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Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

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Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#911

Post by esjeon »

mekoka wrote: post #853

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…

> Basically turning them overnight into consumers, ripe for the picking.

Well, credit cards are already too easy to use. Many services already save your credit card info, and you're already one or two clicks away from purchasing. Still, you normally don't buy anything that appears next to blog/SNS posts.

But, I agree with that Facebook means really a lot here. Being a stable coin, Libra is much closer to a payment platform - like Visa, MasterCard and Papal - than other cryptocurrencies. Facebook can use its influence to push Libra into various platforms, and Libra can become a de-facto standard payment method in no time.

However, governments will happily regulate transactions b/w countries, which will limit the potential of the coin. Libra is Swiss Bank 2.0 in some senses.

> I foresee big media producing companies in the developed world to be the first to take advantage of this

It can bring consumers in developing countries to the table, but those countries usually have slow connections, which leads to lower consumption of digital media. Distribution of the coin also can be a problem too. SWIFT is expensive, and fewer people have credit cards.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#912

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

nroets wrote: post #907
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #864

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook's hold in developing economies is true. But developing economy's hold on their Fiat currency is true as well. So much so that, India is planning to jail anyone who is holding cryptocurrency for 10 years[1]! If this legislation passes, any computer scientist, mathematician, programmer who is working with crypto tokens & block chain can technically be held liable for possessing a crypto currency when they run…

In South Africa, we still have capital controls. My mom earned dollars through PayPal. She couldn't spend it online and had to convert her earnings to Rand within 3 months. Bureaucrats will insist that the same rules apply to libra. India is even less ready for relaxing capital controls. They will tell Facebook to block libra for their citizens or be firewalled. No one is going to jail, but libra will not succeed the…

Talking of PayPal in India, money should be automatically remitted to the bank account immediately.

At-least 3 months in SA sounds reasonable incase we have to process any refund, though I'm not trying to belittle the discomfort faced by your mother.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#915

Post by inopinatus »

mekoka wrote: post #853

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…

In three years, Libra will be the largest single venue of public financial services. All branches of retail banks are upgraded with Libra teller machines, becoming fully distributed. Afterwards, they transact with a perfect operational record. The Blockchain Currency Bill is passed, replacing the dollar with Libra. The system goes online on August 4th, 2022. Human decisions are removed from central banking. Libra begins hashing at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware 2:14 AM, Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#916

Post by jraph »

inopinatus wrote: post #915
mekoka wrote: post #853

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…

In three years, Libra will be the largest single venue of public financial services. All branches of retail banks are upgraded with Libra teller machines, becoming fully distributed. Afterwards, they transact with a perfect operational record. The Blockchain Currency Bill is passed, replacing the dollar with Libra. The system goes online on August 4th, 2022. Human decisions are removed from central banking. Libra beg…

I love these comments.

See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18281465 (context: "I really wonder what's going to happen to Linux once Linus is gone")

We maybe should build a list of these. Dystopic answers to HN's unattended writting prompts, or something.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#917

Post by Macross8299 »

floe wrote: post #851
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

>In theory, the recourse is that the people can exert power over the banks by electing different politicians.

Ah, but there's the rub. When every major political party is beholden to banking interests, "electing different politicians" is an almost-insurmountable task. And even so, is no guarantee that a new set of politicians won't eventually become corrupt and beholden to those interests either.

If "electing different politicians" is an insurmountable task, then developing an alternative, trustless financial system beyond the control of politicians becomes much more feasible by comparison. Hence the motivation behind great-great grandparent's comment about the need for an online independent currency. The context of 2008 and things like the TARP bailouts are very important to understanding the entire thought movement behind cryptocurrency as a whole. Hence, the hidden message encoded on the very first Bitcoin block [0]:

>The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

[0]: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block#Coinbase

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#918

Post by nostrademons »

mekoka wrote: post #853

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…

I predict that Libra will work for a while, but will eventually be overshadowed either by competitors or by the new markets that it enables.

There's this pattern I've noticed where every major tech company, once initial traction has been established, gets three pivots. You can think of them as adolescence, mid-life, and rebirth.

The first pivot happens when the company is 5-8 years old (since the 1970s at least; older before then), and serves to define the company. The System 360 for IBM, defining it as the provider of mainframes for enterprises. MS-DOS for Microsoft, defining it as the dominant PC OS. The Macintosh for Apple, defining it as the most user-friendly consumer brand out there. GMail and Maps for Google, defining it as the conglomerate of the Internet age. Mobile for Facebook, defining it as the service that connects people regardless of where they are.

The second pivot happens when the company is 10-15, at the height of its dominance, and usually results from it entering the hottest new technology wave with a vengeance. It looks like it succeeds for a while, crushes early entrants, serves to legitimize that technology wave, but ultimately peters out as the company can't keep up with the changes that it introduces. The IBM PC for IBM, which legitimized the PC market but ultimately fell to clones. Internet Explorer for Microsoft, which legitimized the Internet but ultimately was eclipsed by Google's many products. The Newton for Apple, which legitimized the PDA market but ultimately was too early. Google+ for Google, which legitimized social networking but ultimately failed to gain traction.

The third pivot is when the company realizes that they basically incapable of innovating, and returns to the roots they established with the first pivot to live out their old age. Open-source consulting for IBM, leveraging their massive installed base of enterprise customers. VS Code, XBox, and Azure for Microsoft, recognizing that they are fundamentally a platforms company. The iPhone and iPad for Apple, refocusing on their strengths in UX and delivering top-quality consumer electronics products. Alphabet for Google, realizing that they're fundamentally a conglomerate that lets a thousand flowers bloom (and cancels 990 of them).

Libra is Facebook's second pivot. It'll look like it succeeds for a while, it'll legitimize cryptocurrency, but it'll ultimately end up eclipsed by what it creates.

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#919

Post by blatantlies »

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…

Not sure if matters but at least to my understanding, DanKort is a debit card, so I would expect it to have a flat rate since the cost of transaction is less dependent on the total amount vs a credit card transaction where there is more clearance and risk involved?

At least in some jurisdictions I lived, debit card is as good as cash (well, not exactly the same but because handling cash has also its cost, most of retailers treat them equally)

Re: Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

#920

Post by mayankkaizen »

stOneskull wrote: post #882
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #864

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook's hold in developing economies is true. But developing economy's hold on their Fiat currency is true as well. So much so that, India is planning to jail anyone who is holding cryptocurrency for 10 years[1]! If this legislation passes, any computer scientist, mathematician, programmer who is working with crypto tokens & block chain can technically be held liable for possessing a crypto currency when they run…

I think India, or most other countries, will deem facebook coins an exception. It's probably being negotiated right now.

Indian central bank (RBI) is rather conservative and cautious. Also, its policies don't always agree with that of indian government.

I have a strong hunch it just wouldn't let Libra be legal currency.

Besides, given that currently government is run by a ulta right wing party, so it might be possible they wouldn't agree to Facebook plans.

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