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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 JPMorganCryptoc

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.
  - Zyst 7y ago
    Git comes to mind as well, I can go to Bitbucket or Gitlab and upload my repository with its full history in seconds. Or my own self-hosted repository if I wanted. I don't agree with grandparent for what it's worth, just thought this might work as a reply to your question.
- grey-area 7y ago
  Bitcoin doesn’t fulfil these criteria either - the devs and miners have not become more decentralised over time, if anything more centralised. Of course it is far more decentralised than this ersatz cryptocurrency from Facebook in both spirit and actions. However the number of people who want a decentralised currency (with the many, many compromises it requires) is globally very close to 0%, so despite wailing on HN about the true meaning of cryptocurrency, this is not a reason to oppose this Facebook coin. There are much more pressing ones to oppose it IMO - handing control of your transactions and/or finances to an org as amoral and duplicitous as Facebook, or indeed to any global corporation or cabal thereof, is a very scary idea. I sincerely hope this dystopian effort to impose a global corporate currency fails.
  - um_ya 7y ago
    > I sincerely hope this dystopian effort to impose a global corporate currency fails. By extension, I hope the effort to impose a global governmental currency fails.
ilaksh 7y ago
Correct. Libra coin is backed by Visa. The whole point of cryptocurrency to avoid having to go through middlemen like Visa or even require banks. This is a way for the intermediaries to cash in on the cryptocurrency hype and squash it before cryptocurrency payments become mainstream. They want to insert their own thing that looks like a cryptocurrency but will allow them to continue to profit from and control the exchange of money. It will become a central point of control by providing many governments a convenient one-stop shop for their spying and interference over people's business.
- imaginator 7y ago
  This sounds like AOL in 1997 saying "We are the Internet", when the real internet was accessed using Netscape.
- wmf 7y ago
  If Libra ends up with 10x more users than all other cryptocurrencies combined, who are you to say what the point is? The existing cryptocurrency space has spent a decade building something that a relatively small number of people are really passionate about but it's the opposite of what the masses want.
  - ilaksh 7y ago
    In my opinion, the main thing holding back cryptocurrency is scalability. They are working on that. The other thing is just social momentum. Popularity and merit are two completely different things. It waxes and wanes. The masses will adopt anything that is convenient and popular (regardless of whether its really great or not). Look at the #1 Billboard song right now. "Old Town Road". This is the most popular song. Its "what the masses want". What's it about? "Can't nobody tell me nothin'" "Cheated on my baby" "Cowboy hat from Gucci".. Its teenage defiance, materialism, and "macho" unfaithfulness. What happens to be popular right now might mean something important, but it also might just be garbage as usual. (By the way, at the moment, it is popular for humans to create literal mountains of actual garbage.) The people who created cryptocurrency said what the point was. Its to give us control over our digital money and remove the intermediaries. People who know better should strive to make things that are worthwhile more popular.
0xDEFC0DE 7y ago
Can you explain why the ledger being run by ~27 different entities is NOT decentralized? How many governing entities (or validators; or people running blockchain servers) do you need before it qualifies as decentralized? I'm wondering about your definitions, not defending Facebook here.
- pgeorgi 7y ago
  In other contexts "split up between a group of folks" (that may be open to newcomers or not) is sometimes called "federated", while "everybody has (theoretically) a voice in the outcome" would be "decentralized". In bitcoin, everybody has a chance to voice their opinion on what the ledger should look like (nevermind how miniscule it is these days given warehouses full of ASIC miners). Libra has 27 designated peers, and somebody in that group gets to decide about number 28 (and, potentially, about the other 26).
  - camjohnson26 7y ago
    And those ASIC miners serve a purpose, it becomes much harder for a state sponsored actor to develop more efficient mining technology to attack the network. And the miners who run the ASICS are the ones with the highest incentive to keep the network running strong.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  It's a self-imposed hegemony. Bitcoin is controlled by the consensus of all users. LIBOR was "decentralized". Then we found out that they were all colluding together.
- jpmattia 7y ago
  > Can you explain why the ledger being run by ~27 different entities is NOT decentralized? 27 entities? Not decentralized. $10M fee to run a node? Not decentralized. Anyone can run a node from their computer? Decentralized. Blockchain validity is determined by mass consensus? Decentralized. 51% of the hash power is considered an attack rather than a feature of the system? Decentralized. Edit: Removed item about forking. That's probably more about decentralized governance than decentralized currency.
buboard 7y ago
The key here is the ability to exchange it for other coins. If Libra partners can block exchanges, they will use that power as soon as they are requested to by regulators.
pelasaco 7y ago
I thought a cryptocurrency was a currency using cryptography to solve some basic issues related with trust.
miohtama 7y ago
Libra is a attempt to cut out issuer banks, as in credit cars issuance, out of the equation. That is why Visa/PayPal/Mastercard are on the board. It is less fees for the consumers, definitely better UX, and in a sense relief from the legacy banking woes.
- wavefunction 7y ago
  And more importantly for them Visa/Pay Pal/Mastercard aren't outflanked by their own competitors. There's little noble to this endeavor by these characters.
tim333 7y ago
>“JPM Coin,” a digital token that will be used to instantly settle transactions between clients of its wholesale payments business. JPM is for internal use. ZuckBucks I can transfer from my anon address to your address by signing with my private key.
andrewla 7y ago
The thing that separates this from a bank database is a small thing, but important, and that's that even the bank cannot reduce your balance in secret without your authorization, since transactions are signed and the ledger is public. That's because of the cryptographic primitives used. I think in the end we have to accept that taxonomies are going to have rough edges because the map is not the territory. With Bitcoin as the canonical cryptocurrency there have been a number of experiments that have removed or added guarantees. A distributed, verifiable, immutable chain of history is basically git with a couple of extra features, so the lines are necessarily blurry. Rather than arguing semantics, the main questions are to what degree it is censorship-proof, permissionless, and scarce. The third one is the one that is least clear from the description and whitepaper. It sounds like they're trying to get the first two as well, but the designation of initial stakeholders might make that tricky until they can transition to proof-of-stake.
- ThrustVectoring 7y ago
  >the bank cannot reduce your balance in secret without your authorization, since transactions are signed and the ledger is public This capability is pretty pointless when the bank can indefinitely suspend your ability to make transactions. The ability to block transactions is an essential part of compliance with anti-money-laundering and other banking regulations.
  - jpmattia 7y ago
    > This capability is pretty pointless when the bank can indefinitely suspend your ability to make transactions. You beat me to it: Having cryptographically signed transactions simply does not matter when you have to submit the transaction to what Zuck calls a "validator". The validator will just refuse to validate if your address is on a blacklist. The net effect is that the coins are frozen. And since this is a backed currency, the backing will then be reduced by the amount corresponding to the frozen coins. This has the exact effect of lessening a user's balance. Naming it "Byzantine Consensus" in their white paper turns out to be surprisingly apropos.
    - 7y ago
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> Zuckbucks are nothing more than the JPMorganCryptocurrency It’s a shadow bank. Hedge funds did it in 2007. Facebook is doing it in 2019. Same schtick, new faces.
- ChainOfFools 7y ago
  Gotta hide that inflation somewhere! /s that's a shadow /s
cryptica 7y ago
It is kind of decentralized in the sense that no single company can manipulate the ledger but it's definitely not decentralized in terms of wealth ownership.
colechristensen 7y ago
JP Morgan's is for people who trust JPM because JPM has a strong vested interest to be on their side. Morgan's product is money and moving it around. Facebook's product is you.
kristianc 7y ago
That's a good thing for Facebook then - most normal consumers haven't the foggiest idea about crypto. Most consumers will care about, in this order, 1. Is my money at risk if I use it? 2. What's the cost? Whether it's federated, decentralized or 'real crypto' is 98, 99 and 100 on most people's list of concerns.
hjk05 7y ago
True, but the significant difference is that banks are not allowed to print dollar bills without control(they do print bills effectively but with controls). Similarly they aren’t allowed to just start putting credits on people’s credit cards while keeping a separate database to track real vs their issues credits. But if that separate database is a distributed blockchain based database suddenly they are allowed to do this...
adrianmonk 7y ago
I think your point would be better made by not focusing on the terminology. The way I would define the term "cryptocurrency", Libra Coin would qualify since it uses a blockchain and cryptography. And transactions must be validated by multiple different parties (validators). Your objection seems to be related to something like openness, i.e. who is allowed to become a validator. In other words, within cryptocurrencies, there are two categories. They could be called, say, open and invite-only. Libra is invite-only, which you don't think is a good setup. That's the real objection, not that it isn't distributed and not that it isn't a cryptocurrency.

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.
- Zyst 7y ago
  Git comes to mind as well, I can go to Bitbucket or Gitlab and upload my repository with its full history in seconds. Or my own self-hosted repository if I wanted. I don't agree with grandparent for what it's worth, just thought this might work as a reply to your question.
grey-area 7y ago
Bitcoin doesn’t fulfil these criteria either - the devs and miners have not become more decentralised over time, if anything more centralised. Of course it is far more decentralised than this ersatz cryptocurrency from Facebook in both spirit and actions. However the number of people who want a decentralised currency (with the many, many compromises it requires) is globally very close to 0%, so despite wailing on HN about the true meaning of cryptocurrency, this is not a reason to oppose this Facebook coin. There are much more pressing ones to oppose it IMO - handing control of your transactions and/or finances to an org as amoral and duplicitous as Facebook, or indeed to any global corporation or cabal thereof, is a very scary idea. I sincerely hope this dystopian effort to impose a global corporate currency fails.
- um_ya 7y ago
  > I sincerely hope this dystopian effort to impose a global corporate currency fails. By extension, I hope the effort to impose a global governmental currency fails.

ilaksh 7y ago

Correct. Libra coin is backed by Visa. The whole point of cryptocurrency to avoid having to go through middlemen like Visa or even require banks. This is a way for the intermediaries to cash in on the cryptocurrency hype and squash it before cryptocurrency payments become mainstream. They want to insert their own thing that looks like a cryptocurrency but will allow them to continue to profit from and control the exchange of money. It will become a central point of control by providing many governments a convenient one-stop shop for their spying and interference over people's business.

imaginator 7y ago
This sounds like AOL in 1997 saying "We are the Internet", when the real internet was accessed using Netscape.
wmf 7y ago
If Libra ends up with 10x more users than all other cryptocurrencies combined, who are you to say what the point is? The existing cryptocurrency space has spent a decade building something that a relatively small number of people are really passionate about but it's the opposite of what the masses want.
- ilaksh 7y ago
  In my opinion, the main thing holding back cryptocurrency is scalability. They are working on that. The other thing is just social momentum. Popularity and merit are two completely different things. It waxes and wanes. The masses will adopt anything that is convenient and popular (regardless of whether its really great or not). Look at the #1 Billboard song right now. "Old Town Road". This is the most popular song. Its "what the masses want". What's it about? "Can't nobody tell me nothin'" "Cheated on my baby" "Cowboy hat from Gucci".. Its teenage defiance, materialism, and "macho" unfaithfulness. What happens to be popular right now might mean something important, but it also might just be garbage as usual. (By the way, at the moment, it is popular for humans to create literal mountains of actual garbage.) The people who created cryptocurrency said what the point was. Its to give us control over our digital money and remove the intermediaries. People who know better should strive to make things that are worthwhile more popular.

0xDEFC0DE 7y ago

Can you explain why the ledger being run by ~27 different entities is NOT decentralized? How many governing entities (or validators; or people running blockchain servers) do you need before it qualifies as decentralized? I'm wondering about your definitions, not defending Facebook here.

pgeorgi 7y ago
In other contexts "split up between a group of folks" (that may be open to newcomers or not) is sometimes called "federated", while "everybody has (theoretically) a voice in the outcome" would be "decentralized". In bitcoin, everybody has a chance to voice their opinion on what the ledger should look like (nevermind how miniscule it is these days given warehouses full of ASIC miners). Libra has 27 designated peers, and somebody in that group gets to decide about number 28 (and, potentially, about the other 26).
- camjohnson26 7y ago
  And those ASIC miners serve a purpose, it becomes much harder for a state sponsored actor to develop more efficient mining technology to attack the network. And the miners who run the ASICS are the ones with the highest incentive to keep the network running strong.
kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
It's a self-imposed hegemony. Bitcoin is controlled by the consensus of all users. LIBOR was "decentralized". Then we found out that they were all colluding together.
jpmattia 7y ago
> Can you explain why the ledger being run by ~27 different entities is NOT decentralized? 27 entities? Not decentralized. $10M fee to run a node? Not decentralized. Anyone can run a node from their computer? Decentralized. Blockchain validity is determined by mass consensus? Decentralized. 51% of the hash power is considered an attack rather than a feature of the system? Decentralized. Edit: Removed item about forking. That's probably more about decentralized governance than decentralized currency.

buboard 7y ago

The key here is the ability to exchange it for other coins. If Libra partners can block exchanges, they will use that power as soon as they are requested to by regulators.

pelasaco 7y ago

I thought a cryptocurrency was a currency using cryptography to solve some basic issues related with trust.

miohtama 7y ago

Libra is a attempt to cut out issuer banks, as in credit cars issuance, out of the equation. That is why Visa/PayPal/Mastercard are on the board. It is less fees for the consumers, definitely better UX, and in a sense relief from the legacy banking woes.

wavefunction 7y ago
And more importantly for them Visa/Pay Pal/Mastercard aren't outflanked by their own competitors. There's little noble to this endeavor by these characters.

tim333 7y ago

>“JPM Coin,” a digital token that will be used to instantly settle transactions between clients of its wholesale payments business. JPM is for internal use. ZuckBucks I can transfer from my anon address to your address by signing with my private key.

andrewla 7y ago

The thing that separates this from a bank database is a small thing, but important, and that's that even the bank cannot reduce your balance in secret without your authorization, since transactions are signed and the ledger is public. That's because of the cryptographic primitives used. I think in the end we have to accept that taxonomies are going to have rough edges because the map is not the territory. With Bitcoin as the canonical cryptocurrency there have been a number of experiments that have removed or added guarantees. A distributed, verifiable, immutable chain of history is basically git with a couple of extra features, so the lines are necessarily blurry. Rather than arguing semantics, the main questions are to what degree it is censorship-proof, permissionless, and scarce. The third one is the one that is least clear from the description and whitepaper. It sounds like they're trying to get the first two as well, but the designation of initial stakeholders might make that tricky until they can transition to proof-of-stake.

ThrustVectoring 7y ago
>the bank cannot reduce your balance in secret without your authorization, since transactions are signed and the ledger is public This capability is pretty pointless when the bank can indefinitely suspend your ability to make transactions. The ability to block transactions is an essential part of compliance with anti-money-laundering and other banking regulations.
- jpmattia 7y ago
  > This capability is pretty pointless when the bank can indefinitely suspend your ability to make transactions. You beat me to it: Having cryptographically signed transactions simply does not matter when you have to submit the transaction to what Zuck calls a "validator". The validator will just refuse to validate if your address is on a blacklist. The net effect is that the coins are frozen. And since this is a backed currency, the backing will then be reduced by the amount corresponding to the frozen coins. This has the exact effect of lessening a user's balance. Naming it "Byzantine Consensus" in their white paper turns out to be surprisingly apropos.
  - 7y ago

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> Zuckbucks are nothing more than the JPMorganCryptocurrency It’s a shadow bank. Hedge funds did it in 2007. Facebook is doing it in 2019. Same schtick, new faces.

ChainOfFools 7y ago
Gotta hide that inflation somewhere! /s that's a shadow /s

cryptica 7y ago

It is kind of decentralized in the sense that no single company can manipulate the ledger but it's definitely not decentralized in terms of wealth ownership.

colechristensen 7y ago

JP Morgan's is for people who trust JPM because JPM has a strong vested interest to be on their side. Morgan's product is money and moving it around. Facebook's product is you.

kristianc 7y ago

That's a good thing for Facebook then - most normal consumers haven't the foggiest idea about crypto. Most consumers will care about, in this order, 1. Is my money at risk if I use it? 2. What's the cost? Whether it's federated, decentralized or 'real crypto' is 98, 99 and 100 on most people's list of concerns.

hjk05 7y ago

True, but the significant difference is that banks are not allowed to print dollar bills without control(they do print bills effectively but with controls). Similarly they aren’t allowed to just start putting credits on people’s credit cards while keeping a separate database to track real vs their issues credits. But if that separate database is a distributed blockchain based database suddenly they are allowed to do this...

adrianmonk 7y ago

I think your point would be better made by not focusing on the terminology. The way I would define the term "cryptocurrency", Libra Coin would qualify since it uses a blockchain and cryptography. And transactions must be validated by multiple different parties (validators). Your objection seems to be related to something like openness, i.e. who is allowed to become a validator. In other words, within cryptocurrencies, there are two categories. They could be called, say, open and invite-only. Libra is invite-only, which you don't think is a good setup. That's the real objection, not that it isn't distributed and not that it isn't a cryptocurrency.