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Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

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Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#851

Post by floe »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #733
smsm42 wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. The world could use an online independent currency Maybe, but "Facebook" and "independent" hardly go together. > Unlike government issued currencies, any monopoly or control facebook derives isn't done through force True, but the measure of control average person has over facebook is also close to zero. With government, you at least have courts, elections, Constitution finally... it is usually hard to go against…

> It could completely block you any time it wants to for any reason it wants to As opposed to what banks did in Cyprus in 2013 when they seized the money on the savings account of their own customers and basically stopped people from withdrawing their money from their own bank accounts? And said customers had no recourse at all against the banks helping themselves to their money?

In theory, the recourse is that the people can exert power over the banks by electing different politicians. Obviously, sometimes that doesn't work as well as we'd like, but there's not even such a possibility of recourse when Facebook fucks you over.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#852

Post by mathnmusic »

justinmchase wrote: post #655
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…

There are a lot of possible nuanced conversations but I think that the rejection of FB-coin on principle is the simplest argument and doesn't require much nuance to achieve. That principle simply being the principle of decentralization which is core to the concept and purpose of block chains. No single or cluster of large companies or governments can create and control a block chain without violating that principle a…

We remember Internet.org - a "free Internet" that conveniently left out all of FB's competitors like Google, Amazon etc. Nothing has changed with their tactics.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#853

Post by mekoka »

Let's play a game of predictions.

Regardless of HN's opinion of Facebook (and regardless of my own for that matter) I predict that this thing will work.

This is only one thing my crystal ball showed me.

Facebook's presence in developing economies is massive. To the point of being synonymous with "The Internet" in a number of places. But they've had a nagging problem. People in these economies consume contents, but do not buy. Even when they have some buying power, access to credit cards is harder to come by. So they're basically seen as online leeches, and you simply fit them in the "expense" category of your media production. Also, due to their buying impotence they're almost immune to advertisement. Over the next few months it's all going to change. Multiple agreements will be signed with various financial institutions and probably more with various telecom in those regions, to allow people to load up their accounts with fbcoins and join the Great Internet Spending Frenzy. Basically turning them overnight into consumers, ripe for the picking.

I foresee big media producing companies in the developed world to be the first to take advantage of this (Disney, Valve, Netflix, YouTube, NYT, various online courses and certifications, etc). Shipping to those regions remains a challenge, so only soft goods for now. IKEA and Walmart will allow fbcoins, but just to be able to sell through their Facebook Store, oh I forgot about those. Anyways.

Next year, Google and Amazon will announce their own stablecoin.

The year after that, Google will announce that they're shutting theirs.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#854

Post by petre »

cwkoss wrote: post #727
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.

See also: the time ripple froze a founder's XRP so they wouldn't sell (and presumably cause a price crash) https://insidebitcoins.com/news/not-so-decentralized-ripple-...

That could cause a crash by itself because it inspires loss of confidence.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#856

Post by tjpnz »

How does Facebook intend to support anonymous transactions without running afoul of Anti Money Laundering laws? If Facebook were to implement Libra in marketplace (for example) they would be obliged to do KYC on their sellers in some jurisdictions. That potentially means they would be handling identity documents and would be required to ban anyone (from all of their services) found to be involved in a criminal enterprise.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#857

Post by lalaland1125 »

la_barba wrote: post #435
driverdan wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funded by you depositing fiat currency with them, like a bank. They earn interest on your deposits, like a bank.

You convert your fiat currency into crypto currency. Once the exchange is done, you have no rights to the fiat currency. This is in no way similar to a bank. The bank can use your deposited money, whereas here the currency is always in your digital wallet, and only you can initiate a transaction in and out of it. Do you have any information that contradicts this? I've only skimmed the whitepaper.

> Once the exchange is done, you have no rights to the fiat currency.

This is incorrect. Facebook's tokens given users the right to exchange their tokens back for the backing assets.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#858

Post by cmoscoso »

sweeneyrod wrote: post #633
thefounder wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of public/private keys if the whole thing can be reversed, recovered and changed by FB with no transparency for the outside world? The private key becomes just a better password, like a SSH key based authentication. Actually I'm pretty sure the wallet will not even require any key. You will be able to sign in with facebook. I see no P2P payments here as everything is really validated by FB and all th…

> The client sees just an old good REST/RPC API with no public access to the backend. The client wallets will be no better/powerful than a paypal client app/wallet. There will be no blockchain to download...as matter of fact you won't even be able to tell if FB really uses blockchain behind the curtains. What is your basis for this? It implies that the fairly detailed whitepapers describing the blockchain are an elab…

Well, zucchain is one of the world’s most inefficient and expensive database ever created, of course it deserve a nice white paper.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#859

Post by waynecochran »

viraptor wrote: post #773
legohead wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until cryptocurrencies can deal with 51% attacks they are a waste of time in my mind. The technology is interesting, and that's about it.

51% attack applies to mining. Libra will not be mined. They have 33% attack on voting... but if 1/3 of the founding companies disagree about some transfer, they've got bigger issues than just that attack.

If there is no mining, how does proof of work occur to create coins? I only have an understanding of how blockchain works, but proof of work seems like a necessary ingredient in any cryptocurrency system.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#860

Post by bupkus »

Facebook is creating a securitized token representing a supply of Us treasuries and other assets that according to the white paper is to provide intrinsic value.They do not seem to understand what gives Cypto intrinsic value. In theory this is a security and should only be available only to accredited investors and they would need to file for an IPO to make it available to everyone in the US. There is no innovation just another tether.
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