what kind of relationship you have,and can then weight these profiles better. Only talk to this person sporadically during normal business hours? Good chance this person is purely a work contact. Routinely send messages after work? Probably a friend. Send lots of large payload messages late at night to a certain someone? Naughty you ;)

Of course this is endemic to any third party you trust buffering and delivering these communications, this is not particular to Facebook. However, Facebook is explicitly using this information, while others explicitly say they don't.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#845

Post by vel0city »

jlmorton wrote: post #459
fnoof wrote: post #195

From the white paper: > "Libra’s mission is to enable a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people." They do this by issuing coins in exchange for fiat money, which is held by the reserve. > "Interest on the reserve assets will be used to cover the costs of the system, ensure low transaction fees, pay dividends to investors who provided capital to jumpstart the ecosystem [...…

This is not a bank. It's an asset and a payment network. Banks are organizations that borrow short to lend long. This is a stablecoin backed very closely 1:1 with fiat currency. There is no fractional reserve, and there is no lending.

If it is not fractional reserve, how do they guarantee interest payments for those ponying up the millions today?

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#846

Post by vel0city »

hinkley wrote: post #507
fnoof wrote: post #195

From the white paper: > "Libra’s mission is to enable a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people." They do this by issuing coins in exchange for fiat money, which is held by the reserve. > "Interest on the reserve assets will be used to cover the costs of the system, ensure low transaction fees, pay dividends to investors who provided capital to jumpstart the ecosystem [...…

And no federal insurance program.

Its not a bug its a feature!

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#847

Post by baby »

hjk05 wrote: post #680
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. In Denmark we solved this the lowtech way. Visa cards have to be Dual visa/dancard, where the dancard has extremely low cut limited by law(0,055$/transaction flat rate) It’s not hard, it just requires you have politicians capable of dodging the huge piles of cash MasterCa…

But that's the point. Monzo is the best bank in the world and yet it's only available in the UK. As soon as you're trying to cross a border it becomes challenging. A cryptocurrency can be a very useful solution here: it skips decenies of progress to set up an interoperable network for banks and custodians to use (and users as well if they want to).

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#848

Post by vel0city »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #490

What I really don't get is the regulatory aspect. They are creating a financial derivative asset/instrument. To be moved across the borders. In what freaking universe will the regulators not be all over it with endless KYC/ML rules?

Its Facebook. You don't have to submit anything for them to know their customer ;)

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#849

Post by acesubido »

m-i-l wrote: post #208
acesubido wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

> If Libra is an oligarchy, closed financial systems are dictatorships Given the global financial system is not controlled by one individual, it isn't a Dictatorship (power of one) but is more like a form of Oligarchy (power of the few). As for which form of Oligarchy each are, I'd argue that the existing financial system is more of a Technocracy (i.e. you need to know what you are doing to be one of the few) whereas…

> whereas Libra is a Plutocracy (you need to be wealthy to be one of the few)

Agreed. The same way governments require a large amount of capital to be a bank to ensure depositors of liquidity. You need to have capital to back the Libra tokens, otherwise it can get pretty scary, just like USD Tether shenanigans.

> or even possibly a Kleptocracy depending on how they actually run it and what their true motives are.

Banks, Central Banks, Governments, etc. whatever. Their motives are exactly "secret" when it comes to managing currencies. They all gear towards enriching their currency and making it more valuable. So yeah for this "oligarchy", I'd bet it's the same, Kleptocracy it is.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#850

Post by ajxs »

andrewla wrote: post #790
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even the bank cannot reduce your balance in secret without your authorization Uh, neither can my Traditional Legacy Bank™ if I ask for regular statements? I suppose you could argue they could lie to me about the actual amount. Well, then I will just sue them for the money.

I just mean that your funds at the bank can be seized without your assent for numerous reasons - civil judgements, asset forfeiture, etc., and given to someone else.

The reasons you list are the bank complying with the law. Civil judgements and asset forfeiture are legal matters where the court has decided that your assets are declared forfeit in order to make reparation for some legal matter. Presenting this as proof of your money's insecurity in a traditional banking institution is incredibly disingenuous. The fact that your bank complies with the laws of your country is just more proof of why traditional financial institutions would be more trustworthy than a consortium of tech giants.
Post reply on HN