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Facebook reveals its cryptocurrency Libra

• HipGeeks 7y ago
  This is going to leave Ripple a dead duck.
  • manojlds 7y ago
    And Stellar, Nano and many others.
    • dfischer 7y ago
      Interesting because Stripe CEO is behind XLM too, no?
      • freshfey 7y ago
        Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe is an advisor to Stellar
• VMG 7y ago
  can anyone tell me if people in Iran can use it? this doesn't really answer my question: https://libra.org/en-US/security-privacy/#overview https://libra.org/en-US/security-privacy/#overview > Working with Law Enforcement > As with any currency or financial infrastructure, bad actors will try to exploit the Libra network. While the network is open and accessible to everyone with internet access, the network's main endpoints will need to follow applicable laws and regulations and collaborate with law enforcement. In addition, because transactions on the Libra Blockchain are pseudonymous, it is possible for third parties to do analysis to detect fraud and illegal activity.
  • buboard 7y ago
    It's based in Switzerland. So maybe yes?
    • VMG 7y ago
      So is Libra following Swiss law? Does US law not apply to Libra? Can Facebook still be associated with it then?
      • buboard 7y ago
        reading the whitepaper , it seems everything will be managed by the swiss company. facebook is just one of the partners. [As another user mentioned, the company that makes the wallet is US based and will enforce sanctions. But maybe that means that another of the partners can make a wallet to use in sanctioned countries?]
      • jrvxo 7y ago
        If it's based in Switzerland why would US law apply to it?
        • ceejayoz 7y ago
          Because as some have found out, US law kinda applies everywhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Weil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Weil
        • mtgx 7y ago
          The better question is "Why does Facebook think that being based in Switzerland will protect them? It's been a while since Swiss banks were last immune to U.S. government pressure. Or even pressure from other countries. I can't bother to find the links now, but there were a couple of stories during Obama's time, about the US government arresting people based on their financial transactions in Switzerland.
        • delfinom 7y ago
          Because the US can go after every single American company that's part of the association that runs it.
  • envy2 7y ago
    There's a difference between Libra (the Swiss-based association) and Calibra (the US-based FB subsidiary making the first wallet). > "Calibra will do its part to facilitate the efficacy of international sanctions regimes. We will administer and enforce applicable sanctions programs including, for example, U.S., EU, and U.N. sanctions programs." https://scontent.fbhx3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/65083631_355528488499253_8415273665234468864_n.pdf?_nc_cat=106&_nc_ht=scontent.fbhx3-1.fna&oh=0a4cba967c1bb95cfc88116abd95a193&oe=5D982AC3 https://scontent.fbhx3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/65083631...
    • VMG 7y ago
      So the wallet software will enforce the sanctions? If somebody writes an open-source wallet they can circumvent the rules? I don't get it.
  • delfinom 7y ago
    Basically the Feds will crack down hard on Facebook and co enabling Iranians and others on sanction lists. It's no joke and it's one of the few things that will result with executives in jail compared to all that should but doesn't.
• curiousgal 7y ago
  One step closer to dystopia.
  • zxcb1 7y ago
    It does not feel right, does it?
    • dfischer 7y ago
      I had a vision once – Facebook invented true AGI and life as we know it is a simulated reality thanks to that AI. Oh well.
    • tgragnato 7y ago
      > 27 fellow Silicon Valley titans [...] to operate as preliminary “validator nodes” What could possibly go wrong?
      • buboard 7y ago
        some other cryptos have similar oligarchy model, e.g. stellar
        • tgragnato 7y ago
          The oligarchic model offers considerable savings (less computational and energy waste). It's understandable why it's tempting. But I think that the consensus protocol of Stellar looks a lot more like a sweet spot: it has different levels of participation to the network, each of which gives different incentives, requirements and use cases. > https://www.stellar.org/developers/stellar-core/software/admin.html#level-of-participation-to-the-network https://www.stellar.org/developers/stellar-core/software/adm... My criticism is specific to this particular implementation (and management).
      • Spivak 7y ago
        Is this really any different than your ability to buy things in-practice gated nigh exclusively by MasterCard and Visa? It sounds less like a dystopia and more like the tech sector and payment processors have been collectively itching to escape the current banking system.
• uylbh 7y ago
  Can I use it in Iran?
  • ur-whale 7y ago
    You can use Bitcoin in Iran today, can't you?
• freshfey 7y ago
  Official site: https://developers.libra.org/ https://developers.libra.org/ Whitepaper: https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/ https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/
  • news_hacker 7y ago
    Technical whitepaper [PDF]: https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/the-libra-blockchain.pdf https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/the-libra-bl... Details on the Move programming language [PDF]: https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/libra-move-a-language-with-programmable-resources.pdf https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/libra-move-a...
• rkachowski 7y ago
  Why, of course I trust Facebook with my financial transactions. Why would they lie about privacy? This can only be an altruistic course of action
  • jarfil 7y ago
    Cryptocoins are not about privacy, the ledgers are public so no conflict there.
    • nileshtrivedi 7y ago
      There are cryptocoins like zcash where the ledger isn't open in the same sense it is on Bitcoin or Libra.
      • CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
        No, the ledger is open. It's just that the transaction data is encrypted so only the recipient can decrypt it, and accompanied by a zero-knowledge proof so the money supply retains its integrity even with the encryption in place.
  • leowoo91 7y ago
    Be careful with the distraction, Facebook is powerful enough to create the 'alternative' force of gravity.
  • tomp 7y ago
    Send money to your Facebook account, be banned. I'm sure it will be perfectly legal (after all, you agreed to it in T&Cs!).
• Moxdi 7y ago
  this is giving the power of governments to tech companies, and im not sure how i feel about that, at least bitcoin is truly decentralized
  • lukevdp 7y ago
    Not really, governments will regulate it, same as everything.
  • Spivak 7y ago
    They're going to end up in the same situation as banks where they're vaguely intertwined with government interests.
  • conanbatt 7y ago
    Unless they can levvy taxes, the comparison is ridicolous. Do you think Magic the Gathering is also a sovereign state?
  • Bakary 7y ago
    The democratization that bitcoin was supposed to bring was fatally undermined anyway as it just created yet another caste of wealthy early adopters.
• ilaksh 7y ago
  It says testnet only until early 2020. Coincidentally, Ethereum recently announced Ethereum 2.0 releasing in early 2020. I consider Libra Coin an effort to cash in on the cryptocurrency hype with a type of bank, before real cryptocurrencies can scale and become mainstream and therefore block such an effort. So I see it as a moral imperative for developers to try to kill the project. The fact that they are making it open source could help in that regard.
  • tomglynch 7y ago
    So we can take it down from the inside, trojan-horse style!
    • berbec 7y ago
      Embrace, Extend, Extinguish!
  • lukevdp 7y ago
    What makes a cryptocurrency “real”?
    • cdiddy2 7y ago
      decentralization and trustlessness I would say are the big two. With Libra its pretty clearly controlled by large tech companies so validating on the network isnt open to anyone. This means it not decentralized in my book. You also have to trust that the dollars or dollar equivalents are behind every token on the Libra network, this isnt the case in bitcoin/ethereum since there isnt an attempt to use dollar backed tokens at the base layer
      • buboard 7y ago
        i think we need a new word for decentralized currencies /chains.
        • swift532 7y ago
• dev_north_east 7y ago
  I can't wait to get me some Itchy and Scratchy Money
• steveharman 7y ago
  Has there been any announcement of third parties being able to depoly their own contracts or Dapps to Facebook's blockchain?
  • pavlov 7y ago
    Here's the developer docs: https://developers.libra.org/docs/welcome-to-libra https://developers.libra.org/docs/welcome-to-libra
• prepend 7y ago
  “Moreover, Marcus insisted that the $10 million buy in would not grant validators exclusive access to users’ transactional data.“ So they don’t get exclusive data. That’s an odd statement, it just means that data can be sold to others as well.
  • jarfil 7y ago
    If the blockchain is public, the transactions themselves are public, so can't really be sold. The association between user data and transactions, might be valuable though.
    • buboard 7y ago
      the association could be inferred via side channels though. in any case they should separate the blockchain from facebook ids. This should not be facebook's toy.
    • prepend 7y ago
      I think Facebook will be in the best position to link identity to wallets. Doling this out to initial backers and anyone who pays later on would keep the truth of the statement.
• dgellow 7y ago
  Duplicate, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20210667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20210667
• baby 7y ago
  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!
  • afandian 7y ago
    Can it be used without a Facebook account?
    • newscracker 7y ago
      Seems like it can, because the article says that one’s Facebook account won’t be linked to the wallet account and that the wallet account can remain anonymous or pseudo-anonymous to others. But I’m sure Facebook will be able to link these somehow, and so will all the partners. This will be a bigger Cambridge Analytica in the future.
  • swarnie_ 7y ago
    Considering the track record to date why would anyone want to handover financial transaction data to Facebook? I may as well cut out the middleman, save time and punch myself in the face.
  • imw 7y ago
    There's a lot of interesting physics in building thermonuclear weapons. Doesn't mean you should do it. Your talents could be used to help the world. Instead, they are being used to enclose common spaces and pull apart the fabric of society. Get a better job?
    • Kiro 7y ago
      I can't believe the amount of "you are a horrible human being for working at Facebook" comments I keep seeing as soon as someone says they are working there. HN is great because you normally get comments straight from the source, but I'm worried we will inevitably shame Facebook employees into not posting here at all.
• leshokunin 7y ago
  It’s going to be interesting. “Unlike previous stablecoins, Libra will not be issued by a central party. Instead, Facebook has enlisted 27 fellow Silicon Valley titans—among them PayPal, Visa, Spotify, Mastercard, Uber, and eBay—to operate as preliminary “validator nodes” who will each share a transparent copy of a vast ledger of transactions reflecting all the activity on the network.” That sounds amazingly dystopian. I mean, that’s literally a money built on an oligarchy. By design. I understand people trust these services ( to the extent they keep using them), but the playing field should be flatter in crypto. Unlike the article’s suggestions that Ripple is toast, I can imagine it’s putting such coins in a position to be very competitive, more open, and not run by the companies above.
  • acesubido 7y ago
    > 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
    • ianai 7y ago
      It really does feel like cryptocurrency is how the technical industry will learn/is learning about the financial industry.
      • edouard-harris 7y ago
        Stripe and Paypal are examples of tech companies that already appear to have learned quite a lot about the financial industry.
        • ses1984 7y ago
          Retail payments is just a teensy tiny, eency weency bit of "finance".
    • 7y ago
• buryat 7y ago
  how do i mine it?
  • maaarghk 7y ago
    from the whitepaper: The Libra Association also serves as the entity through which the Libra Reserve is managed, and hence the stability and growth of the Libra economy are achieved. The association is the only party able to create (mint) and destroy (burn) Libra. Coins are only minted when authorized resellers have purchased those coins from the association with fiat assets to fully back the new coins. Coins are only burned when the authorized resellers sell Libra coin to the association in exchange for the underlying assets. Since authorized resellers will always be able to sell Libra coins to the reserve at a price equal to the value of the basket, the Libra Reserve acts as a “buyer of last resort.” These activities of the association are governed and constrained by a Reserve Management Policy that can only be changed by a supermajority of the association members.
    • JaimeThompson 7y ago
      Does the white paper make clear how / if those rules can be changed in the future?
      • hackernudes 7y ago
        It looks like the Libra Foundation would need to approve with a 2/3 majority of representatives. From https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#the-libra-association https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#the-libra-association: > All decisions are brought to the council, and major policy or technical decisions require the consent of two-thirds of the votes, the same supermajority of the network required in the BFT consensus protocol.
• onion-soup 7y ago
  >1000 tx/s Nice try Zuc. But BSV can do 10k tx/s already AND it supports tokens as well
  • buboard 7y ago
    It’s really not about the technicals but that they will handle billions of wallets
• devnullbyte 7y ago
  I hope it crashes and burns. It's the opposite of what crypto was meant to achieve. No central control.
  • ymolodtsov 7y ago
    Build something better that will get more adoption then?
    • Loughla 7y ago
      I'm trying to understand how your statement isn't just a flippant nonsense remark. How can I, me, one person, make something that is 'better' (how do you even define that) and will get more adoption than something that is being rolled out by one of the largest and already most popular platforms? What a ridiculous statement you've made. Just a useless statement to make yourself feel superior, is what it looks like.
      • matz1 7y ago
        Isn't most of the thing if not anything start from one person, even Facebook itself ? Are you implying that its hard ? hard != impossible.
        • 50656E6973 7y ago
          Nope, Facebook was stolen by one person though.
          • matz1 7y ago
            Still mean that person make fb happen.
            • deleted 7y ago
              [deleted]
        • rchaud 7y ago
• golergka 7y ago
  Crucial question for competing with Bitcoin, of course, is simple: will it be anonymous enough to buy drugs with?
  • buboard 7y ago
    Considering that multiple companies have access to the data to find illegal transactions, no way. However it will probably be easily exchanged with other coins
  • lawn 7y ago
    Neither Bitcoin or this should really be used to buy drugs with. On the other hand you have an immutable public record of all your transactions (Bitcoin) and on the other hand you have bastions of privacy (Facebook) who is guaranteed to sell your info. Bitcoin is still better... Known drug transactions will probably be blocked here outright, while in Bitcoin you might just get caught after the fact.
  • ymolodtsov 7y ago
    People have been buying drugs with Venmo. So what?
• sschueller 7y ago
  Libra as in liberty? What a joke.
  • trosi 7y ago
    I think it's a reference to the Roman libra, which used to be both a monetary and weight measure.
  • JorgeGT 7y ago
    Libra is "pound" in Spanish, so it will be pretty confusing because that's how we already refer to the pound sterling.
  • b3lvedere 7y ago
    When organisations or government names include words like freedom, liberty, democratic, etc they usually aren't :)
  • anticensor 7y ago
    The joke is Facebook deems itself the new Rome.
• imw 7y ago
  "He added that users would be able to remain anonymous or pseudonymous, at their own discretion—including the ability to keep their digital wallets separate from their Facebook profiles." Imperial march plays in background, dark patterns flood through every interface. "Indeed, that’s why Calibra, the wallet software that will hold Libra Coins, was made a subsidiary of Facebook—“to ensure appropriate separation between social and financial data and to build and operate services on its behalf on top of the Libra network,” as the white paper explains." Is this some cruel joke? 'See! We made it a subsidiary! Can't get more arms length than that!' Being a subsidiary generally means that Calibra will take and toe the dictates of Facebook. There is no separation here. It honestly feels like this is a last chance to pull away from the enlightenment value killing death spiral that is surveillance capitalism.
• pfortuny 7y ago
  Honest question: energy use?
  • lawn 7y ago
    It doesn't use mining, so energy use isn't a concern.
• tomglynch 7y ago
  I'm very concerned this will give Facebook even greater control. I think it is likely Facebook will push Libra towards people in countries where their currency is volatile, such that it becomes the standard. I do see the positives, that they can now rely on a currency to be stable. But what do you think, could this be an issue and if so, do you think this can be overall beneficial for people from these places?
• zeofig 7y ago
  Buy buy buy! The secret to crypto is to buy high, sell higher! Upwards to Zucktopia!
• golergka 7y ago
  Not only they built it in Rust, but they also built Move - language clearly derived from Rust, which uses ownership as a way to manage monetary resources. Regardless of trust issues with different companies involved, that's just beautiful engineering.
  • karl_schlagenfu 7y ago
    Why is choosing a specific programming language, Rust, "beautiful engineering"?
    • golergka 7y ago
      I might have worded myself poorly. Using ownership concept for this new purpose is beautiful engineering.
• sschueller 7y ago
  Their next efforts will probably be lobby like crazy to ban any other coin that is not "Approved".
  • ianai 7y ago
    I really wonder whether cryptocurrency would have been better received if it were named differently. From inception, I’ve only heard it pitched as a currency replacement. This immediately marred it with all of the currency “counterculture”/conspiracy theories. But it seems better suited as a way to trustless-ly track and verify transactions in an actual, traditional currency. That there are ultimately finite amounts of crypto coins available for transaction better serves this purpose.
    • IAmEveryone 7y ago
      It certainly didn’t help that the crypto community was choke-full of conspiracy theorists, libertarians that never read anything else after falling in love with Ayn Rand as teenagers, and get-rich-quick schemers. The idea was fascinating, and Bitcoin has held up marvelously considering it was essentially a prototype with high barriers to change after becoming popular. There’s a Nobel Prize waiting if the rightful owner ever wants to come forward to claim it. But, at least for me, it was the culture, especially around Ethereum, that ultimately stopped me from wanting to have anything to do with it. Which is ironic, because a large part of that culture was the denial that anything like “culture” exists, that “trust” and “institution” are terms with meaning, etc.
      • karlmcguire 7y ago
        > It certainly didn’t help that the crypto community was choke-full of conspiracy theorists, libertarians that never read anything else after falling in love with Ayn Rand as teenagers, and get-rich-quick schemers. I agree. Because of the nature of cryptocurrency, the industry has always just been wrought with fraud. It has something to do with Telegram chats, the "wild west" feeling, semi-anonymous currency transactions, and the feeling most people have that there is (or was) a real possibility that they could gamble and win big with little effort. The entire industry can almost be seen as a giant, anonymous slot machine.
• ajconway 7y ago
  From the description, it’s a pseudonymous network with publicly observable transactions. I get that Facebook doesn’t have the best track record in regard to privacy, but it’s not immediately obvious which exact aspect of privacy should we be worried about when using this network.
• holler 7y ago
  What do the U.S. and other world governments think of this? The way they're pitching it seems like they want to directly undermine the global financial system.
  • GrinningFool 7y ago
    Combine something like Libra with things like this[1], and we're well on our way to the popular science-fiction trope of multinational corporations having more power than governments. [1] https://www.seattletimes.com/business/tech-giant-brings-software-to-a-gun-fight-salesforce-bars-its-customers-from-selling-firearms/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/tech-giant-brings-soft...
• rollulus 7y ago
  How is this going to fly with the constant flood of (justified) hate that Facebook is receiving the past year? Apart from the technology, I feel like they have more chance if they'd brand it without the Facebook name on it.
  • gopher2 7y ago
    Good question. I think it will get plenty of hate, but most countries don't have the level of Facebook hate that the USA/Europe has, and lots of people don't particularly care about the crusade against Facebook. It would probably get a lot less hate if they weren't involved, but here we are? NYTimes takedown coming in hot!
  • loceng 7y ago
    Well, if an army of HODLers develops who buy into this Facebook coin think they can make profit off of holding it - then there will be a growing body who promote it and speak positively of it, and not care about Facebook's other wrongdoings because money. Those big name brands also already buying into it means quite the global powerhouse of marketing ability to onboard people into something that is relatively unknown of what could unfold. It should be democratic governments working together to develop this and not private entities who aren't elected and are known to lobby and influence politicians/policy for their own good. There's a reason financial regulations developed, and because they're poorly enforced currently doesn't mean the solution is abandonment.
    • bradenb 7y ago
      Libra is a stablecoin, holding it isn't going to make you rich.
      • karlmcguire 7y ago
        I think you're underestimating the cryptocurrency "hodl" hysteria...
      • loceng 7y ago
        It's not necessarily that straight-forward - and people shouldn't blindly trust Facebook and the other unelected global brands with 'voting rights' to make decisions related to the function of such a monetary system.
• muratgozel 7y ago
  "it will be backed by a collection of low-volatility assets, such as bank deposits and short-term government securities in currencies from stable and reputable central banks." from the whitepaper: https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#the-libra-currency-and-reserve https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#the-libra-currency-and-... It's like one to one copy of the traditional monetary system with speed of transactions improved. The volatility of low-volatile assets still contradictive in the long term (I mean just ~5 years) So I don't see any innovative approach in the terms of social order and decentralization.
  • ymolodtsov 7y ago
    They replace the incumbents in the industry by providing a faster and more consumer-friendly solution.
  • Spivak 7y ago
    Your tone is too cynical, this is exactly what it is and what payment processors have been dreaming of for years. A banking system where money can be moved instantly without weird batching, holidays, manual intervention, and all the rest of the legacy crap that plagues current banking. I'm all for it!
    • _bxg1 7y ago
      Except that control will be "liberated" from governments and placed in the hands of an oligopoly of global corporations. Which is way worse.
      • themacguffinman 7y ago
        How will this liberate control from governments? Libra will still be pegged to government controlled currencies, libra is just a proxy for transportation. Governments can still regulate transactions that cross borders, the same laws will apply and will actually be easier to enforce because the libra network is managed by legal corporations rather than an anonymous pool of users.
• jrvxo 7y ago
  It was already tried. It was called Bitcoin. It failed spectacularly. At least this looks like it could work. I trust my government more than I trust these companies so I will keep using fiat, but this may be an option for other people.
  • sins 7y ago
    Could you elaborate on what Bitcoin failed at?
    • ianai 7y ago
      Conception. It’s pitched as a replacement for government backed, fiat currency. But I’ve never heard or seen a convincing, coherent explanation that makes it clear this is a currency. For one, a currency can’t be reliant on an internet connection for validity. My 1$ bill in my wallet absolutely does not rely on that. In fact, there’s an entire country validating that dollars usefulness. A gold coin essentially answers the usual doubts in fiat currency.
      • lawn 7y ago
        > But I’ve never heard or seen a convincing, coherent explanation that makes it clear this is a currency Cryptocurrencies is a better type of money for a few reasons: * More acceptable than other digital money (banks and payment processors might say no) * More easily divisible than for example gold coins and gold bars * It's sound money whereas fiat is not (nobody can arbitrarily increase the supply) * Much more portable. You can send any amount to anyone in the world, as long as they have internet. To be clear, cryptocurrencies are like cash but in digital form. It's a great medium exchange, but it suffers from low adoption meaning it's a bad store of value (but so is fiat) and a bad unit of account (but so is gold). > For one, a currency can’t be reliant on an internet connection for validity. My 1$ bill in my wallet absolutely does not rely on that So you don't consider digital fiat currencies then? Me not having internet for a period of time doesn't invalidate my cryptocurrency holdings. I just need internet to spend it (a fair constraint for digital money). > A gold coin essentially answers the usual doubts in fiat currency. Except for the fact that you can't send gold coins digitally. Also, it's much more difficult to check for gold coins. And difficult to transport. It's easy with cryptocurrencies.
• laurent123456 7y ago
  I'm curious how it will work exactly. I guess people will need to buy this currency with real money, and then they can spend it on these services. But why would anyone bother to do this when they can directly use their debit/credit card? Or is the plan to someone push people to use this currency by either giving them discount initially, or by not giving any other alternative means of payments?
  • fnoof 7y ago
    It’s targeted at countries that don’t have such wide adoption of credit/debit cards.
  • acd10j 7y ago
    also for decreasing transaction cost for money transfer.
• kaolti 7y ago
  With Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, Stripe, Facebook already censoring conservatives I can't wait for them to build an "inclusive" currency. Why would anyone question the reason these corporations just threw 10 mil at this, it's clearly to help people in poor countries who have no access to banking and rely on payday loans.
  • acdha 7y ago
    This isn’t true and injecting grievance politics into an unrelated conversation is not going to result in anything positive.
    • kaolti 7y ago
      or, it might actually be true - you're just stuck in the mainstream media bubble.
      • moccachino 7y ago
        One is stuck in an 'information bubble' or an 'echo-chamber' when one gets most or all of ones news from a relatively small, homogeneous group that's rather fixated on specific issues. Anything that can be called mainstream media is (as a whole) none of those things. Besides that, the term Mainstream Media is now so politicized that it's almost unusable in conversation.
  • IAmEveryone 7y ago
    If people continue to call racists, anti-semites, and neo-Nazis “conservatives”, at some point people will believe it.
• mangecoeur 7y ago
  What could possibly go wrong -_-
• Cakez0r 7y ago
  If they succeed in getting mass adoption for this thing, I feel like the companies on-board have basically bootstrapped themselves to sovereignty. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out, if nothing else!
  • perlgeek 7y ago
    I'm sure the IRS and/or FTC will like to have a word with them about that. I'm no expert in US law at all, but my impression as an outsider is that anything that could look like money laundering or a way to hide financial transactions will not be looked kindly upon, and that slapping the "crypto" moniker on this new currency won't make much difference.
• no1youknowz 7y ago
  I'm not holding any coins. But I have an interest in crypto currencies for some projects I'm developing. Anyone who thinks this is going to replace ripple, I have some bad news for you. Ripples main focus is not for users purchasing goods across websites. Its focus is mainly for banks (to hold vast amounts of XRP) when sending sums of money to each other, to be able to convert fiat into XRP and then send that XRP between them and then convert XRP into the receiving fiat currency. The remittence market is huge and that's where ripple is mainly interested. Both banks and businesses are using it because there is a high trust factor with Ripple. Now of course Facebook is trying to supplant ripple here, as a user won't need to go to a bank or remittence provider which would use either SWIFT or XRP to send the funds. Instead facebook is hoping to tap into the network effect it has built and two users can send monies between each other using this new token. Another thing that I have an issue with. The article mentions eliminating "rent seeking". How so? Paypal, Visa, Mastercard all charge a % when processing a transaction. The $10m buying fee needs to be recuperated. Are transactions going to be free? Perhaps... Is running the nodes and network going to be free? It's certainly not. There is going to be a fee for sending currency across the network. Either an up-front transaction fee or a conversion to FIAT fee. But there will be a fee. If the same old players are involved, you can bet they want to get paid and the same old players will want to eventually impose their own rules to the game. Personally, I don't think this will usurp Bitcoin. If anything else, I think it will make people more comfortable with digital currencies and then we'll have more leaps in better tech and the free market will bear fruit of a much lower priced solution than libra coin.
  • ymolodtsov 7y ago
    "Its focus is mainly for banks (to hold vast amounts of XRP) when sending sums of money to each other, to be able to convert fiat into XRP and then send that XRP between them and then convert XRP into the receiving fiat currency.” With the exception of Ripple money transfer products working without XRP, which they don’t like to shout about.
  • bob_theslob646 7y ago
    >There is going to be a fee for sending currency across the network. What do you think the cost will be? Cheaper than the typical 1-3% of credit cards or more in line with debit card (ach) fee ( .005%)?
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• dx7tnt 7y ago
  "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" I find this extremely hard to believe coming from a company who's entire M.O. is building a profile of its users and tracking everything they do across the internet and beyond.
  • ihm 7y ago
    I believe them that it won’t be readily available :) That is, I’m sure Facebook will create link all that data together to improve their surveillance but not let others readily access it. Of course advertisers will still access it indirectly by using it to target their ads.
  • _bxg1 7y ago
    Yeah; it's been a long time since people trusted their pinky-promises. They've broken them over and over.
  • mrweasel 7y ago
    Facebook seems awfully quiet about WHY they're developing this thing. There's a lot of fancy and positive spin on "helping people in countries without access to banking" and that fine, but they do need to explain how they plan to turn a profit on the project. Until they do, we should assume that it WILL involve selling/exploiting the financial data of the users.
• gberger 7y ago
  There's a name conflict. The GBP is called 'libra' in Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking countries.
  • buboard 7y ago
    that's not unusual, e.g. danish/norwegian/swedish korona
• jbb123 7y ago
  I can imagine few things i'm less likely to want than a currency in any way connected to facebook.
  • onetimemanytime 7y ago
    That's one vote against. Reality is that "everyone" uses FB /Whatsapp and sending money via FB that everyone uses makes plenty of sense. See China or plenty of other countries where people send money to each other via mobile.
    • eudora 7y ago
      I wonder what happened to Telegram's currency
    • tudorizer 7y ago
      Is everyone really using FB/Whatsapp? The apps used in China , SE Asia or Japan have quite a different approach than FB.
  • netsharc 7y ago
    Let's see how aware the "general public" are about Facebook's lack of trust, or whether they'll adopt this. Obviously FB have probably seen how WeChat does it in China and are copying them. It's interesting to think that money is one of the things that the Internet hasn't "distrupted" yet, but maybe this is one attempt. Speaking of trust, one should remember that the dollar bill was a promise from the Federal Reserve to pay whoever had that piece of paper to pay them the actual money written on it. I wonder who would trust the Central Bank of Facebook that they're "good for it"?
    • Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
      > was a promise from the Federal Reserve to pay whoever had that piece of paper to pay them the actual money written on it. FYI, as written, that statement makes little sense. The term "actual money" does not mean anything. US dollar notes are actual money. Before Nixon Shock, the dollars were on a gold standard. The government had a promise to give whoever had the US note the specified amount of physical gold (metal). As it is now, it is called a fiat currency, and no government exchanges it for gold or any other metal or any other form of money. It is still "actual money" though, by most sane definitions.
• luckycharms810 7y ago
  I haven’t really seen a lot about how exactly the Facebook profiles will be separated from the pseudonyms on the libra network. I think this is also part of a gamble that people don’t really care that much about privacy in most of their purchases. If you look at a network like Venmo, they have a social aspect that is on by default, a news feed of sorts. With small incentives ( discounts, credits - share this transaction and receive a discount on your next purchase ) - people could easily give up their anonymity on the network. Once this happens Facebook will be sitting on the holy grail of advertising. A full closed loop of people’s interactions with advertising and the impact it has on their purchasing habits. It creates a new avenue for monetization for Facebook when ads are shown on publisher websites as well. Displaying ads and the analytics around engagement only create half the picture, the other half will be the impact it has on how they spend their money.
• alangibson 7y ago
  When I consider that 1) all transactions must pass through validators 2) which are hand picked 3) by the worlds largest surveillance machine 4) that knows most everything there is to know about me already, I'm thinking I'll take a pass on this one.
  • aogaili 7y ago
    You'll take a pass but the majority of the people won't so most likely you'll end up using it.
    • alangibson 7y ago
      The average civilian associates cryptocurrencies with high profile thefts and dark web drug dealers because that's what makes it into the mainstream media. At best this will panic the big payment processors into making traditional payment options cheaper and easier, further undermining what little reason this has for existing.
      • flixic 7y ago
        And that's why Facebook's Press Release[0] does not mention the word Cryptocurrency. Just "blockchain technology". [0]: https://scontent.fvno2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/65035641_440178596562190_521447035900002304_n.pdf?_nc_cat=102&_nc_ht=scontent.fvno2-1.fna&oh=cada07157733e8212c78529716bfdc82&oe=5DC62FCD https://scontent.fvno2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/65035641...
        • alangibson 7y ago
          Every news report I've read about Libra includes the words 'cryptocurrency' or 'digital coin', so they're not doing so great controlling the narrative.
        • croon 7y ago
          They use "cryptocurrency" here at least: https://calibra.com/about https://calibra.com/about
• toomuchequate 7y ago
  Hmm, should I use United States Dollars? OR Facebook United States Dollars? I'm going with G.) Other. Hording cash is a terrible investment idea. EDIT: Hording and Investing typically means to generate future value. Daily spending money can be done in cash. I would hope I didn't need to explicitly say this, but hey, economics is hard.
  • mbrock 7y ago
    That’s why I personally don’t use money at all and do all my daily shopping by negotiating bond trades with the cashiers
    • LunaSea 7y ago
      Trading cattle is my way to go but I have to say that I'm getting sick of all the chickens I get back as change.
• seibelj 7y ago
  I will answer the question that is always asked in every post regarding blockchains on HN: "Why blockchain? Can't this be done with a database?" Blockchains are databases. They are distributed, append-only, tamper-proof databases. You could call them that, or instead you could just say "blockchain" as that is what type of database the word blockchain has come to be understood as. The reason to use a blockchain rather than a centralized database is because the properties described - distributed and tamper-proof - are crucial to the application. In Libra's case, centralized entities that control financial services (banks) have high fees, are slow, and are not trusted in some respects (financial bailout) while being highly trusted in others (not waking up and losing your money). A blockchain can provide solutions to the problems of centralized financial entities with the benefits of distributed ones.
  • alangibson 7y ago
    Libra is explicitly centralized. The protocol depends entirely on Validators, of which there are few, and the Libra Association controls who's a Validator. If Libra is decentralized, then so is the Fed because it's distributed across 12 regional banks.
  • chewbacha 7y ago
    One minor correction, centralized databases are faster than distributed databases. By choosing blockchain, they are choosing a slower db.
  • rawoke083600 7y ago
    One semi-related thing is automation. When i receive a forex payment to my bank(south africa) it has to go to some human controller etc. If i can transact 24/7 without human intervention thats a big plus
  • thefounder 7y ago
    I believe only facebook and few others will have access to the blockchain(i.e transaction history etc) so it really brings nothing to the user/clients or developers outside of libra association
  • xorcist 7y ago
• eudora 7y ago
  Moving in the direction of an everything app, like WeChat? I was horrified at this news at first, but WeChat isn't too terrifying, and they're far more ubiquitous. I just hope the social network aspect of Facebook (and Instagram) continues to shrivel.
  • SomeOldThrow 7y ago
    > WeChat isn't too terrifying Finding out people use a proprietary chat app as a primary payment mechanism is indeed terrifying. Now on to a proprietary currency!
  • vorpalhex 7y ago
    WeChat is absolutely terrifying, ask poor Winnie the Pooh or the uighurs.
• shroom 7y ago
  I’d give a penny to hear Alexander Hamiltons opinion on this.
• aflag 7y ago
  Interesting. I'm curious to see how it plays out. I can see it working if they make Libras look valuable in itself for their user base (eg. Being able to get Libras from other users for services or content and then being able to buy real things with it). Given it's not "real money" would you be exempt of most taxes?
  • gruez 7y ago
    Pretty sure barter is taxed as well. Otherwise you’d see people evading sales taxes by transacting in bitcoin a long time ago.
    • jimnotgym 7y ago
      It even attracts VAT, yes
• haunter 7y ago
  So they want an Alipay competitor for the west? Tho I see Alipay outside of China more and more
• knocte 7y ago
  While I agree with most commenters here that are skeptical about a surveillance-based currency, I'm very positive about the idea of having mainstream apps such as Whatsapp and Messenger introduce the concept of paying with your phone without needing to link your accounts with any bank account or debit/credit card, because the money is in theory being held by your device (under the hood, just holding a private key of a "blockchain" account that has a non-decentralized-stablecoin balance, I know). This will enable people to start thinking of money in a more pseudo-P2P way, get comfortable with it, and in turn allow them to start understanding better what cryptocurrencies really are (which Libra is not). What cryptocurrency and Libra share is, at least, the concept of ownership via public/private key cryptography, as opposed to identity-based systems such as paypal/banks/credit/debit. This has some UX-side-effects that people will start to learn, such as the push vs pull system (e.g. it's not anymore the merchant who scans your QR code, but the other way around, the customer scans the merchant's payment-info).
  • cy6erlion 7y ago
    It can also have the other effect in that it can show cryptography based solutions in a bad light to the public as yet another form of survailance and cause people to be less trusting even when authentic cryptography based money systems exist.
    • knocte 7y ago
      If people worried much about surveillance today, cryptocurrency would already be mainstream. If what FB brings is pretty much the same as the current banking solutions but with some technical advantages on top of it, I doubt they are going to facepalm about it because the better alternative (true cryptocurrencies) is unknown to them.
  • thefounder 7y ago
    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 the data is kept under fb control. 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. Not to mention that you need to "signup" for an account and verify it with facebook before you can receive any "coin". In reality there is no coin. Is no different than paypal really.
• samdung 7y ago
  A basket of bank deposits and short-term government securities will be held in the Libra Reserve for every Libra that is created, building trust in its intrinsic value. Soon 'The Libra Reserve' will hold only a 10th of the total Libra Coins in circulation (fractional reserve). A global federal reserve in the making.
• Philip_Woodman 7y ago
  Facebook unveiled an ambitious plan on Tuesday to create an alternative financial system that relies on a cryptocurrency that the company has been secretly working on for more than a year. The effort, announced with 27 partners as diverse as Mastercard and Uber, could face immediate skepticism from people who question the usefulness of cryptocurrencies and others who are wary of the power already accumulated by the social media company. The cryptocurrency, called Libra, will also have to overcome concern that Facebook does not effectively protect the private information of its users — a fundamental task for a bank or anyone handling financial transactions.
• v7p1Qbt1im 7y ago
  This seems to be Facebooks WeChat play. It makes absolute sense for them to do this and there is very little friction for onboarding. I can see them adding contracts (rental for example) to the chain at some point. Validators are hand picked. So it‘s distributed but no really that much. Again, it makes sense from a business perspective. But it‘s certainly expanding FBs power and influence as a platform even more. I can see this getting pretty crazy in developing countries where FB might be the platform for everything at this point. Concerning.
• throway4234 7y ago
  I wonder if Facebook's plans are behind the absurd rules put forward by India regarding bitcoin.
• dharma1 7y ago
  Always wondered why Apple hasn't opened up iMessage to every platform (not just Apple devices) and gone properly into Alipay territory with payments. They don't have much growth left in hardware, seems like the obvious thing to do
• mxuribe 7y ago
  Wait, wait, wait...so... if "Satoshi Nakamoto" == "Mark Zuckerberg": print("Whoa, mind blown!") else print("Carry on. Nothing to see here.") jk
  • Jaim 7y ago
    Western Union transfer costs 35 dollars to Argentina. Libra may be cheaper.
    • Jaim 7y ago
      Money transfers if international are prohibitively expensive. Lets see how this thingie works.
• chj 7y ago
  It's a currency, but I don't see how it is crypto. No mining, centralized control by a few validators. Old wine in new bottles.
  • Nasrudith 7y ago
    Mining isn't essential to cryptocurrency - all that is needed is cryotographic verification. It may be heretical to their ethos but that doesn't disqualify it even if the goals vastly differ.
    • topmonk 7y ago
      Except that when the signers are corporations beholden to governments, the freedom to transact with whoever you choose is lost. This limits its value as a currency. It's like the “7 degrees of seperation” thing. You might not be doing anything with librecoin that the governments of the world don't like, in the network of where the currency could flow would like to but can't it has a cascading effect which severely hampers the size the network can grow to. For example, if you trade with John who trades with Alice who then tries to trade with Eve, but Eve doesn't want to use your currency becausesshe's doing something Facebook or the U.S. government doesn't like, then Alice won't want to use it because she can't trade with Eve, and then John will be turned off to it for the same reason all the way back to you.
  • 2a96eb7d685a49c 7y ago
    Is tether crypto?
    • celticninja 7y ago
      no.
• cfarm 7y ago
  Currency is about trust. Do you trust these companies? Idk if you've been living under a rock, but a bunch of them are getting slammed for privacy and security breaches.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• seanalltogether 7y ago
  > Indeed, that’s why Calibra, the wallet software that will hold Libra Coins, was made a subsidiary of Facebook The big question for me is whether or not wallets and therefore transactions can be created without needing an 'account' somewhere, just like all other cryptocurrencies. Can I participate in the economy anonymously or do all wallets need to be registered like a traditional bank account.
  • jsiegz 7y ago
    They can't use the transaction data to target ads and measure conversions without this. Wallet data is invaluable. https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/30/17801880/google-mastercard-data-online-ads-offline-purchase-history-privacy https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/30/17801880/google-mastercar...
  • thefounder 7y ago
    You need to sign up and verify your account before you can do anything. Think of this like paypal with blockchain behind the scenes instead of Oracle/Sql or whatever they use as db
    • conanbatt 7y ago
      Yes, but with pseudonimity. This makes it a lot more censorship resistant (which is PP's main weakness).
      • snarf21 7y ago
        It is not pseudonymous. You must supply AML and KYC documents to FB to participate. FB says they intend to fully comply with all government requests. FB will know exactly who owns all the money at all times.
        • conanbatt 7y ago
          Thats on purchase, not on exchange. The same way you can launder money with Tether.
• ojosilva 7y ago
  Libra, a new global currency... with an old name! "Libra" is the latin name of what is now known as the "pound" and used in many Latin-rooted languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian come to mind) to refer to pound related currencies, including the British pound sterling ("libra esterlina") and similar currencies from Egypt to Lebanon to Gibraltar pound. It was also behind many discontinued currencies from the past, ie. the Italian Lira or the French Livre. IMHO a bad choice in naming for something you want to call "new".
  • osullivj 7y ago
    Indeed. Libra, solarii, denarii == pounds, shillings, pennies in the old pre 1970 British system. Sometimes referred to as LSD.
    • tryptophan 7y ago
      Fun fact, this is also why the british pound has the symbol £.
      • bitpow 7y ago
        And why pound is abbreviated “lb”
    • twic 7y ago
      A minor correction: librae, solidi, denarii. Solidi were so called, according to wikipedia, because (at first) they were solid gold. Solidus would also be a decent name for a stablecoin!
      • Freak_NL 7y ago
        > Solidus would also be a decent name for a stablecoin! Its inevitable currency symbol is already part of the Unicode standard: / https://unicode-table.com/en/002F/ https://unicode-table.com/en/002F/ An interesting related titbit: the Japanese currency sign for the Yen (¥) used to be encoded as the ASCII backslash (\) in the pre-Unicode era. Japanese fonts simply put the Yen-sign there.
• rogerkirkness 7y ago
  It seems like Facebook is simply following through on the Web 1.0 vision that Thiel and Musk chased. The first Facebook product I might use in a long time. This seems inevitable on reflection. Skepticism is valid, at the same time consider carefully if this is worse than The Fed.
  • thefounder 7y ago
    >> Skepticism is valid, at the same time consider carefully if this is worse than The Fed. Are you serious? Are you comparing facebook credits 2.0 with The Fed?
• jmull 7y ago
  I kinda doubt cryptocurrency/blockchain tech will be anything but an implementation detail in this project. Assuming this catches on, the idea that Facebook and it's other partners would let this get out of their control seems very unlikely -- and if it did get out of their control, I think they'd simply abandon, disavow, and/or fork it. The appeal of this to users is going to be integration with the social networks these companies run, so they are holding effective veto power since they can change its relevance to low at any time. Meanwhile, the partners will be tracking every transaction and monetizing that information. Apparently, you can use a pseudonym when using this currency, but I'm sure they will connect any pseudonyms you use to your profile the second you first use them. Wonderful.
• gormo2 7y ago
  Can someone use this if they espouse "white nationalist"-adjacent beliefs (such as building a border wall and deporting illegal immigrants)? What does it mean if they can or cannot?
  • igravious 7y ago
    So first off Facebook would have to transgress the barrier in place that they say they're erecting between the user's Calibra account and the user's FB or WhatsApp or Insta account – simultaneously Facebook would have to tag its users as holding sets of beliefs that were antithetical to some set of ideal beliefs that would be encoded digitally somewhere inside Facebook's algorithms. To do this without human intervention would be a supreme AI task, to do it without human arbitration would be to blindly trust an algorithm, to do it at all would be an act of tyrannical censorship. We here at Facebook hope that answers your question.
• fnoof 7y ago
  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 [...]. Users of Libra do not receive a return from the reserve." Conceptually this is a bank, but with no interest returned to users, no financial oversight from governments, controlled by Silicon Valley's top companies.
  • mensetmanusman 7y ago
    There would be savings for cross border transactions. If governments aren’t going to support banking the poor, then why does it matter who does it?
    • fnoof 7y ago
      It could definitely help a lot of unbanked people. But that seems to be a nice benefit rather than the core mission.
      • drcode 7y ago
        Yes, for unbanked people who, according to the Facebook FAQ, set up an account using a state-issued ID and jump through a bunch of other hoops that are the same you would need for a bank account.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • JaRail 7y ago
      Assuming you can buy/sell it with better fees/rates. It's bound to be better than some and worse than others.
  • microcolonel 7y ago
    If they could provide any history of being principled in their application of policy, it might be worth it; but as it stands, Facebook just sorta arbitrarily unpersons people on their platform, which gives me the impression that they'd be perfectly willing to debank them as well.
• InTheArena 7y ago
  Certain activist groups put constant pressure on Facebook to “deplatform” and remove pages for both legitimate in it legitimate reasons. Now we’re talking about giving Facebook control over the very means to do financial transactions. How long Before this also becomes weapononized, by Facebook, or by activists? there is a reason why popular currency systems has been the purview of governments. We’re creating an awful lot of social repercussions by allowing corporations to own the basic financial fabric.
  • Nasrudith 7y ago
    I think you are a few centuries late there - government banks were the Johnny come lates. The weaponization has gone on for quite a while even if you ignore the "required by law" aspects. Also not basic yet - physical currency is the current "most basic". The reason for government currency systems were because they backed taxes and had more stability than private entities. There is a long history of trickery from back when banknotes were literally issued by private banks.
  • aiiane 7y ago
    Visa and MasterCard already cut off services to some groups.
  • smsm42 7y ago
    I predict if it happens, demand to cut off $BAD_PEOPLE from the service will start the next day the service is launched. And if it is technically possible, the demands will be complied with the next day after that, for some values of $BAD_PEOPLE. Nobody wants to be a platform for moving terrorist money, right? Or drug money? Or alt-right money? Or gun manufacturers money? Or pro-life money? Or wrong-presidential-candidate money? Or persons-whose-opinions-I-don't-like money?
    • EdSharkey 7y ago
      Hear hear!
• _bxg1 7y ago
  Terrifying, really. The world is hurdling back towards a feudalist society, with corporations instead of kings.
  • gridlockd 7y ago
    This is a bunch of nonsense. Actual banks are corporations like Facebook and they're far scarier.
    • toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Banks are heavily regulated [1]. Facebook is not. EDIT: If Facebook wants to come to the finance party, I welcome them accepting the regulatory burden imposed by federal regulators and the finance industry itself. Disclaimer: I work in financial services, specifically interfacing with regulatory bodies. [1] https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/ https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/ (Example FDIC Laws, Regulations, and Acts, none of which currently apply to silicon valley corporations, but all of which apply to banking institutions)
      • staunch 7y ago
        Among many other great crimes, U.S. banks have stolen hundreds of billions of dollars from the poorest people through overdraft and bounced check fees. The banks own the regulators. If regular people can just have a safe place to keep their money, without being actively exploited, that would be a huge improvement.
        • toomuchtodo 7y ago
          You will need to construct a more targeted argument than, "All banks bad, all banks hurt people". The majority of Americans store their money in banks safely (and while the unbanked and underbanked is a huge problem, it is out of scope for this comment), protected either by FDIC insurance (banks) or NCUSIF (credit unions). The majority of banks behave responsibly (I don't work at BoA, Wells, JPMC, or someone else who has committed fraud). You don't even have to use a bank! That is what your local credit union is for [1]. Some banks have behaved badly. All cryptocurrency is a scam (see: SEC ICO determinations, outright ICO/token fraud, etc). With fiat, you have recourse with regulators and the legal system. With crypto, you have none ("oops! someone cloned your SIM and you've lost your entire nest egg. better luck next time!"). Your arguments don't make the case for cryptocurrencies; you make the case for more regulation and oversight of the banking and financial services industry (which I agree with entirely, not because it's my job, but to keep the hard earned assets of banking customers of all income and asset brackets safe). [1] https://www.mycreditunion.gov/about-credit-unions/credit-union-locator https://www.mycreditunion.gov/about-credit-unions/credit-uni...
• JaimeThompson 7y ago
  Given the absolutely horrible record of many of the companies involved in this in regards to not abusing our private information, Facebook using phone numbers given for 2FA is but one example, why should we trust this? I am sure that if they leak or misuse our private information that the TOS will protect them from having to make us whole again...
• WA 7y ago
  > "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 financial data and social data to be commingled,” he explained." WhatsApp showed that eventually, the data is likely to be merged.
  • zild3d 7y ago
    >“We don’t want financial data and social data to be commingled” Keyword is want. They don't want the data to be commingled, but alas, it will.
  • smsm42 7y ago
    > We don’t want financial data and social data to be commingled "Want" can change with one board meeting. And if they start "wanting" it in 3 years, is there a guarantee it won't happen?
  • edmundsauto 7y ago
    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?
    • vel0city 7y ago
      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.
• Yizahi 7y ago
  Step 1 - say that your "coin" is not centralized Step 2 - proceed to contradict yourself in the next sentence How the hell is a an obviously centralized system with 3 dozens of privileged entities is not centralized... Also it is not only oligarchy, but completely unaccountable shady oligarchy. Why people continue to "want" it is beyond understanding.
  • LambdaComplex 7y ago
    Well, they don't actually say it's "not centralized." They say it "will not be issued by a central party," which it won't--it will be issued by 28 central parties.
    • snarf21 7y ago
      They also say it will be decentralized but they are really only talking about infrastructure not governance or control. This will never be anything but a completely centralized shitcoin (although a very successful one).
    • loblollyboy 7y ago
      The Cryptoviet Union
      • JaRail 7y ago
        Brilliant.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • conanbatt 7y ago
    It's an oligarchy just like the nearest hotdog stand is a dictatorship. Don't like it don't use it. Try saying the same to the governments come tax-time.
    • codesushi42 7y ago
• yertletheturtle 7y ago
  Maybe I'm an idiot and don't understand the marketing lingo but what exactly is the use-case for this? Why among all of the tech companies is Facebook the one to create a crypto currency? What do they plan on doing with this?
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • jmull 7y ago
    I think the idea is you're going to be able to "Message" other people "money", Straight from the Facebook app/website. It also should work seamlessly across the various other social networks that are partnering in this. There are other ways to do this now, but if they are able to do it right, this would generally be more convenient and widely available. I would assume fees will be low to start with. (Note that Visa and Mastercard are partners, so you can safely bet the fees will go up quite a bit once this catches on.)
• beezischillin 7y ago
  I would never ever ever ever trust PayPal, Spotify, Mastercard and the likes to manage my money. It simply sounds like lots and lots and lots of happy little "accidents" and "bugs" waiting to happen for political opponents as they lose their livelihoods. The people who came up with the whole "Manifest Observable Behavior" and random "Suspended for Breach of Community Standards" violations have no place around anyone's money. It's not even related to protecting a specific political ideology, we can see daily how these companies treat users regardless of any specific belief or opinion on politics. I would rather not get / see anyone deplatformed from owning money should something like this become big.
  • drcode 7y ago
    The important question isn't what you or I will do, but what the 90% of people will do who don't care about privacy/oligopolies.
    • tastygreenapple 7y ago
      I'm sure they'll care once someone loses their zuccbuccs for saying "Men are trash".
      • WhiteOwlLion 7y ago
        Seems like having the right to be a jerk is important for financial independence.
      • Bakary 7y ago
        Isn't Facebook PR generally oriented towards placating the more SJW themes? Before the Cambridge Analytica stuff came to light, they were the establishment left's darling.
    • omeid2 7y ago
      Won't take long for people to realize, unlike other "new" utilities like social media people, generally, have a reasonable grasp of the value of money and the risk of it, mostly because they have experienced it. relatively, very few people experience the wrong end of the technocratic-sanctions stick.
• sb636 7y ago
  Can someone help me understand how Libra or other cryptos for that matter can actually be used? Who will accept the coin as a form of payment? Can these ever be used to buy essentials (food, clothes, shelter)? It doesn't seem so at the moment, and until then, I find it hard to imagine businesses or individuals would be happy to accept Libra as a form of payment.
  • abruzzi 7y ago
    Ultimately it depends on how frictionless it is to convert it back to dollars, pounds, euros, etc. This has always been an issue for bitcoin. When I first heard about bitcoin, one bitcoin was worth less than a US dollar. I was curious so I tried to buy $50 worth, but the process was so convoluted and difficult I didn't bother. Today its much easier, but not completely so. But much of the difficulty then, and I presume now, was the distrust of banks. The key vendor on their list of supporters is PayPal (IMO). Paypal is in a position to make currency conversion painless for most users. Maybe in the future there will be enough places that accept this new currency that people can keep their money in that form but initially its all about easy conversion.
• amasad 7y ago
  Private money is not a new thing. In fact, the predecessor to paper money was retail bank issued notes. I think it's still the case in Scotland: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_Scotland https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_Scotland The concept of nationalized central banks is new.
  • ghaff 7y ago
    A couple years ago in London, I seriously confused a young retail clerk by presenting her with Scottish banknotes presumably left over from an earlier trip to Edinburgh. She had to go get her supervisor to assure her that this was indeed real money.
    • andrewaylett 7y ago
      It's really not, though. OK, it's more "real" than an IOU I hand you, because I know that in order to issue their IOU they actually had to deposit an equivalent amount of cash with the Bank of England, but it's not legal tender -- while in practice pretty much anyone should be comfortable using it as a medium of exchange, the only _guaranteed_ use of a Scottish note is to exchange it with the issuer for a Bank of England note (or, in Scotland, coins), which you can then proceed to use to pay your taxes or other bills because they _are_ legal tender (value limits apply to specific denominations south of the border, you need to use pound coins north of the border). But yes, in practice, real money. Just don't try telling anyone they've _got_ to accept it, because there's no such obligation.
      • umanwizard 7y ago
        No retailer has to accept anything. I can set up a shop in London that only accepts Scottish banknotes and not English ones. Or that only accepts Mexican Pesos or Bitcoin for that matter. From the Royal Mint's website: > Legal tender has a very narrow and technical meaning in the settlement of debts. [...] It does not mean that any ordinary transaction has to take place in legal tender or only within the amount denominated by the legislation. Both parties are free to agree to accept any form of payment whether legal tender or otherwise according to their wishes.
• lanrh1836 7y ago
  Who is in charge of stopping this from being used for money laundering?
• moosey 7y ago
  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 of a suite of data collection utilities that will be dissected and used in order to further subjugate our mental energies to the will of the tech giants running our phones. If you don't believe that this is already happening, hang out with some teenagers. I would say that there is a large contingent of people for whom this is already true, and once that group is large enough, then how can you assert yourself against that pipeline of information? Every bit of data we give away for free is a massive mistake. I hope that Europe figures out a regulatory framework that works.
  • renaudg 7y ago
    There is at least this from Zuckerberg's announcement : "Calibra will be regulated like other payment service providers. Any information you share with Calibra will be kept separate from information you share on Facebook."
    • asdkhadsj 7y ago
      I wonder if "kept separate from" is meaningfully differently than "unable to be linked to". Ie, if Facebook can figure out how to link their data to your LibraCoin data then this statement is moot. Keeping data separate is not interesting wording by itself, imo.
    • jerf 7y ago
      I suspect they are using different definitions of "information", "share", "separate", "Calibra", and "Facebook" than a naive person reading that sentence might expect. I don't mean that as pure snark; I'm dead serious. The legal definition of all those things, the definitions they can get away with using, and the definitions that a normal person would expect from reading that sentence are probably three very different things. Plus, along with general lack of confidence in Facebook keeping its mitts off of juicy data given their checkered history, I have even less confidence that the promised wall will be there going forward, and that there won't be an excited, breathless announcement in a year or two about how ecstatic they are to bring you awesome new services powered by the data they're going to get from tearing down that wall and isn't it all just so wonderful.
• asaph 7y ago
  > The aim, then, is to get to 100 new validators by 2020, and achieve something close to 1,000 transactions a second—roughly 200 times the sum Bitcoin can currently handle, and around half the capacity of Visa. My reactions to the above: 1. 1000 transactions per second seems low. This doesn't feel very scalable to me. 2. Visa has capacity to handle only around 2000 transactions per second? I would have assumed it was higher. Matching or exceeding the capacity of Visa feels more within the reach of a startup than I thought.
  • marviel 7y ago
    After some sleuthing, it appears the semi-theoretical TPS is closer to 24,000, though the average is around 2k. [1] https://usa.visa.com/run-your-business/small-business-tools/retail.html https://usa.visa.com/run-your-business/small-business-tools/...
  • tryptophan 7y ago
    >1000 transactions per second seems low. This doesn't feel very scalable to me. Yeah, this seems like an issue to me too. It doesn't seem like they have gotten around the problem of "every node needs to verify every transaction". Than again it might not matter if every node is a beefy data center.
  • mertd 7y ago
    Usually in these comparisons Visa/MC TPS figures are averages whereas crypto TPS are peak. Big difference.
• kerng 7y ago
  Facebook is notorious for not being able to control their platform and leak data for various reasons due to bugs and lack of due diligence (to keep at non-malicious). If they become a bank I certainly would not put my money in there.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• losvedir 7y ago
  I don't get why it has to be a "cryptocurrency". I see the value in some sort of token that you buy and can then exchange without fees, but couldn't that just be a simple DB? What does it being a cryptocurrency on a blockchain get you?
  • 2a96eb7d685a49c 7y ago
    Multiple validators with byzantine fault tolerance.
    • Jeff_Brown 7y ago
      Multiple, but not necessarily very many -- the validators are an exclusive club.
• cujic9 7y ago
  To me, the biggest roadblock to success is the number of corporate stakeholders. For this to succeed, the advantages of having that many stakeholders (big budget, large audience) must outweigh the disadvantages (two-dozen different and often conflicting opinions). I've never seen a large number of corporations collaborate successfully. A strategic partnership between two companies is hard enough. Two dozen? Good luck. Especially when some of the partners have a vested interest in this failing. (Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, Stripe.) My bet is on existing crypto-currencies solving this problem becuse they can focus on a solution without being constrained by corporate interests. If Libra launches, I predict the following: 1. It will be very, very delayed. 2. Facebook will take sole ownership and shed all the corporate partners. 3. At that point, they will give up on crypto and just build (or buy) a plain old peer-to-peer payment system. Alternative 3: They will piggy back on an existing crypto currency.
  • drcode 7y ago
    A very insightful comment- These big companies have nothing to lose by signing up as a "partner" for the big press release, but have nothing to gain by helping facebook beyond the initial PR blitz and are either going to bow out or act as blockers to FB's ambitious plans.
• otoburb 7y ago
  Re-phrasing and summarizing: "Hey look - Tether demonstrated that a successful stablecoin can be a profitable business model. We can accelerate adoption of our own stablecoin based on our addictive social media experience and social graph and rake in the interest off our float reserves. So long and thanks for all the fish!"
• LinuxBender 7y ago
  So Mark Z. wants me to buy his Chuck-E-Cheese(c) tokens, then see where I spend them. /s In all seriousness, are they offsetting the coin generation with windmills, sea turbines, or geothermal plants? How much power is being consumed by FB and the small handful of banks that are cranking out these tokens?
  • tommoor 7y ago
    There is no mining, coins are "minted" by approved partners
    • LinuxBender 7y ago
      Someone has to mine them though, right?
      • helen___keller 7y ago
        No
        • LinuxBender 7y ago
          I suppose I am confused. Ether currency is supposed to be a hard to create thing, much like the theory of gold being a scarce mineral. If someone can just "mint" it without mining, then it is not a scarce resource and should not be worth anything.
          • helen___keller 7y ago
            It's tied to real world assets, 1 to 1 with a basket of currencies. It's only scarce if this rule continues to be followed, so valuation of the virtual asset will depend on users' trust that the real world assets exist and will always exist in a 1 to 1 ratio with the virtual asset. For an example of this being attempted already, see Tether / USDT which is (supposedly) 1 for 1 backed by US dollars.
• opticbit 7y ago
  > "Libra’s mission is to enable a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people." Command line demo/testnet. yea everyone can use it /s
• the_duke 7y ago
  I'd argue that credit cards are conceptually not very different. Users pay the fees both directly (annual costs, interest) and indirectly (increased prices due to vendor fees), and the shareholders reap the benefits. Just like credit cards, and the various digital currencies like Bitcoin (where exchanges have plenty of regulation and reporting requirements to deal with!), this will be subject to regulation and governmental oversight. Note that I'm not a fan of this at all, due to the company behind it. But it's not a groundbreaking new concept, or very scary if seen in isolation.
  • navigatesol 7y ago
    >Users pay the fees both directly (annual costs, interest) Both avoidable. Many zero fee cards, interest only on monthly balances. Some zero fee cards even offer rewards (read: net positive over cash). >indirectly (increased prices due to vendor fees) I'd need to see some data that the convenience of credit cards to both consumer and retailer has increased prices. I do know that explicitly raising prices to cover fees for card using customers is against most merchant account terms of service and you can report retailers that do so.
    • brd529 7y ago
      It’s a total tax on the entire ecosystem. Every merchant that chooses to accept credit cards has to build 2-3% into their margins to cover the interchange fees. It’s often against their agreement with visa/mc to charge the fees for credit transactions only and so they build them into the base cost.
      • the_duke 7y ago
        As a side note, the situation is a bit better in Europe, where considerable regulation was introduced recently. With mixed but positive results. Interchange fees were capped to 0.3% for credit cards. This is a nice summary if you are interested: https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/news-insights/insight/18-months-impact-interchange-fee-regulation-european-union-cards-market https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/news-insights/insight...
• shiado 7y ago
  So if cryptocurrency is taxed on capital gains, and this is a stablecoin, can they buy their own currency in whatever tax haven they are storing money in now with money they want to repatriate to the USA, then sell the coin in the USA and pay no taxes because it is a stablecoin to they didn't actually have any gains? And they do all this while controlling the cryptocurrency itself?
  • theodorton 7y ago
    They wouldn't need to pay taxes because the money to purchase the financial instrument (whether it's a stock or a cryptocurrency) should already have been taxed in the country where the buyer resides. And, at least in my country, you can't use a financial trade like that to get a tax deduction. How would they afford to buy the cryptocurrency from the shell company in the first place?
• mwest217 7y ago
  I feel like the biggest losers here are open consensus-based cryptocurrencies like [Stellar](https://stellar.org https://stellar.org) and [Ripple](https://ripple.com https://ripple.com). Libra seems to have the same niche: a consensus-based blockchain protocol rather than proof of work. I fear that having the clout of a bunch of tech companies behind it will get consumer buy-in much faster than Stellar will (with IBM World Wire). A stablecoin backed by a consortium of large companies is an interesting design choice; it's more intuitive for consumers, but seems like it opens itself up to arbitrage, taking advantage in price differences between the different currencies the crypto is pinned to. I much prefer Stellar's decentralized exchange, where tokens can be issued by any user and exchanges from one token type to another happen transparently via people advertising exchange rates.
  • dannyw 7y ago
    Neither Ripple and Stellar are open.
    • knd775 7y ago
      How is Stellar not open?
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • jacobush 7y ago
        Don't know if it's what referred to, but you need to be accepted as a validating node by the other nodes.
    • jeremyjh 7y ago
      As of today, Libra is not open either. You need $27MM and your name on the short-list of 27 validators. Lots of coins have come along and made lots of promises, they need to be judged based on what they actually are today.
  • WhiteOwlLion 7y ago
• NoblePublius 7y ago
  It’s Disney dollars for Facebook ads. Yawn.
• newscracker 7y ago
  > Facebook says its “stablecoin,” will empower billions and underpin a stunningly ambitious global economy, without selling your data. I wonder how many millions of people were drinking their favorite beverage while reading this and spat it out on whatever/whoever was in front of them! It’s astonishing that after all these years and all the scandals, they’re deluded enough to write such lines with a straight face. This might as well have appeared on The Onion. > If we want this to succeed we can’t make it network of choice for criminal activity of any kind. - David Marcus Good luck with that! This point doesn’t gel with the other point he makes about this being private and that Facebook’s social profiles and the financial wallets/accounts will not be commingled. I’d wager that the latter promise would be like WhatsApp saying during its acquisition that nothing would change and that WhatsApp data will not be used for ads. We know what happened to that within a few years.
  • pault 7y ago
    The future is privacy™
  • drcode 7y ago
    Yeah, I'm going to guess #corporatecoin will die from a thousand regulatory papercuts, because they won't be able to prevent criminal activity without exerting draconian control over the payment network, and then it will be too inconvenient for anyone to use.
  • hobofan 7y ago
    I mean technically sharing the data between the validators _for free_ doesn't count as selling.
  • benmunster1 7y ago
    lol I wrote that subhed — was fully meant to be ironic
  • uoaei 7y ago
    We're not selling your data, you are!
• giaour 7y ago
  Is there some legal shield that prevents regulators from simply saying that Libra is a bank and therefore subject to regulation as such?
  • rolltiide 7y ago
    No, not really. In various economic regions there can be regulators that rule this way but they won't be able to stop the commerce from happening with this currency. The Libra Foundation can also just register banks in local jurisdictions to check a box. Many incumbent services have done this for decades, like Paypal. Cryptocurrency removes the ability of the state to whitelist transactions, as their power only existed from being able to regulate an intermediary. This is the anti-fragile nature of cryptocurrency. Facebook's validator nodes (corporate consortiums) are a compromise on the anti-fragile nature, but not by much.
    • drcode 7y ago
      If the state can't whitelist transactions, FB will likely not be permitted to launch this currency- The state has every incentive to block any banks from doing business with FB in that case, because they'll invoke terrorist financing and drug sales as blocking issues.
• the_duke 7y ago
  > Unlike previous stablecoins, Libra will not be issued by a central party. Instead, Facebook has enlisted 27 fellow Silicon Valley titans—among them PayPal, Visa, Spotify, Mastercard, Uber, and eBay .... This really surprises me, since it is somewhat of a direct attack on Visa, Mastercard and Paypal. Maybe the thinking is that if Libra becomes a success, they'd rather be in on the deal, or they plan on becoming middleman and integrate it into their services.
  • snarf21 7y ago
    They joined because it allows them increased market share. This play is mostly about cross border remittance and the unbanked. This gives all these companies a percentage of all the money that gets moved in this way. They have almost no exposure to those customers today. And all they have to do is run some software on some servers and invest $10M. Seems like nothing but upside to me.
• shyneeup 7y ago
  I'm still trying to understand....whats the point of using blockchain here at all if you're going to just make it centralized by validating only through an admitted pool of validators?
• ddffre 7y ago
  We cannot trust them with privacy, so how we supposed to trust them with our money?
• typon 7y ago
  So this is like Alipay or Wechat Pay but for Facebook?
• hesk 7y ago
  So, the Guardian article says that it uses blockchain but is invite-only at the moment. But if it's not public, why do you need blockchain? So is it blockchain as in Bitcoin (i.e., proof of work) or "blockchain" as in hype? I hope it's not the former because proof of work wastes so much energy it's not even funny.
• latte_machiato 7y ago
  I wish reporters would stop using "cryptocurrency" and "Facebook" in the same sentence.
• fauigerzigerk 7y ago
  I wonder how they plan to keep the price of the Libra stable. I understand that by keeping fiat currency reserves, they can guarantee a minimum exchange rate below which the Libra can never fall. But how can they stop the Libra from rising? And once it has risen, how can they stop it from crashing back down to the guaranteed exchange rate?
  • cesarb 7y ago
    > I understand that by keeping fiat currency reserves, they can guarantee a minimum exchange rate below which the Libra can never fall. The way this works is that it's a guaranteed arbitrage opportunity: if the price of Libra somewhere falls below USD 1, you can buy Libra at that cheaper price, exchange it at Facebook for USD (at the fixed USD 1 price), sell the USD, and pocket the difference. > But how can they stop the Libra from rising? The way this works is the same thing in the opposite direction: if the price of Libra somewhere rises above USD 1, you can buy USD, exchange it at Facebook for Libra (at the fixed USD 1 price), sell the Libra at the higher price, and pocket the difference.
• Calib3r 7y ago
  I sincerely doubt David Wong will offer any rebuttals to your very valid points.
  • dang 7y ago
    Publishing someone's name in a thread as a weapon in an argument is a personal attack and the sort of thing we ban accounts for. Please don't do that again. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20213673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20213673 and marked it off-topic.
• wokawoka 7y ago
  so...what is the "news" here? they control our news and social normality and they want to control our money now....
• sbmthakur 7y ago
  Crypto-currencies are likely to be banned in India or at least not officially supported by the Federal Bank. Will this also be treated in the same manner?
• samcday 7y ago
  So Facebook is under an increasing amount of scrutiny and calls for regulatory pressure. Amidst all that, they're still brave/arrogant/oblivious enough to launch something like this. People are going to read history books about this era and shake their heads in pure disbelief.
• tyingq 7y ago
  Interesting name choice, as you might mistake it for something freedom related. But the etymology of "libra" doesn't have that connotation.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• supermatt 7y ago
  So facebook (and partners) can mint their own money. Are we supposed to be OK with that? Wasn't this issue one of the primary reasons for crypto currency existing in the first place. This shouldn't be allowed to exist.
  • riffraff 7y ago
    they cannot, in most (all?) jurisdictions you cannot mint your own money. You can, however, in many places, create something that works like money for some use cases. This looks like a case of the latter, and it doesn't seem so different from stuff like Amazon Coins[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Coin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Coin
    • supermatt 7y ago
      Semantics. When I say "money", I mean Libra. If this currency is to be trusted, proof of stake should apply to all parties - having some party able to mint libra is no different to what banks do now. That libra can be converted into cash from their reserves using users funds. How can you guarantee that this wont happen? How is this regulated?
      • riffraff 7y ago
        as I understand it, the only parties authorized to buy/sell libra are resellers operating through a smart contract, while founding members act as multiple oracles for such contracts, and the minting is in the public ledger. I agree this is wildly unregulated and problems exist, but it's not just a party clicking "mint coin" and cashing out. Edit: unless you consider all parties as cooperating in the scam, which seems possible but unlikely.
        • supermatt 7y ago
          founding members acting as oracles is the whole problem. this is centralised trust and it’s ripe for abuse. that the minting is recorded is irrelevant - there’s no guarantee the backing funds exist, much in the same way a traditional bank lends money that doesn’t exist. what if this were to become the universal credit? it’s not impossible given the clout of facebook. placing trust in a few “founding corporations” is not the banking model that we should be pursuing for the future.
• CloudNetworking 7y ago
  Great name that's not going to create any confusion in those Spanish speaking countries that call the Pound "Libra" (hence the £ as the sign, by the way).
• marknadal 7y ago
  I think a lot of people are missing the point: All they need to do is to have 1%+ cheaper fee than cards. And no matter people's ideals, all businesses will add it.
• mountainofdeath 7y ago
  It's amazing how short of a memory people have. The financial system has at least a few centuries of experience and todays regulatory climate is a reflection of the lessons learned. To some, these rules may seem arbitrary and they sometimes are but people forget how things before. I find it amusing that the big selling point behind the initial round of cryptocurrency was its lack of regulation.
  • staplers 7y ago
    its lack of regulation. This is false actually. Cryptocurrency's "selling point" is being regulated by mathematical rules and not by potentially-corrupted policymakers.
    • dragonwriter 7y ago
      > Cryptocurrency's "selling point" is being regulated by mathematical rules and not by potentially-corrupted policymakers. But this is generally false; like fiat currency managed by the governments of capitalist democracies, cryptocurrencies tend to be regulated by technical experts implementing policy on behalf of th user community in which power is weighted by, roughly speaking, the product of wealth and interest in influencing policy. For the “selling point”, the software embodying the mathematical rules regulating the cryptocurrency would need to be fixed for all time.
    • supermatt 7y ago
      This doesn't follow the same rules as other cryptocurrencies though - its proof of stake, where a select number of parties can mint their own "funds"
    • firethief 7y ago
      Fundamental rules govern its existence, but not what's done with it. Most cryptocurrency in use today isn't "regulated" by mathematics any more than banknotes are "regulated" by physics.
      • lone_haxx0r 7y ago
• ryanmarsh 7y ago
  This just occurred to me, did someone at the OCC give Facebook a bank charter? So they have a Fed account and can issue fractional reserve loans?
• blueadept111 7y ago
  Yawn. This is a tempest in a teapot. Why would anyone bother to use Libra? People buy crypto mostly for speculation, hoping that it will go up (or at least not lose value over time, due to inflation). A stable coin that's pegged to major currencies is no better than the major currencies. It's also no worse. It's boring, and most people won't care.
• iagooar 7y ago
  I was going to make a snarky, sarcastic comment about this by writing: "yeah, what could possibly go wrong?". Now that I think about it, it's a genuinely interesting question: what could possibly go wrong?
  • tVoss42 7y ago
    If a Silicon Valley controlled currency becomes the preferred method of payment, then the companies controlling it get unchecked power over the economy. Banned from Facebook? You need to find other ways to reach your audience and make money. Banned from Libra? Now you need to find another way to spend your money in a market that preferes Libra. That's one possible bad ending, but maybe I'm a bit paranoid. Still, you'll also have to consider the dozens privacy issues that will pop up in the meantime, especially given Facebook doesn't currently have the best track record.
• tsrautde007 7y ago
  Why Facebook’s Libra could be a runaway success https://medium.com/@tejas_rd/why-facebooks-libra-could-be-a-runaway-success-a7cd268f2485 https://medium.com/@tejas_rd/why-facebooks-libra-could-be-a-...
  • floatrock 7y ago
    The last two points apply to any crypto, but the first two, Scale and Network, are plausible. Basically the tl;dr is facebook and the other "tech titan" validator nodes provide a large, existing distribution channel, and presumably they can unleash their armies of developers to make all the techie crypto stuff Just Work. A long running bitcoin criticism has been that it's been like PGP -- built on sound principles, but the usability has just been too hard. Coinbase took off because it made crypto easy to the average joe... HN people understand you should never leave your bitcoin on a centralized exchange, but the average user has difficulty understanding the idea of keys, wallets, dongles, etc. If Libra's going to succeed, it's going to be because they're going to do what Apple did to Unix: take the good parts, leave them available to the powerusers, and wrap the rest with really friendly usability. And they've already done something like this: one of the advantages of React has been the developer tooling. There's always going to be a subset of users that prefers to string a bunch of tools together themselves, but with a corporate backer, you can invest in solid developer experience.
    • tsrautde007 7y ago
      Last two points are predicated on fulfillment of the first two. Network first and technology later vs. most of the industry's 'build first and get the stakeholders later' approach could be the sole differentiation in this thing flying off
• skeptical-cat 7y ago
  Lots of people here saying this won't be adopted... I think we're all underestimating how many people are on FB. Ad targeting is very sophisticated for FB platforms, I think a "buy with Libra" button would get clicked a lot. Which is frightening.
• elwell 7y ago
  (is-coincidence? (= (alpha->num-sum "Libra") 42 answers/life answers/universe answers/everything))
• imjustsaying 7y ago
  >A smattering of nonprofits, which didn’t have to pay the $10 million entry fee, also populates the consortium to make sure not everyone can be corrupted by financial incentives. Is this a euphemism for 'stuffing the ballot box with nonprofits your wife and friends and are on'?
• tim333 7y ago
  From the technical paper it seems to be able to be transferred anonymously like bitcoin etc >To create a new account, a user first generates a fresh verification/signature key-pair >The Libra protocol does not link accounts to a real-world identity. A user is free to create multiple accounts by generating multiple key-pairs. Accounts controlled by the same user have no inherent link to each other. This scheme follows the example of Bitcoin and Ethereum in that it provides pseudonymity for users. https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/the-libra-blockchain.pdf https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/the-libra-bl... I'm wondering if this may create legal problems for Facebook and its partners when the currency gets used for illegal stuff. Bitcoin doesn't get sued when it's used for drug dealing because there is no one to sue.
  • helen___keller 7y ago
    I think the trick here is that Facebook is not inherently in charge of transactions, each validator is. Meaning, each validator will have their own efforts to make sure nobody pushing transactions on their node is doing crime (and/or that their identity is known so it can be forwarded to police when linked with crime). In practice what this probably means is that each validator will require a lot of personal information tied to each public key before accepting transactions from that public key. In other words, I would wait until/if someone trustworthy partners as a Libra node (e.g. my bank who already knows my financial history) until I sign up to give it a shot.
• bwilli123 7y ago
  https://ftalphaville.ft.com/series/Breaking%20the%20Zuck%20Buck https://ftalphaville.ft.com/series/Breaking%20the%20Zuck%20B...
• tgb29 7y ago
  It's very possible this initiative will be low impact. Most people don't care about currency -- they just want to spend their money in the terms they're used to. My one concern: if the libra's value is based on a basket of assets, will US users still see the value in terms of USD? Will French users see their value in Euro? Will the value of my USD change based on the basket of securities backing libra? I just want an easy solution to send money cross borders. Someone in Mexico right now owes me $80 and there's no easy way to do this. If she could send it to me through WhatsApp with a near zero fee I'd see the value in libra.
  • helen___keller 7y ago
    >My one concern: if the libra's value is based on a basket of assets, will US users still see the value in terms of USD? Will French users see their value in Euro? Will the value of my USD change based on the basket of securities backing libra? I don't know what the UI will be like, but I guarantee that there will be an exchange rate of USD to Libra and it will shift as USD's value shifts against other currencies in the basket.
• la_barba 7y ago
  I think this is an interesting move from FB. Google has been trying to get payments data by extracting it out of your emails and any other data that resides on their servers. I don't know if they've been correlating it with search/dns/ad data, but I suspect they sneakily have been. By getting all the major payment processors on board for the operations/logistics, and with FB providing the tech, they can all share the data between them and FB probably thinks they can profit the most out of this. Apple's pro-privacy payment system is unlikely to take off (IMHO) given that it doesn't align with the profit motives of the payment companies. The only way it can take off is from the bottom-up if people choose to use it in droves.
  • JaRail 7y ago
    Of course Google uses it to drive their own ad engagement. Say you want to look up your flight info. Instead of going back to the original email, you have all the info in the assistant. Instead of seeing rental car ads from the airline, you get them through Google.. You get to check out attractions in the city you're visiting through Maps.. it's obviously not all 1:1. Google isn't so pushy with their ads. They like to be subtle. But yea, they clearly get to serve more interesting ads by hijacking these workflows. Slightly less obvious what they do Amazon toilet-paper receipts. Often things can just be aggregated into really good business intelligence. They could data mine what shows netflix is recommending, etc. I'm honestly not sure what kind of protections they offer in terms of extracting aggregate data from email. It's creepy so they'd keep it mostly internal.. but I'm sure they would have found some really interesting ways to use it.
• thrower123 7y ago
  I'm already at the point where I refuse to donate to charity events that friends and relative link me to through Facebook. I don't trust Facebook to have access to my money, in any way, shape or form.
• bufferoverflow 7y ago
  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?
  • bilbo0s 7y ago
    You assume government regulators and policy makers were not in on it from the start.
    • bufferoverflow 7y ago
      Looks like they were not. https://www.coindesk.com/halt-libra-us-lawmakers-call-for-hearings-on-facebooks-crypto https://www.coindesk.com/halt-libra-us-lawmakers-call-for-he...
  • joeyspn 7y ago
    Not "endless", but chances are they'll simply apply "standard" money transmitter rules... and yes, that includes KYC/AML
    • bufferoverflow 7y ago
      Have you ever bought/sold stocks or futures? The amount of paperwork you have to provide and to sign is not trivial. And then you're still quite limited in what you can do.
  • grey-area 7y ago
    They'll pay lip service to KYC etc, and then hope to do an end run around regulation by becoming ubiquitous before it can be properly regulated. That's probably why they've chosen a blockchain (which is of negative value here technically) - to bamboozle regulators and avoid responsibility for managing it till it is too late to do anything about it.
  • AJ007 7y ago
    There aren’t enough public details yet but I think the “blockchain” part is really just between all of the partners, not between the users. So when user A in the US sends to user B in Pakistan, the activity is really only between the two parties which converted the local currencies from the end users. That wouldn’t be particular different from user A sending a Western Union payment to user B in Pakistan. Conceivably Facebook has all of this user history and is able to make a guess if someone is a real person. Probably they know a lot more than a bank would know. That could take care of some aspects of the KYC issues too. Using the word cryptocurrency is fairly misleading, because as far as I can tell, it isn’t really one. Blockchain, maybe, but I don’t even know what that word means.
• DiseasedBadger 7y ago
  I'm not surprised to see MasterCard diving this dumpster fire, but, Visa? Visa: what are you doing? Save yourself, Visa! Don't do this!
  • statguy 7y ago
    Either this currency will fizzle out or Visa will regret joining it big time.
  • coolspot 7y ago
    It's just a hedge, bro! Visa is not obligated to integrate Libra anywhere. They just put a foot in the opening just in case it will take off. If it doesn't they lose nothing ($10M), if it takes off they are having saying in where it goes.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• tracker1 7y ago
  Yeah, like I'll EVER trust Facebook to manage my money... If you're libertarian or conservative, you definitely cannot trust Facebook to not keep your money, let alone safe. And if you aren't, you probably shouldn't. I don't mean to be tin foil hat... but given the amount of account deletions that FB, Twitter, Pinterest and to some extent Youtube and Instagram. I don't agree with the people blocked necessarily, but it belies anything resembling what should be required to trust them.
• jsilence 7y ago
  Kill it with fire!
• yayr 7y ago
  How are the exact payout rules for the investment tokens?
• jancsika 7y ago
  Since this is a thread presumably filled with cryptocurrency experts, here's my own personal captcha: What is Chaumian cash? And here's my own personal re-captcha: Why hasn't some small country somewhere issued their own Chaumian cash to attract... anything? Seems like there would be quite a lot of ways to implement and configure such a system. And it wouldn't take that big of a reserve to help fuel, say, a burgeoning blog micropayment system to the tune of what a Patreon or whatever currently offers. There's plenty of small countries which offer all kinds of dastardly financial instruments to rich people, so I don't see "it would fuel money laundering" as an explanation for the complete lack of Chaumian cash in our universe. Edit: clarification
• segmondy 7y ago
  Facebook has so much money that one can't wonder what their angle with this. I can only imagine they want to know exactly what you spend money on so they can better target ads.
  • roland00 7y ago
    Bingo. It is not exactly better targeting ads. You can sell the same ad (from the same supplier) to the same customer (the person viewing the ad) and the supplier will pay more if they are convinced the ad actually has a higher return rate. What is the quote again from John Wanamaker "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half." Thus knowing more about their users and what they buy and the ad is successful 1 day, 1 month, 1 year in the future allows Facebook to get paid more.
    • roland00 7y ago
      Note this is a first order effect, what I explained above. The 2nd order effect is that by making more money for the same ad, while your competitors would make less money from the same ad...you can either sit on that profit. Or you can use your market share and guaranteed profit to make ads less profitable to competitors and this creates a positive feedback cycle where Facebook Ads get more and more market share but other competitors and platforms of Ads gets less and less, which in turn actually allows Facebook to charge more per Ad in the long run (but in the short run Facebook may want to decrease the price per Ad.)
    • mikorym 7y ago
      I think the key here as you mention is the "pull through". Previously they could tell which ads generate buzz. The more important metric is which ads generate sales.
  • JaRail 7y ago
    I think there's just such a huge opportunity to drive sales through messenger, fb, etc with low-friction payments. They already have the 'best' targeted advertising. They just want to extend their platform all the way through to actual sales. Then they can justify a larger cut than with just the ads. They've certainly tried payments and money-transfers before. This isn't entirely new territory. It's just very country-specific. They get hit by high transaction fees. No one wants to type their full credit card and address info, then deal with required two-factor authentication in Europe, etc. And nothing is worse than having to forward someone from your app to an unreliable slow desktop-targeted bank page which then sends you an SMS/email that you have to type back into the bank.. etc. FB is actually right. The credit card system is straight broken from a user-experience point of view. It wasn't created with computers, mobile, or basic security in mind. It's just band-aid on top of band-aids since the 70s. And obviously cash doesn't have much presence online in western countries. FB struggles to get people to buy things through their apps. They desperately want to fix that. Crypto currencies just work better at a fundamental level with mobile payments. It has always just been a lack of institutional support to get them supported. VISA/MC have probably been looking for a way to leapfrog bitcoin/etherium for some time now. I'm not surprised they jumped on board when a bunch of real technology companies decided to leapfrog them. Otherwise, they'd likely be in for a world of hurt in a few years if something like Apple/Google Credit launched their own without them. It's not like people love VISA/MC as companies. A huge number of people would jump ship so fast if there was literally any other option.
• JaRail 7y ago
  I'm surprised to see Coinbase as a founding member. I wonder if they'll allow direct conversions between Libra and other cryptocurrencies. It's interesting to note that there aren't any device manufacturers as members. No Google, Apple, Samsung, HTC, etc. That's going to make this an uphill battle for them. It implies that those companies have their own ideas. Or, perhaps, they just aren't willing to partner with FB right now given their toxic reputation for privacy.
  • Florin_Andrei 7y ago
    I think it makes perfect sense for Coinbase to tap into this flow.
    • JaRail 7y ago
      I mean, I'm more surprised they were invited to the party. You know something like this will immediately spur countries to denounce it as facilitating money laundering, terrorism, the collapse of the civilized world, etc. I would have thought they'd stick with PayPal as their main partner to interface with banks. It's a huge opportunity for Coinbase but they bring the political baggage of every other cryptocurrency along with them.
      • Florin_Andrei 7y ago
        Yeah, but Libra could do due diligence when the money enters their system. Sure, things are a bit "informal" on the BTC/ETH side, but I'm pretty sure Libra will strive to meet the demands from governments. That being said, yeah, wild claims can and probably will be made by various entities.
    • grafporno 7y ago
      It makes perfect sense in terms of a PR Win-Win situation: Facebook gets the "crypto currency" credibility, Coinbase gets more PR (and more crypto buyers) in general.
• z3t4 7y ago
  When so many large organisations joint it will cost billions, which will have to be paid by the users.
• BackBackBack 7y ago
  For free! Edit: Due to censorship I request you to remove this account since you've not constructed a way to do it ourselves. http://remove.org/removal-requested http://remove.org/removal-requested
  • dang 7y ago
    Could you please not post unsubstantive comments to HN? We're trying for a more thoughtful sort of discussion here. If you'd read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and post in the intended spirit of the site, we'd be grateful. I noticed a thread from a few days ago where this account got involved in a religious flamewar. That's just what we don't want on HN. You might also find these links helpful for getting the spirit of this site: https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20216561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20216561.
    • BackBackBack 7y ago
      Due to censorship I request you to remove this account since you've not constructed a way to do it ourselves. http://remove.org/removal-requested http://remove.org/removal-requested
• dmje 7y ago
  Kind of interested in what this means for a non Facebook user. As one of those I already feel sometimes marginalised when content is shared on their walled garden and I need my wife to look at the dates for my kids’ sporting events because they’re only published on Facebook. Now I’m going to be unable to carry out financial transactions, too.
  • apazzolini 7y ago
    I'm going to choose to view this in a positive light as it's a great indicator of where to not spend money. I find company values to be an increasingly important factor when choosing who to patronize.
  • vgoh1 7y ago
    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 details on, it takes me back, not to the listings that I was looking at, but to the news feed. Facebook knows exactly what they are doing.
    • sdegutis 7y ago
      That is incredibly unethical and standard behavior for Facebook.
    • cafed00d 7y ago
      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 here showed me how Facebook would automatically "make me follow" all my House/Senate representatives even if I never explicility followed their pages/profiles. Ocasionally, I still have to unfollow these auto-followed pages when I log in. But for the most part, I've been feed-free for a 5-6 months now. It's great!
• canada_dry 7y ago
  This and the other recent article about how (in China) it's becoming more and more difficult to do/buy things without wechat makes me think that just as VPN's are popular today, some form of anonymous (non-tracking) e-currency will be all the rage in the future.
• jpmattia 7y ago
  Again: A ledger that is not decentralized is a bank database, not a cryptocurrency. As near as I can tell, Zuckbucks are nothing more than the JPMorganCryptocurrency but with a bigger consortium. The only difference seems to be who is given write privileges to the database.
  • ChainOfFools 7y ago
    Unfortunately the "decentralization is a spectrum" crowd has already furnished the fintech narrative with the arguments necessary to justify calling this "decentralized." The "decentralization" quality should not be used to describe any system that doesn't exhibit a permanent, irreversible systemic trend towards greater decentralization of all the levers, concentrations and bottlenecks of power within itself over time. For this to happen, the natural tendency toward concentration of leverage would need to introduce a proportional net cost increase to the system, rather than (as it normally would) be the mechanism by which economies of scale accrue to it.
    • gaogao 7y ago
      Could you give an example of something with this decentralization quality as you described?
      • Spearchucker 7y ago
        Mastodon. You can set your own server up and benefit from all othe other existing servers. Mastodon provides a decentralised service running on decentralised infrastructure. You can run your server as you see fit, because access to the wider network is federated. Zuckbucks provide a centralised service running on decentralised infrastructure. Try add your own server to help run Zuck's blockchain...
      • ChainOfFools 7y ago
        Other than universal entropy, probably nothing. Though math is also decentralized, maybe even moreso, being independent of time. So maybe "nothing that is relevant on a human timescale" is closer. I strongly suspect that what we have developed a habit of calling decentralization, as if this referred to a final state of a proposed coordination solution, is in fact just a temporary, transitional phase between centralized regimes.
• H8crilA 7y ago
  This could pan out. There's a ton of people in the developing world that can only use their phones to get access to any reasonable banking. Or things like ROSCAs [1]. Don't think that tech (whether its a permissionless PoS blockchain or a Ripple copy) is important for success here. Only whether or not an aggressive marketing campaign to make people use it (especially merchants) will succeed. 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_savings_and_credit_association https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_savings_and_credit_...
• codesushi42 7y ago
  Honest question: what will be the incentive for consumers to use Libra over existing solutions like PayPal, Apple Pay, Venmo etc?
  • yellow_postit 7y ago
    Ease of use will be the first hook: FB will likely leverage their install base across insta, FB, WhatsApp, messenger, etc to just upsell this constantly. Lowering the barrier to send to drive adoption.
  • cm11 7y ago
    The biggest is the likelihood that they, and their networks, are already using Facebook. And they're far more likely using Facebook than any of the other services you mentioned.
  • 88840-8855 7y ago
    1) easier p2p transfer built into apps they have already installed on their devices 2) international transfers are instant and low-cost 3) applepay, venmo and paypal are made for the developed markets. this one targets similar markets where Vodafone has its m-peso
  • WhiteOwlLion 7y ago
    Lower transaction fees and your friend likely has an account (or it is very easy to sign up FB user with Libra). As long as Libra is cheaper compared to existing method of transferring funds, it'll be a success. Say it costs me $8 to send money to South Africa. If Libra is free or costs $0.01, then of course I'd use Libra.
• facefuck 7y ago
  This is bad. Facebook will bake this into their software, even if they claim they won’t do it, they will. It’s no problem because you can always just use fiat right? How are you going to do that when the hoard of idiots out there adopt Libra without considering the long term implications? It could be that if you refuse to use libra, you’ll be left out in the cold. It will be like Facebook all over again. Facebook gets popular in 2007 — hoard of idiots dump all their personal information on it without a single thought about whether or not that’s a smart thing to do — hoards of idiots make Facebook intertwined with life itself without considering how messed up it is — people like me are left out in the cold because we refuse to engage — ten fucking years later people wake up and I’m vindicated — two years later the whole thing apparently is starting again and people are too dumb to see it.
  • WhiteOwlLion 7y ago
    Is PayPal any different?
    • facefuck 7y ago
      Just explain your opinion you annoying idiot.
      • dang 7y ago
        We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. Could you please not create accounts to do that with? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • skosch 7y ago
    I agree with the sentiment, if not with the needlessly aggressive wording. Also, the spelling you're looking for is hordes, not hoards.
• vivekd 7y ago
  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 a good thing 3. Unlike government issued currencies, any monopoly or control facebook derives isn't done through force, it's by making a coin better than all the other coins. Other people are still free to make their competing coins. That said I understand the detractions that many here are presenting. I just wish there could be a deeper exploration of both the pros and cons.
  • an_d_rew 7y ago
    Well, perhaps a deep exploration of the pros and cons are warranted, but... FB has been caught willfully and negligently lying multiple times. (And yes, I'm aware that many banks have done the same.) Nonetheless, why would I choose to trust them over any other payment system? What's Zuck's testimony to Congress going to be in five years? "We could have done better. We will do better. Who could have forseen this nightmare mess...?"
    • trhway 7y ago
      Those dumb f@cks trust me with their money...
    • Amygaz 7y ago
      My impression of what Libra is to FB is equivalent to that Silicon Valley episode where they did an ICO to found their business and get more users at the same time. I don’t believe FB’s altruistic intention for one second.
      • xenospn 7y ago
        I can't wait for the 2025 3-season Facebook Special of American Greed.
    • 7y ago
• ur-whale 7y ago
  As is plenty evident with existing cryptos, the network effect is a huge part of a cryptocurrency's success (technically speaking, bitcoin is far from the best crypto out there, but it's the most popular because it was first and is nowadays the most well known). Facebook's huge existing network will be a massive boon for Libra, however well designed it actually is from a technical standpoint: FB has direct reach into billions of people's daily life. Good or bad, it will become a strong contender in the crypto space, unless regulators get in the way.
• j45 7y ago
  If FAANG are the new digital nation states, one can see why they want their own currency
• clearfund 7y ago
  What this truly mimics is a 'security' analogous to a basket of foreign currency traded as an ETF. Once you give them US $1 it is backed by a POOL of currency from multiple countries (i.e. the other people who have traded their currency for Libra). Once you decide to take your US $1 you will get back a different amount based on the underlying value of the pool based on the fluctuating FX market. May be >=<...no one will know. Given they are seeking to bring in "underbanked" people (i.e. the charitable patina on this operation) there will be a focused % of currency in the pool from countries with a high % of underbanked people. Logic says this will likely be less stable currency than say the US $, etc. Thus, your US $ will be diluted by "lesser" or more "volatile" currencies and will diminish the purchase power of your US $1. Conversely it will increase the purchase power of the lesser currency. Thoughts?
  • helen___keller 7y ago
    I don't think that's how this works. It's pegged to a basket of currencies, so the value will match that basket. The composition of the basket isn't tied who chooses to acquire Libra.
• alexnewman 7y ago
  I'm banned from facebook for having names they don't approve of.
• meruru 7y ago
  I thought creating a currency was illegal. What makes cryptocurrencies so different that it's ok for companies to do it?
  • ur-whale 7y ago
    Illegal in what jurisdiction?
• ur-whale 7y ago
  One really interesting issue is how they are actually going to make the zucbux actually stable. This seems like a straightforward problem to solve: for every zucbux in circulation, stash a euro, a yen and a USD somewhere. Except ... where do you actually stash those? In what financial institution? And how do you know said custodian is risk-free? Who is going to audit them to independently guarantee that the underlying funds actually exist? As it turns out, the only entities that can somewhat securely provide that service are central banks themselves, and that means they have to be willing to play ball.
• mattferderer 7y ago
  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 someone will have to make it though. You cannot expect people to use a different currency on a daily basis & report any gain or loss on the currency at the time of transaction. It would also be an accounting nightmare to decide which coins you spent at the time of purchase. My guess is they're waiting for cryptocurrency to become popular enough that it forces their hand & they have to create some type of leniency regarding gains & losses on each transaction.
  • lawrenceg 7y ago
    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.
    • creato 7y ago
      I think that's PR bullshit to make this sound like a charitable endeavor.
• diimdeep 7y ago
  A little closer to dystopia of Black Mirror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits
• jonas_kgomo 7y ago
  Zittrain and Zuckerberg discussed encryption, ‘information fiduciaries’, interesting part is that Mark didn't mention nor support cryptocurrencies but he argued that the blockchain would incredibly help with security on Facebook. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGchhsKhG-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGchhsKhG-A
• spaceflunky 7y ago
  I don't know much about how to mine or obtain crypto currencies. Can someone explain to me how I would get Libra?
  • percentcer 7y ago
    You buy it from a trusted member node
    • spaceflunky 7y ago
      So there is no way to mine it? You just buy it at a set price? Does that mean that it is not really designed to be "invested in" the way people invest in bitcoin and others?
      • omarchowdhury 7y ago
        Correct. It's backed by a basket of fiat currencies (USD, GBP, JPY, EUR).
• Jeff_Brown 7y ago
  Have they solved the scale-vs-security problem? Bitcoin scales badly for the very reason that it is secure -- every miner keeps a copy of the currency's entire transaction history (the blockchain), and wastes a ton of cpu cycles on proof-of-work, racing with others to verify the next block. Has Facebook reduced the number of players involved in mining? Are they using some other proof system?
  • percentcer 7y ago
    https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/libra-consensus-state-machine-replication-in-the-libra-blockchain.pdf https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/libra-consen... This is the actual tech paper, it uses proof of stake (not proof of work per your concern)
  • streetcat1 7y ago
    I think that they plan to create a small network of trusted nodes (e.g. visa) instead of huge networks of anonymous nodes (as in the bitcoin case). If I read correctly the initial network will consists of only 10 nodes.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• arnaudsm 7y ago
  Satoshi wanted a world without banks and centralisation. Now his tech is used for the exact opposite. Just like the Internet that was diverted by big corporations. Let's not make the same mistake gain.
• kemonocode 7y ago
  I hope this gets anywhere, not because I'm particularly enamored with Facebook (In fact, I hate them and their skeevy practices) but because I want PayPal to feel the squeeze. I just happen to hate PayPal a little bit more than Facebook and any competition in that department is good in my opinion. I don't see Libra being remotely any competition against Bitcoin, but as an alternative to current centralized payment processors? Sure, and it wouldn't be a huge stretch considering the amount of sensitive information people already entrusts (with or without merit) with Facebook.
  • pwodhouse 7y ago
    PayPal is part of the Facebook Coin consortium.
• j0hnM1st 7y ago
  anything facebookish trends.
• schmichael 7y ago
  This reads a lot like the founding of the Federal Reserve: > [The Federal Reserve] had several key components, including a central bank with a Washington-based headquarters and fifteen branches located throughout the U.S. in geographically strategic locations, and a uniform elastic currency based on gold and commercial paper. 1. Geographically dispersed 2. Value elastic but secured by assets 3. Controlled by a small group of people 4. Goal of stable long term prices Key differences between this and the US federal reserve seem to be: 1. Libra involves no state actors 2. Libra is pay-to-play (vs representative democracy for directors of the US Fed) 3. Libra has no employment objective 4. Libra has no interest objective (outside of maintaining investment in its reserve assets) 5. Libra is "fully backed by real assets" While personal socio-political beliefs make #1 a huge concern for me, and #2 has been widely critiqued already, #3 - the US Fed's employment objective - is an interesting difference to me. I have not read all of the Libra material yet, but so far this belief is the only reference I've found to Libra's relationship to work: > We believe that people have an inherent right to control the fruit of their legal labor. Seems simple enough on the face of it. An extremist could perhaps liken it to "taxes are theft," but I don't see evidence of that in one vague sentence. I think instead this outlines a key philosophical difference between the US Fed and the Facebook Fed: The US Fed has an objective of (indirectly through labor) distributing capital. The Facebook Fed has an objective of easing the flow of capital. The Facebook Fed therefore is neutral, amoral, technocratic in its approach: make what you have easier to use. Whereas the US fed (and I suspect other federal reserves) have a non-fiscal social component builtin: increase capital distribution through availability of labor.
  • justinmchase 7y ago
    Can we just call it the global reserve?
    • schmichael 7y ago
      I prefer the Facebook Reserve as it reflects its largely private corporate roots. Update: Considering Zuckerberg holds a majority of the voting shares in Facebook, I don't think calling it The Zuckerberg Reserve and Zuckbucks is at all unfair.
• muckrakerz 7y ago
  Why in God's name if we can't trust FB with privacy of our kids photos should we trust them to handle our finances? This deserves all of the mockery that it will receive.
  • taurath 7y ago
    I'd love to see what the actual incentive structure is here. What are they hoping to get out of the investment? Data? Fraud prevention fees?
• scotu 7y ago
  Just wanted to say that the logo is not Libra's symbol; it's very similar to Aquarius though. While I maintain my horoscope-hater attitude, I am still disappointed
• justinmchase 7y ago
  Why didn't they just use bitcoin?
• gtirloni 7y ago
  It's very nice they chose Rust for such a critical component of their infrastructure.
• Lucadg 7y ago
  It's amazing as the white paper manages to avoid mentioning Bitcoin and Ethereum.
• xmly 7y ago
  Want to participate in the project! How could become a partner?
• obiefernandez 7y ago
  I just had to pay my one of my staff members in Mexico a severance of approximately 50,000 pesos. She doesn't have documentation or a bank account, so I had to pay her out in cash. 1000 peso notes are not widely used, so I had to get 500 notes out of the bank. That's about 100 bills--pretty bulky. She's going to have to spend a few hours getting home on 3 different buses with that huge wad of cash somewhere on her person, and risk being robbed. Having some sort of electronic payment system that worked for her would be amazing.
• clearfund 7y ago
  What this truly mimics is a 'security' analogous to a basket of foreign currency traded as an ETF. Once you give them US $1 it is backed by a POOL of currency from multiple countries (i.e. the other people who have traded their currency for Libra). Once you decide to take your US $1 you will get back a different amount based on the underlying value of the pool based on the fluctuating FX market. May be >=<...no one will know. Given they are seeking to bring in "underbanked" people (i.e. the charitable patina on this operation) there will be a focused % of currency in the pool from countries with a high % of underbanked people. Logic says this will likely be less stable currency than say the US $, etc. Thus, your US $ will be diluted by "lesser" or more "volatile" currencies and will diminish the purchase power of your US $1. Conversely it will increase the purchase power of the lesser currency. Thoughts?
  • kodz4 7y ago
    Far far away from that point. Maybe when people start buying houses and paying their medical bills with it. Which is not going to happen if the Big Banks have anything to say about it. This is mostly going to be small change transactions for a couple years with lots of other players falling over each other with alternatives. As long as it makes global small change transactions free or dirt cheap should be a good thing.
• ei8htyfi5e 7y ago
  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 corporations. This will lead to global social unrest. This will put some third-world countries in complete control by Facebook. I mean, whoever runs the currency, is the country. But in this case, it will be completely controlled, as it's also many of those countries main source of communication. Therefore, if Facebook's Libra is a countries main currency and social network, that country will be owned by Facebook. Finally, the regulations on crypto and blockchain are still new. This is in Facebook's advantage as they can start lobbying to have these laws in their favor. They can argue for less transparency, as they are a bank, and this fits with their new privacy marketing message. This is extremely subversive and Europe is already rightly pushing back. America will be next. On one hand, I love seeing the existing financial system panic when new technology comes out. On the other hand, under no circumstances will I accept a world where Facebook started the one world currency.
  • tjkrusinski 7y ago
    This isn't the case, your wallet is not tied to your Facebook account.
    • FridgeSeal 7y ago
      Yeah not now, but given everything else they’ve done, it wouldn’t be a surprised if they introduced it as a feature later down the line.
      • allannienhuis 7y ago
        That's kind of the definition of FUD spreading, isn't it? How is anyone supposed to defend themselves against accusations like that?
• HashThis 7y ago
  There is a video is about French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire fighting the Facebook Libra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH4oVeME_dk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH4oVeME_dk
• m3kw9 7y ago
  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.
  • m3kw9 7y ago
    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
• msiyer 7y ago
  Why do we need to expend our energies to debate? Facebook cannot be trusted. Facebook should not be allowed anywhere near our finances. This is a nightmare in the making. Gullible public will start using it in the name of convenience and it might suddenly become ubiquitous.
• bhouston 7y ago
  Will "Objectional Groups" be preventing from using Libra? Who will define what is an "Objectional Group"?
• fnord77 7y ago
  Expansion and contraction of the monetary supply by central banks is critical to preventing financial disasters. Cryto subverts this. Not to mention making transactions harder and not easier.
  • rphlx 7y ago
    In the US the evidence for a central bank PhD Politburo "preventing" or even "minimizing" financial disasters is dubious at best. Financial panics in the 19th century were generally shorter, less frequent, and probably effected the avg citizen much less, than 1929/1937/1970s/2000/2008.
• MarkMc 7y ago
  Currently most online payments involve a 2% credit card fee. Will Libra lead to a significant reduction in this cost? If Libra can be 0.5% cheaper than credit card payments for consumers then it will become the dominant form of online payment.
• Phlarp 7y ago
  Libra? ... Gemini? This kid just can't let go of the past can he...
• Siederwehen 7y ago
  This seems to me like a modern version of scrip.
• MarkMc 7y ago
  Would there be anything stopping Google making this offer to users? "Tell us your Libra wallet ID to get YouTube premium for free!"
• timemachine 7y ago
  FaceBucks
• stubbornleaf 7y ago
  It's supposed to be used by people who cannot access financial service. But they still have to buy Libra with their current currencies, and then Facebook becomes that financial service. So Facebook can reach to where those other financial services cannot reach?
• chr1xzy 7y ago
  Jameson Lopp thoughts on Libra “Blockchain” https://medium.com/@lopp/thoughts-on-libra-blockchain-49b8f6c26372 https://medium.com/@lopp/thoughts-on-libra-blockchain-49b8f6... Covers: Abstract Introduction Logical Data Model Executing Transactions Authenticated Data Structures and Storage Byzantine Fault Tolerant Consensus Networking Libra Core Implementation Performance Implementing Libra Ecosystem Policies with Move Governance,AML/KYC,fees,capacity,open to developers?
• mmaunder 7y ago
  This provides the potential for FB to pivot into banking. The article points out that the structure of Libra doesn't require a connection between FB profile and wallet. But let's face it. If FB are the inventor and are the benevolent dictator in this open system, it positions them to offer all their users wallets and be the bank that facilitates most transactions. The revenue potential for FB in that scenario, from transaction fees to deposits (borrowing short and lending long) to wealth management is limitless. There is an endgame here that has 2 billion customers and is worth trillions.
• coinanalyst 7y ago
  A key factor to consider: Libra has intrinsic value but Bitcoin doesn't. From libra.org: "Libra is fully backed by a reserve of real assets. A basket of currencies and assets will be held in the Libra Reserve for every Libra that is created, building trust in its intrinsic value." Fixed supply is a fatal design flaw of Bitcoin which leads to it not likely having any intrinsic value ever. Let me explain: 1. Fiat money's intrinsic value: A homeowner who borrows against their home is guaranteed to get full control of the home when they deliver the amount they owe, which is denominated in fiat. It is a powerful incentive to exchange goods and services for fiat. Even for participants who don't owe fiat, knowing that the fiat is intrinsically valuable to debtors means that it can be used to purchase goods and services from them. 2. There is no such incentive behind Bitcoin. Negligible amount of debt is denominated in Bitcoin. If Bitcoin value falls towards zero, there’s no real-economy backed mechanism to bring it back. There is no contractual guarantee that spending X amount of Bitcoins can entitle the purchaser to receive Y amount of services. 3. Bitcoin will likely never be a debt instrument. Bitcoin has a fixed supply, and the design goal of this is for Bitcoin to be deflationary. If there’s an equilibrium interest rate in Bitcoin, that rate is highly likely to be negative and more than the cost of owning Bitcoin. This removes incentives for Bitcoin holders to lend out the currency, consequently there will be no debt, and no contract that allows debtors to receive real goods by delivering Bitcoins. This argument applies to most non-stable cryptocurrencies. From this reasoning alone, I see Libra has a much higher chance to succeed than its crypto peers.
  • chii 7y ago
    Not being able to generate debt denominated in Bitcoins is a design goal, and I feel, possibly a good one (if too idealistic). Fractional reserve banking lends too much power in to the hands of those who control the process. Fractional reserve is impossible in Bitcoins (unless you trust the word of the other party). This doesn't mean loans or debt can't exist, but it is not denominated in Bitcoins, but just as records on paper. And you also cannot loan out Bitcoins you don't own (nor loan out nonexistent Bitcoins like you could with fiat). This leads to more responsible lending, and cuts speculative gambling with assets. I think in the long run, this is a good thing (even though it would hurt in the short term).
• eacfox 7y ago
  I bought in https://webpromocoes.com.br/codigo-promocional/ https://webpromocoes.com.br/codigo-promocional/ very interesting in Brazil
• dotancohen 7y ago
  I already find it hard enough to use certain services without having a facebook account. E.g. Tinder requires one, and even having a throwaway is problematic because people want to check your Facebook profile before meeting. However, having currency wrapped up in Facebook will mean that now I will not be able to participate is some economies. I work remotely and as much as Paypal is a villian, it is also a saviour for paying people halfway across the globe. If Facebook displaces that, then my own business is in trouble. And there is no real way to separate Facebook the spying entity from Facebook the social entity, therefore I expect there to be no way to separate the Facebook financial services entity either. This is a big worry.
• danny8000 7y ago
  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? Will they take a transaction fee? I also keep on reading that it will help the unbanked in the developing world facilitate payments. I guess it can be risky and hard to carry a lot of cash around for large purchases in parts of the world. But for this to work do you need better identity management? Or if you hold the cell phone, you hold the wallet? If it’s target is micro payments, then there are already many expanding options. So that leave cross-border transfers, which is a huge thread to the US’s economic dominance. It is much harder to embark Iran if you don’t control the currency they sell their own for.
  • leovander 7y ago
    >Since it’s not going to be a speculative currency like bitcoin, how will they pay or it? https://youtu.be/HnXKE0nfAjI?t=41 https://youtu.be/HnXKE0nfAjI?t=41 But seriously, an even more direct connection between ads and what you buy.
• buhrmi 7y ago
  This is horrible. Don't touch it.
• mekoka 7y ago
  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.
  • Abishek_Muthian 7y ago
    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 their program? Yes, the plan to jail those who hold cryptocurrency in a democratic country is preposterous; but this shows how sensitive a developing economy could be when it comes to its money. It's not like the data of their citizens which these countries give a free run to the hoarders, money is totally different ball game. I wonder if Facebook decides to give a free crypto to everyone who holds a FB account, anyone in India with a FB account will go to jail including those who proposing such legislations? P.S I don't hold any cryptocurrency due to its impact on energy and thereby planet (Also, I'm including this just in case the legislation passes in my country!). [1]:https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/finance/draft-law-proposes-10-year-jail-term-for-dealing-in-cryptocurrency/articleshow/69693984.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/finance/dr...
• Too 7y ago
  Reminder what happens when WeChat becomes your currency: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-48552907 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-48552907
• tjpnz 7y ago
  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.
• bupkus 7y ago
  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.
• christianasteve 7y ago
  This era is called as Blockchain era.
• King-Aaron 7y ago
  Libra is a well known brand for sanitary products. I wonder if that's going to be problematic for either entity.
• stdoutrap 7y ago
  Recently made a song called "Good for the world != good for Facebook". Might be of interest to peeps in this thread... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zJSmiimxoQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zJSmiimxoQ
• envolt 7y ago
  Basic Question - What is the problem that they are trying to solve?
• postcynical 7y ago
  How are blockchain/cryptocurrencies affected by a possible breakthrough in quantum computing? It is my understanding that quantum computing makes it trivial to break todays crypto. So a single actor with a quantum computer could break any crypto currency?
• jillesvangurp 7y ago
  Facebook decided to reinvent the wheel and make it closed source. IMHO this is a mistake and a bad idea for any wannabe blockchain platform. I am curious about their motives for doing this. I'm guessing that it is simply that their plan is the same as that of any traditional payment solution: create a walled garden and profit through transaction fees. This requires a closed ecosystem. In terms of design, this actually looks a lot like Ripple/Stellar. The difference being that those two are open source and anyone can run an independent validator. There's a growing number of those. And with IBM building world wire on top of Stellar together with a few dozen banks, here's now some traction for that platform at least. It might still work for Facebook and I would not be surprised to learn that they took some of the Apache/MIT licensed code of either platform. but I'd say they'll have huge issues with people simply not trusting them with their money. They will also need links to other platforms via some exchanges. Again, Stellar comes to mind. It comes with an exchange and an ecosystem of fintech players already connected to that. Facebook is of course not the only company planning to do their own coin. Telegram has similar plans and there are a gazillion of dapps on Ethereum and similar chains. Most of these seem to be struggling to find meaningful amounts of users. Unlocking crypto for the wider public is not something that anyone has accomplished yet. FB might pull this off given their large user base.
• feydaykyn 7y ago
  This is the start of a very good podcast, the Program http://www.programaudioseries.com/ http://www.programaudioseries.com/ Each episode is a character explaining how the Program changed his/her life, episodes are very moving. The first one describes how it all started by a social network controlling money and thus people actions. Oh and it's mainly optimistic, that's a nice change for the subject! "The Program is a historical podcast, but a one that’s set in the future and examines the present day. The world of the future is exactly like ours, except that Money, State, and God became fused into a single entity called the Program. This hardcore sci-fi premise however is just the backdrop, and the series focuses on stories of ordinary people inhabiting this extraordinary world."
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• komalsharma05 7y ago
  Facebook has finally revealed the details of its cryptocurrency, Libra, which will let you buy things or send money to people with nearly zero fees. Here is more information: https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/18/facebook-libra/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/18/facebook-libra/
• b-3-n 7y ago
  "Give us your data, you can trust us". Remember how that went? "Give us your money, you can trust us". Hm...
• Bob995 7y ago
  Does this mean Faceberg will finally get regulated as a payment processor?
• alex_young 7y ago
  Why is this considered a threat to banks or credit card companies? Don't you still have to convert to your local currency at some point? I think that's why you see credit card companies on this thing. Best case seems that it increases their transaction from what I see.
• ur-whale 7y ago
  Can't resist, I just have to post this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIbDFmHqEIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIbDFmHqEIw
• bashwizard 7y ago
  Thanks, I hate it.
• saltsaltsalts 7y ago
  FB Crypto = big bank crypto. This helps push the blockchain into the hands of millions but the millions won't care. Just another Chase, BofA, Santander.... Sounds interesting and new so people should flock to it....
• kubindurion 7y ago
  "Blockchain vs BULLSHIT" criteria: Is it: - Open - Publicly verifiable - Neutral - Borderless - Censorship-Resistant. - Immutable - Permissionless In case of Libra answer to all is No
• deafcalculus 7y ago
  How does Libra work? It sounds more like a traditional currency, except it isn't issued by a nation, but by a bunch of companies. The peg to a basket of currencies suggests that it'll operate like a currency board regime. Do they completely give up monetary independence by backing every Libra with a dollar in reserve (or a basket of currencies)? Or is the plan to make Libra eventually float and have some decentralised mechanism to set interest rates?
  • deafcalculus 7y ago
    The TC article says that every Libra issued is backed by USD and other currencies in reserve. So, no independent monetary policy. This looks a whole lot more like full-reserve banking than a cryptocurrency. Are they calling it a cryptocurrency to avoid KYC requirements and other banking regulations?
• stef25 7y ago
  So the logic is that people in Africa have smartphones but no bank accounts. Wherever they buy their phone credits (cash for a voucher in a corner shop), they could also buy Libra top-up vouchers? It must involve a cash transaction after all.
• lanevsky 7y ago
  I will be following with curiosity. Some times ago I would have been much more inclined to trust FB creating this system. But not now. Hopeful for those that don’t have access to traditional banking and financial systems! I can read the news without FB, with https://inechain.com https://inechain.com and other news aggregators. I use FB is because have friends - only way I can connect with.
• GershwinA 7y ago
  These are the guys that can't properly secure their main product. Facebook has been leaking all around, I think Instagram stored passwords in plain text, and last year their cookies were stolen too. Ain't touching this for some time.
• nickpsecurity 7y ago
  For anyone interested, here's the protocol paper: https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/libra-consensus-state-machine-replication-in-the-libra-blockchain.pdf https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/libra-consen...
• mehdix 7y ago
  I'd guess FB is also targeting micropayments. They are already ubiquitous on many websites so why not let their users pay for content with fbcoins? It's 2019 and micropayment is still an unsolved problem.
• leifg 7y ago
  I'm not quite sure which kind of problem they are trying to solve. Are they just another payment provider that has "crypto" in the name? Having a shiny app? I don't see that as great selling point. The problems for consumers with current payment providers and banks are largely due to regulatory and policy decisions (PayPal not accepting retailers for certain services, banks making it extremely complicated for you to get a bank account etc...). Libra will have all of these issues. So I'm genuinely curious: What problem does Libra solve?
• kebman 7y ago
  Looks like this is yet another centrally controllable currency to woo the masses away from Bitcoin, not unlike Ripple's XRP. Or am I mistaken? It's probably a great vessel for speculation, though, since Facebook is a serious company, and because it will obviously be polished and work well. As a vessel for storing and moving value, however, I think I'll stick to BTC.
• tehjoker 7y ago
  A global currency uncontrolled by any government guards against capital flight. Let's say you want to give healthcare to your population, capital can say no and move their assets into an untouchable currency. All hail our new feudal lords.
• kaushikb9 7y ago
  India is one of Facebook's biggest market. I am interested to understand how will they compete against India's own open wallet platform, UPI, which is already very popular and already surpassed overall Credit card transactions in the country. Wallet companies like PayTM, PhonePe, Google Pay have a strong presence throughout the country and are dealing directly with fiat currency
• democracy 7y ago
  Why is renaming of 'facebook credits' to 'libra' so important to anyone?
• PovilasID 7y ago
  H H p x
• momentmaker 7y ago
  I do not think Zuckerberg’s ultimate goal is running a stable coin, although he could live with that arrangement and benefit from it for as long as necessary. I think the main reason Facebook has structured the coin with fiat backing is to make it seem less threatening to the current monetary establishment and world governments. It’s a way of saying Facebook isn’t trying to compete with the current status quo, but rather make the status quo run more smoothly and efficiently. Then, once it has a foot in the door and gains traction amongst its massive user base, all Facebook has to do is wait until the current assortment of global governments and their respective central banks fail. At that stage it can remove the fiat currency backing (who will want it anyway), and let FacebookCoin free float. With the credibility of global governments and central banks in the toilet by then, Facebook and its corporate oligarch partners will be in a prime position to take over a sizable chunk of worldwide payments using their own currency. In other words, this appears to be a long-term scheme by elements of corporate oligarchy to position themselves as an unelected and unaccountable future sovereign power. All that said, I want to be clear about something. Just because the above represents a plausible scenario doesn’t mean it’ll work out that way. If enough people recognize the dangers of this scheme, it could very well be stopped in its tracks. In this regard, I want to highlight one of the biggest threats posed by a financial system run by a corporate oligarchy. For one thing, there’s the ever-present issue of censorship. I understand why many in the “crypto” world are fine with FacebookCoin since they see it as a threat to state power and control, but this is myopic in my view. Let’s not forget who is silencing the voices of Americans online in 2019. It’s not the state, but rather Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. If we allow these companies to gain control of payments, you can be sure the same sort of unaccountable blacklisting will follow in the world of transactions. Also, similar to what many of the tech giants have done with speech, Facebook could easily team up with governments or government linked deep-state type entities to stop transactions or freeze the accounts of “problematic” citizens. It would be a very convenient way to get around the rule of law in a place like the U.S., and would represent a perfect symbiotic relationship of tyranny between what could at that point be a vestigial state apparatus and empowered tech giant oligarchs. Ultimately, what’s going on here gets at the crux of everything I’m trying to discuss at Liberty Blitzkrieg. Namely, that the old world is dying and the most important thing that’ll occur over any of our lifetimes is the sort of world we create, or allow to be created, in its wake. The launching of FacebookCoin represents one segment of corporate oligarchy throwing its hat in the ring, and a very dangerous one at that given the already existing dominance of tech giants in the communications realm. From my perspective, communications and money are two aspects of human existence so fundamental to liberty they should remain as free and uninhibited as possible. To trust these things to a collection of billionaires and their corporations would represent the pinnacle of short-sightedness and insanity.
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