12 ms·

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

by 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...
- nroets 7y ago
  In South Africa, we still have capital controls. My mom earned dollars through PayPal. She couldn't spend it online and had to convert her earnings to Rand within 3 months. Bureaucrats will insist that the same rules apply to libra. India is even less ready for relaxing capital controls. They will tell Facebook to block libra for their citizens or be firewalled. No one is going to jail, but libra will not succeed there.
  - Abishek_Muthian 7y ago
    Talking of PayPal in India, money should be automatically remitted to the bank account immediately. At-least 3 months in SA sounds reasonable incase we have to process any refund, though I'm not trying to belittle the discomfort faced by your mother.
  - arisAlexis 7y ago
    that is why totally decentralised systems such as Bitcoin are important. Noone can firewall it
    - JOnAgain 7y ago
      Capital controls can be an important part of a monetary system. It’s not part of most western countries’ systems, but it’s a very valid tool with a real purpose.
    - NicoJuicy 7y ago
      And the people who aren't technical will forget their password. Since there is no centralized government, they lost their money. Source: wrote some articles on my own "media" website to try out SEO. Most popular article, how to recover Bitcoin password
- baby 7y ago
  > I don't hold any cryptocurrency due to its impact on energy Just to note, the impact of Libra on energy is very very light compared to the current banking system. It does not use proof of work.
IloveHN84 7y ago
You forgot about Apple coin on their credit card. Available at 999$ for the exchange rate.
- growtofill 7y ago
  Just enough to buy the monitor stand.
  - drusepth 7y ago
    Actually, not enough with tax. :(
  - neuronic 7y ago
    Pay $1200 for the card and get a monitor stand for free!
Bombthecat 7y ago
Yap,we will see way,way way more stable coins from a ton of different companies. Soon or later you will get paid in those ( probably not so stable coin anymore) The world reminds me more and more like the world in the book(s) of shadowrun, minus the magic stuff..really facinating...
anonymous5133 7y ago
Completely agree. Many people are thinking way too narrow for how big facebook is. Project libra will be the great equalizer and put everyone more or less on the same "economic playing field" so to speak. Since this community is heavily startup focused, everyone here should be thinking of how they can capitalize on this next frontier of the internet. The money isn't made by speculating on libra coin, it is made by creating innovative services/solutions.
feanaro 7y ago
What you're saying does make sense, but can we please not use this as an excuse not to know better? Maybe the citizens of some Spooky Third World country don't really have a choice due to their unique circumstances, but many of us do. Let's not use the Spooky Third World country as an argument for why the dominance of Libra is inevitable before it even starts existing. Let's not be so hasty to become a dystopian novel.
- on_and_off 7y ago
  Generally the word dystopian is overused, but Facebook in charge of a currency ? dystopian sounds like an euphemism.
esjeon 7y ago
> Basically turning them overnight into consumers, ripe for the picking. Well, credit cards are already too easy to use. Many services already save your credit card info, and you're already one or two clicks away from purchasing. Still, you normally don't buy anything that appears next to blog/SNS posts. But, I agree with that Facebook means really a lot here. Being a stable coin, Libra is much closer to a payment platform - like Visa, MasterCard and Papal - than other cryptocurrencies. Facebook can use its influence to push Libra into various platforms, and Libra can become a de-facto standard payment method in no time. However, governments will happily regulate transactions b/w countries, which will limit the potential of the coin. Libra is Swiss Bank 2.0 in some senses. > I foresee big media producing companies in the developed world to be the first to take advantage of this It can bring consumers in developing countries to the table, but those countries usually have slow connections, which leads to lower consumption of digital media. Distribution of the coin also can be a problem too. SWIFT is expensive, and fewer people have credit cards.
inopinatus 7y ago
In three years, Libra will be the largest single venue of public financial services. All branches of retail banks are upgraded with Libra teller machines, becoming fully distributed. Afterwards, they transact with a perfect operational record. The Blockchain Currency Bill is passed, replacing the dollar with Libra. The system goes online on August 4th, 2022. Human decisions are removed from central banking. Libra begins hashing at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware 2:14 AM, Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
- jraph 7y ago
  I love these comments. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18281465 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18281465 (context: "I really wonder what's going to happen to Linux once Linus is gone") We maybe should build a list of these. Dystopic answers to HN's unattended writting prompts, or something.
  - avip 7y ago
    No need to reinvent the wheel http://longbets.org/ http://longbets.org/
    - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
      http://longbets.org/785/ http://longbets.org/785/
nostrademons 7y ago
I predict that Libra will work for a while, but will eventually be overshadowed either by competitors or by the new markets that it enables. There's this pattern I've noticed where every major tech company, once initial traction has been established, gets three pivots. You can think of them as adolescence, mid-life, and rebirth. The first pivot happens when the company is 5-8 years old (since the 1970s at least; older before then), and serves to define the company. The System 360 for IBM, defining it as the provider of mainframes for enterprises. MS-DOS for Microsoft, defining it as the dominant PC OS. The Macintosh for Apple, defining it as the most user-friendly consumer brand out there. GMail and Maps for Google, defining it as the conglomerate of the Internet age. Mobile for Facebook, defining it as the service that connects people regardless of where they are. The second pivot happens when the company is 10-15, at the height of its dominance, and usually results from it entering the hottest new technology wave with a vengeance. It looks like it succeeds for a while, crushes early entrants, serves to legitimize that technology wave, but ultimately peters out as the company can't keep up with the changes that it introduces. The IBM PC for IBM, which legitimized the PC market but ultimately fell to clones. Internet Explorer for Microsoft, which legitimized the Internet but ultimately was eclipsed by Google's many products. The Newton for Apple, which legitimized the PDA market but ultimately was too early. Google+ for Google, which legitimized social networking but ultimately failed to gain traction. The third pivot is when the company realizes that they basically incapable of innovating, and returns to the roots they established with the first pivot to live out their old age. Open-source consulting for IBM, leveraging their massive installed base of enterprise customers. VS Code, XBox, and Azure for Microsoft, recognizing that they are fundamentally a platforms company. The iPhone and iPad for Apple, refocusing on their strengths in UX and delivering top-quality consumer electronics products. Alphabet for Google, realizing that they're fundamentally a conglomerate that lets a thousand flowers bloom (and cancels 990 of them). Libra is Facebook's second pivot. It'll look like it succeeds for a while, it'll legitimize cryptocurrency, but it'll ultimately end up eclipsed by what it creates.
- seymore_12 7y ago
  Cannot agree more. All Greek tragedies are based on hubris nemesis catharsis cycle. Unfortunately, many projects, companies nowadays skip the catharsis stage and jump to the next hubris.
throwaway287391 7y ago
> 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. This is the part I don't get. I thought we were talking about all-cash economies in regions with essentially no banking, but then you bring up "various financial institutions [...] in those regions". So is it that they have banks but just aren't using them? If so, what is it about FBCoin that's going to suddenly make such people want to go en masse to their bank to get them, if they didn't bother doing so to get all the security and additional payment options that a bank account already offered? (Pardon the ignorance, I'm genuinely trying to understand how this bootstrapping could work.)
- mekoka 7y ago
  Not all-cash, rather mostly cash. They do have banks, but think of banking as a luxury in those economies, not a commodity. They're for well established businesses and the rich. For everybody else, banks can be really tedious to deal with. So unless they have the means, people tend to just avoid the hassle. Even simply opening a bank account can be prohibitive, forget about getting a credit card, even prepaid. There's a variety of independent institutions that provide some services to fill the gaps. For example, telecom companies are often used as a medium to send money. There are also smaller, third-party or local financial service providers (formal and informal), that are more convenient for the short term, day-to-day way of life in these places. They can offer small loans, micro-financing, money transfer, and a number of other devices. And yes, currently they're the ones people generally go through to make purchases over the Internet. Fees are not always competitive. One typical approach people understand very well in a day-to-day economy is the preloaded cards. For small amounts (think 20$ or less) people can go to their telecom card provider and purchase some fbcoins. But that's not the hard part of the equation. The hard part is to get the other side (the developed world) to recognize the fbcoin. This is what's at play here and now. If Facebook can show to the world, "look, Netflix and YouTube can now take your money", they'd have won a huge part of the battle.
halukakin 7y ago
Fixed currencies would only hurt emerging economies. When the economy goes into crisis who will change the interest rates on those currencies and help the economy recover? No one.
tasssko 7y ago
The challenge with your predictions is they contain too many biases. Your worlds view is dominated by these companies so much that you think that is the only outcome. Libra is likely to validate existing crypto further because it is not financed or backed by commercial interests. Facebook doesn't create economies that is just marketing speak. If they did they would not rely so much on ads to fund the business. In an economy the facilitator gets paid from the transaction. My issue with Libra is it is a digital currency dressed up as crypto. That means it will be subjected to the same kinds of arbitrage opportunities you get from currency fluctuations and flows. Think of George Soros in the eighties kind of fluctuations. Right now I don't see the fuss with Libra or understand how the world will be better. All I see is marketing and PR. I guess this is the crypto calling card.
mimixco 7y ago
That scenario falls apart when the global poor don't have any money to buy FB coins, which they don't. Agreements with banks won't give the unbanked the free cash flow to play around with digital money or buy a bunch of stuff online. I think they whole issue of the unbanked is a ruse. Facebook stands to earn more here by trying to convert regular consumers away from PayPal and debit cards and charge them fees for exchanging in and out of Libra. They'll also invite regulation in crypto so they can be the only one who meets the regulatory requirements and shut out the others. It's an end run around crypto without being one itself.
deafcalculus 7y ago
Developing countries aren't going to be too happy about this. If a large number of a country's citizens adopt this, it forces that country to lose its independence over monetary policy. Since Libra is not controlled by the local government, this is not a fixed exchange rate regime, it's effectively dollarization and can have far reaching consequences. IMHO, the Libra is at the same time too ambitious (in aiming for full capital convertibility across nations) and too timid (in entirely giving up monetary independence). A libra-usd, Libra-euro, libra-inr, etc. which allows countries to retain monetary sovereignty would have been easier for governments to accept. But then, Facebook can't say it's a new currency and circumvent KYC and other local regulations. But who knows? Stranger things have happened. The euro is a currency without a state. Maybe the time has come for denationalizing money.
- halukakin 7y ago
  If it were to affect US economy adversely I think FED could chip in and have a say in Libra's direction. But other economies could be hurt by Libra's position. Personally I don't mind the monetary independence of countries. But real people could lose real jobs since their governments don't get a say in Libra's governance.
- mr_toad 7y ago
  If countries were printing money under fixed exchange rate regimes their economic policies are a joke anyway, all they’re going to accomplish is inflation. Libra and other digital currencies might make it easier for people to switch away from their local currency, but banning it won’t affect the underlying problems.
bob_paulson 7y ago
no privacy at all in Libra. We will lose our financial privacy. Better to use a privacy coin i.e Monero or better Mimblewimble's coins such as Grin but especially Beam.
- magnamerc 7y ago
  Or zkSNARKs/Nightfall on Ethereum.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ovi256 7y ago
>year after that, Google will announce that they're shutting theirs The line no one can disagree with.
koliber 7y ago
This is eye opening. Banking in many African economies came from an unexpected place: basic non-smart cell phones and the ability to transfer relatively small amounts of money quickly, reliably, and without a bank account. I can see Facebook leveraging its foothold in such economies and providing the same service. Wow.
- democracy 7y ago
  Are there many ways to use anything from FB on a non-smart phone with no internet?
  - koliber 7y ago
    I was making the point that banking innovation can come from surprising places, like dumb phones, or social networks.
rafiki6 7y ago
FB is going up against governments. I'm not sure they will win. Currency is one of a few key tools a government needs to control it's economy in many different ways. What I am loving about this though is that all of these experiments are forcing us to have a discussion about what a currency is and maybe even redefine money. Bitcoin didn't quite succeed in the way the creator imagined (at least what "he" publicly said was "his" goal). But it has succeeded as competitor to precious metals, and really made markets think about what a cryptocurrency means. Maybe this FB currency will eventually force us to have the hard conversation about what an electronic world wide currency truly means in practice and that's good.
simonebrunozzi 7y ago
First, I fully agree with your "crystal ball". It's fantastic, you should lend it to me sometimes :) Jokes apart, I think you're on point. Facebook's Libra will succeed. Amazon will try to compete with that, pending anti-trust fears. Google will try to have a shot at it and fail miserably. It will be super interesting to watch this space evolve.

by mekoka 7y ago

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...

nroets 7y ago
In South Africa, we still have capital controls. My mom earned dollars through PayPal. She couldn't spend it online and had to convert her earnings to Rand within 3 months. Bureaucrats will insist that the same rules apply to libra. India is even less ready for relaxing capital controls. They will tell Facebook to block libra for their citizens or be firewalled. No one is going to jail, but libra will not succeed there.
- Abishek_Muthian 7y ago
  Talking of PayPal in India, money should be automatically remitted to the bank account immediately. At-least 3 months in SA sounds reasonable incase we have to process any refund, though I'm not trying to belittle the discomfort faced by your mother.
- arisAlexis 7y ago
  that is why totally decentralised systems such as Bitcoin are important. Noone can firewall it
  - JOnAgain 7y ago
    Capital controls can be an important part of a monetary system. It’s not part of most western countries’ systems, but it’s a very valid tool with a real purpose.
  - NicoJuicy 7y ago
    And the people who aren't technical will forget their password. Since there is no centralized government, they lost their money. Source: wrote some articles on my own "media" website to try out SEO. Most popular article, how to recover Bitcoin password
baby 7y ago
> I don't hold any cryptocurrency due to its impact on energy Just to note, the impact of Libra on energy is very very light compared to the current banking system. It does not use proof of work.

IloveHN84 7y ago

You forgot about Apple coin on their credit card. Available at 999$ for the exchange rate.

growtofill 7y ago
Just enough to buy the monitor stand.
- drusepth 7y ago
  Actually, not enough with tax. :(
- neuronic 7y ago
  Pay $1200 for the card and get a monitor stand for free!

Bombthecat 7y ago

Yap,we will see way,way way more stable coins from a ton of different companies. Soon or later you will get paid in those ( probably not so stable coin anymore) The world reminds me more and more like the world in the book(s) of shadowrun, minus the magic stuff..really facinating...

anonymous5133 7y ago

Completely agree. Many people are thinking way too narrow for how big facebook is. Project libra will be the great equalizer and put everyone more or less on the same "economic playing field" so to speak. Since this community is heavily startup focused, everyone here should be thinking of how they can capitalize on this next frontier of the internet. The money isn't made by speculating on libra coin, it is made by creating innovative services/solutions.

feanaro 7y ago

What you're saying does make sense, but can we please not use this as an excuse not to know better? Maybe the citizens of some Spooky Third World country don't really have a choice due to their unique circumstances, but many of us do. Let's not use the Spooky Third World country as an argument for why the dominance of Libra is inevitable before it even starts existing. Let's not be so hasty to become a dystopian novel.

on_and_off 7y ago
Generally the word dystopian is overused, but Facebook in charge of a currency ? dystopian sounds like an euphemism.

esjeon 7y ago

> Basically turning them overnight into consumers, ripe for the picking. Well, credit cards are already too easy to use. Many services already save your credit card info, and you're already one or two clicks away from purchasing. Still, you normally don't buy anything that appears next to blog/SNS posts. But, I agree with that Facebook means really a lot here. Being a stable coin, Libra is much closer to a payment platform - like Visa, MasterCard and Papal - than other cryptocurrencies. Facebook can use its influence to push Libra into various platforms, and Libra can become a de-facto standard payment method in no time. However, governments will happily regulate transactions b/w countries, which will limit the potential of the coin. Libra is Swiss Bank 2.0 in some senses. > I foresee big media producing companies in the developed world to be the first to take advantage of this It can bring consumers in developing countries to the table, but those countries usually have slow connections, which leads to lower consumption of digital media. Distribution of the coin also can be a problem too. SWIFT is expensive, and fewer people have credit cards.

inopinatus 7y ago

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

jraph 7y ago
I love these comments. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18281465 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18281465 (context: "I really wonder what's going to happen to Linux once Linus is gone") We maybe should build a list of these. Dystopic answers to HN's unattended writting prompts, or something.
- avip 7y ago
  No need to reinvent the wheel http://longbets.org/ http://longbets.org/
  - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
    http://longbets.org/785/ http://longbets.org/785/

nostrademons 7y ago

I predict that Libra will work for a while, but will eventually be overshadowed either by competitors or by the new markets that it enables. There's this pattern I've noticed where every major tech company, once initial traction has been established, gets three pivots. You can think of them as adolescence, mid-life, and rebirth. The first pivot happens when the company is 5-8 years old (since the 1970s at least; older before then), and serves to define the company. The System 360 for IBM, defining it as the provider of mainframes for enterprises. MS-DOS for Microsoft, defining it as the dominant PC OS. The Macintosh for Apple, defining it as the most user-friendly consumer brand out there. GMail and Maps for Google, defining it as the conglomerate of the Internet age. Mobile for Facebook, defining it as the service that connects people regardless of where they are. The second pivot happens when the company is 10-15, at the height of its dominance, and usually results from it entering the hottest new technology wave with a vengeance. It looks like it succeeds for a while, crushes early entrants, serves to legitimize that technology wave, but ultimately peters out as the company can't keep up with the changes that it introduces. The IBM PC for IBM, which legitimized the PC market but ultimately fell to clones. Internet Explorer for Microsoft, which legitimized the Internet but ultimately was eclipsed by Google's many products. The Newton for Apple, which legitimized the PDA market but ultimately was too early. Google+ for Google, which legitimized social networking but ultimately failed to gain traction. The third pivot is when the company realizes that they basically incapable of innovating, and returns to the roots they established with the first pivot to live out their old age. Open-source consulting for IBM, leveraging their massive installed base of enterprise customers. VS Code, XBox, and Azure for Microsoft, recognizing that they are fundamentally a platforms company. The iPhone and iPad for Apple, refocusing on their strengths in UX and delivering top-quality consumer electronics products. Alphabet for Google, realizing that they're fundamentally a conglomerate that lets a thousand flowers bloom (and cancels 990 of them). Libra is Facebook's second pivot. It'll look like it succeeds for a while, it'll legitimize cryptocurrency, but it'll ultimately end up eclipsed by what it creates.

seymore_12 7y ago
Cannot agree more. All Greek tragedies are based on hubris nemesis catharsis cycle. Unfortunately, many projects, companies nowadays skip the catharsis stage and jump to the next hubris.

throwaway287391 7y ago

> 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. This is the part I don't get. I thought we were talking about all-cash economies in regions with essentially no banking, but then you bring up "various financial institutions [...] in those regions". So is it that they have banks but just aren't using them? If so, what is it about FBCoin that's going to suddenly make such people want to go en masse to their bank to get them, if they didn't bother doing so to get all the security and additional payment options that a bank account already offered? (Pardon the ignorance, I'm genuinely trying to understand how this bootstrapping could work.)

mekoka 7y ago
Not all-cash, rather mostly cash. They do have banks, but think of banking as a luxury in those economies, not a commodity. They're for well established businesses and the rich. For everybody else, banks can be really tedious to deal with. So unless they have the means, people tend to just avoid the hassle. Even simply opening a bank account can be prohibitive, forget about getting a credit card, even prepaid. There's a variety of independent institutions that provide some services to fill the gaps. For example, telecom companies are often used as a medium to send money. There are also smaller, third-party or local financial service providers (formal and informal), that are more convenient for the short term, day-to-day way of life in these places. They can offer small loans, micro-financing, money transfer, and a number of other devices. And yes, currently they're the ones people generally go through to make purchases over the Internet. Fees are not always competitive. One typical approach people understand very well in a day-to-day economy is the preloaded cards. For small amounts (think 20$ or less) people can go to their telecom card provider and purchase some fbcoins. But that's not the hard part of the equation. The hard part is to get the other side (the developed world) to recognize the fbcoin. This is what's at play here and now. If Facebook can show to the world, "look, Netflix and YouTube can now take your money", they'd have won a huge part of the battle.

halukakin 7y ago

Fixed currencies would only hurt emerging economies. When the economy goes into crisis who will change the interest rates on those currencies and help the economy recover? No one.

tasssko 7y ago

The challenge with your predictions is they contain too many biases. Your worlds view is dominated by these companies so much that you think that is the only outcome. Libra is likely to validate existing crypto further because it is not financed or backed by commercial interests. Facebook doesn't create economies that is just marketing speak. If they did they would not rely so much on ads to fund the business. In an economy the facilitator gets paid from the transaction. My issue with Libra is it is a digital currency dressed up as crypto. That means it will be subjected to the same kinds of arbitrage opportunities you get from currency fluctuations and flows. Think of George Soros in the eighties kind of fluctuations. Right now I don't see the fuss with Libra or understand how the world will be better. All I see is marketing and PR. I guess this is the crypto calling card.

mimixco 7y ago

That scenario falls apart when the global poor don't have any money to buy FB coins, which they don't. Agreements with banks won't give the unbanked the free cash flow to play around with digital money or buy a bunch of stuff online. I think they whole issue of the unbanked is a ruse. Facebook stands to earn more here by trying to convert regular consumers away from PayPal and debit cards and charge them fees for exchanging in and out of Libra. They'll also invite regulation in crypto so they can be the only one who meets the regulatory requirements and shut out the others. It's an end run around crypto without being one itself.

deafcalculus 7y ago

Developing countries aren't going to be too happy about this. If a large number of a country's citizens adopt this, it forces that country to lose its independence over monetary policy. Since Libra is not controlled by the local government, this is not a fixed exchange rate regime, it's effectively dollarization and can have far reaching consequences. IMHO, the Libra is at the same time too ambitious (in aiming for full capital convertibility across nations) and too timid (in entirely giving up monetary independence). A libra-usd, Libra-euro, libra-inr, etc. which allows countries to retain monetary sovereignty would have been easier for governments to accept. But then, Facebook can't say it's a new currency and circumvent KYC and other local regulations. But who knows? Stranger things have happened. The euro is a currency without a state. Maybe the time has come for denationalizing money.

halukakin 7y ago
If it were to affect US economy adversely I think FED could chip in and have a say in Libra's direction. But other economies could be hurt by Libra's position. Personally I don't mind the monetary independence of countries. But real people could lose real jobs since their governments don't get a say in Libra's governance.
mr_toad 7y ago
If countries were printing money under fixed exchange rate regimes their economic policies are a joke anyway, all they’re going to accomplish is inflation. Libra and other digital currencies might make it easier for people to switch away from their local currency, but banning it won’t affect the underlying problems.

bob_paulson 7y ago

no privacy at all in Libra. We will lose our financial privacy. Better to use a privacy coin i.e Monero or better Mimblewimble's coins such as Grin but especially Beam.

magnamerc 7y ago
Or zkSNARKs/Nightfall on Ethereum.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

ovi256 7y ago

>year after that, Google will announce that they're shutting theirs The line no one can disagree with.

koliber 7y ago

This is eye opening. Banking in many African economies came from an unexpected place: basic non-smart cell phones and the ability to transfer relatively small amounts of money quickly, reliably, and without a bank account. I can see Facebook leveraging its foothold in such economies and providing the same service. Wow.

democracy 7y ago
Are there many ways to use anything from FB on a non-smart phone with no internet?
- koliber 7y ago
  I was making the point that banking innovation can come from surprising places, like dumb phones, or social networks.

rafiki6 7y ago

FB is going up against governments. I'm not sure they will win. Currency is one of a few key tools a government needs to control it's economy in many different ways. What I am loving about this though is that all of these experiments are forcing us to have a discussion about what a currency is and maybe even redefine money. Bitcoin didn't quite succeed in the way the creator imagined (at least what "he" publicly said was "his" goal). But it has succeeded as competitor to precious metals, and really made markets think about what a cryptocurrency means. Maybe this FB currency will eventually force us to have the hard conversation about what an electronic world wide currency truly means in practice and that's good.

simonebrunozzi 7y ago

First, I fully agree with your "crystal ball". It's fantastic, you should lend it to me sometimes :) Jokes apart, I think you're on point. Facebook's Libra will succeed. Amazon will try to compete with that, pending anti-trust fears. Google will try to have a shot at it and fail miserably. It will be super interesting to watch this space evolve.