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China should decentralize weixin (wechat pay) which is already in massive use all across China. That would disrupt Libra.

by z33k 7y ago

varjag 7y ago
Decentralizing in this case also means losing control. Not on character for CCP.
mytailorisrich 7y ago
They are expending Wechat Pay outside of China. They don't need to decentralize it.
- baybal2 7y ago
  Not so successfully. Just like Unionpay, the network on foreign countries is separated from the mainland's Unionpay that goes through central back. Alipay account registered in Russia for example can be used in mainland China (with arbitrary blocks every time Alibaba runs out of Roubles,) but can't be used in Malaysia. HK Alipay is the only one where than has connection to both real Alipay and Alipay accs in other countries and somehow goes through the PBOC.
- rahimnathwani 7y ago
  Only Chinese citizens can pay with WeChat Pay outside China.
derefr 7y ago
You (should) mean centralize, not decentralize. The innovation of Libra is that having "100 major corporations mostly large enough to not be bossed around by governments" do consensus to run a USD stablecoin, is about as close as you can get in trustworthiness to having the American government itself run a USD stablecoin. But, despite being the next best thing, it's still strictly inferior. If the American government itself issued (minted?) a USD stablecoin, it would have an extra tool in its toolbelt that these corporations wouldn't: monetary policy. The American government would be free to inflate/deflate USD itself to control the tether of their stablecoin. (The probably wouldn't do that, but the fact that they can would keep the coin much more stable.) As well, they wouldn't have to hold any liquidity at all—they would just have the mint issue digital fiat US dollars (i.e. the cryptocurrency) in place of regular physical fiat US dollars it was planning to issue. All of which is to say, given that China doesn't have 100 major corporations large enough to not be beholden to the Chinese government, decentralizing an existing corporate digital currency would just be silly. But centralizing one into a Chinese-government-issued RMB stablecoin, would make complete sense.
- pessimizer 7y ago
  I've always thought this was inevitable. If there were a Chinese government coin that could be simply transferred peer-to-peer and we were absolutely sure would always be easily convertable (let's say the Chinese government started paying salaries in it, and had no possible way to embargo transfers, only taxing it in itself at a public, stable rate when it was converted to/from CNY), I think it would become the primary form of internet commerce within months. I'd certainly use it. There's got to be an easy way for a country with a strong, stable economy to make p2p fiat money transfers work.
- roenxi 7y ago
  > having the American government itself run a USD stablecoin. They could call it "The American Dollar". It is hard to forsee a practical difference between a government sponsored crypto and a regular currency. If the crypto couldn't inflate that would be pretty major, but governments can already do that with their own currencies and choose not to. If they had a crypto that technically was unable to increase supply, sooner or later (that is to say, sooner) they would replace it with a crypto that they could inflate Ditto near-instant, secure exchange with anyone in the world. It isn't like sub-minute network communication is a secret technology; the delays that exist are probably more to do with currency controls and regulatory compliance. It is meaningless to have a trustless distributed currency that is pegged to a large, untrustworthy centrally controlled currency. Its only purpose is to skirt around the edges of financial law. Governments do not support that.
  - derefr 7y ago
    > They could call it "The American Dollar". Yes, that is what I was suggesting—that the US Mint just mint USD as tokens into a blockchain's Central Bank account, instead of as greenbacks into a Central Bank's physical vaults. They're dollars either way. > It is hard to forsee a practical difference between a government sponsored crypto and a regular currency. I mean, yes, that's the point of stablecoins. > It is meaningless to have a trustless distributed currency that is pegged to a large, untrustworthy centrally controlled currency. No, it's not. A stablecoin is "a regular currency"—i.e. fiat money—and also a cryptocurrency—i.e. something that you can move around on a blockchain in fancy ways using smart contracts, with everything staying provable and deterministic such that mutually-distrusting parties (i.e. private citizens of countries that are at war with one-another) are forced to agree on what happened. > Its only purpose is to skirt around the edges of financial law. Governments do not support that. Have you been paying attention to what has been happening in the cryptocurrency space for the last two years? A whole infrastructure is being established to allow governments to regulate and control crypto instruments, like security tokens. Crypto companies (or, at least, the ones everyone's investing in now) are no longer attempting to work despite governments; instead, they're now attempting to take advantage of the properties blockchains give you (e.g. "money you can't sweep under the rug"; "contracts that execute automatically and can be proven to have executed"; etc.) while still allowing governments to butt into transactions. Essentially, the modern business-investor's interpretation of a blockchain is that it's just the same kind of thing as a securities exchange: a government-regulated platform making novel types of trades liquid by decreasing the costs of those trades. A blockchain is just a securities exchange with lower barriers-to-entry for developers of new types of tradable securities.

China should decentralize weixin (wechat pay) which is already in massive use all across China. That would disrupt Libra.

by z33k 7y ago

China should decentralize weixin (wechat pay) which is already in massive use all across China. That would disrupt Libra.

varjag 7y ago

Decentralizing in this case also means losing control. Not on character for CCP.

mytailorisrich 7y ago

They are expending Wechat Pay outside of China. They don't need to decentralize it.

baybal2 7y ago
Not so successfully. Just like Unionpay, the network on foreign countries is separated from the mainland's Unionpay that goes through central back. Alipay account registered in Russia for example can be used in mainland China (with arbitrary blocks every time Alibaba runs out of Roubles,) but can't be used in Malaysia. HK Alipay is the only one where than has connection to both real Alipay and Alipay accs in other countries and somehow goes through the PBOC.
rahimnathwani 7y ago
Only Chinese citizens can pay with WeChat Pay outside China.

derefr 7y ago

You (should) mean centralize, not decentralize. The innovation of Libra is that having "100 major corporations mostly large enough to not be bossed around by governments" do consensus to run a USD stablecoin, is about as close as you can get in trustworthiness to having the American government itself run a USD stablecoin. But, despite being the next best thing, it's still strictly inferior. If the American government itself issued (minted?) a USD stablecoin, it would have an extra tool in its toolbelt that these corporations wouldn't: monetary policy. The American government would be free to inflate/deflate USD itself to control the tether of their stablecoin. (The probably wouldn't do that, but the fact that they can would keep the coin much more stable.) As well, they wouldn't have to hold any liquidity at all—they would just have the mint issue digital fiat US dollars (i.e. the cryptocurrency) in place of regular physical fiat US dollars it was planning to issue. All of which is to say, given that China doesn't have 100 major corporations large enough to not be beholden to the Chinese government, decentralizing an existing corporate digital currency would just be silly. But centralizing one into a Chinese-government-issued RMB stablecoin, would make complete sense.

pessimizer 7y ago
I've always thought this was inevitable. If there were a Chinese government coin that could be simply transferred peer-to-peer and we were absolutely sure would always be easily convertable (let's say the Chinese government started paying salaries in it, and had no possible way to embargo transfers, only taxing it in itself at a public, stable rate when it was converted to/from CNY), I think it would become the primary form of internet commerce within months. I'd certainly use it. There's got to be an easy way for a country with a strong, stable economy to make p2p fiat money transfers work.
roenxi 7y ago
> having the American government itself run a USD stablecoin. They could call it "The American Dollar". It is hard to forsee a practical difference between a government sponsored crypto and a regular currency. If the crypto couldn't inflate that would be pretty major, but governments can already do that with their own currencies and choose not to. If they had a crypto that technically was unable to increase supply, sooner or later (that is to say, sooner) they would replace it with a crypto that they could inflate Ditto near-instant, secure exchange with anyone in the world. It isn't like sub-minute network communication is a secret technology; the delays that exist are probably more to do with currency controls and regulatory compliance. It is meaningless to have a trustless distributed currency that is pegged to a large, untrustworthy centrally controlled currency. Its only purpose is to skirt around the edges of financial law. Governments do not support that.
- derefr 7y ago
  > They could call it "The American Dollar". Yes, that is what I was suggesting—that the US Mint just mint USD as tokens into a blockchain's Central Bank account, instead of as greenbacks into a Central Bank's physical vaults. They're dollars either way. > It is hard to forsee a practical difference between a government sponsored crypto and a regular currency. I mean, yes, that's the point of stablecoins. > It is meaningless to have a trustless distributed currency that is pegged to a large, untrustworthy centrally controlled currency. No, it's not. A stablecoin is "a regular currency"—i.e. fiat money—and also a cryptocurrency—i.e. something that you can move around on a blockchain in fancy ways using smart contracts, with everything staying provable and deterministic such that mutually-distrusting parties (i.e. private citizens of countries that are at war with one-another) are forced to agree on what happened. > Its only purpose is to skirt around the edges of financial law. Governments do not support that. Have you been paying attention to what has been happening in the cryptocurrency space for the last two years? A whole infrastructure is being established to allow governments to regulate and control crypto instruments, like security tokens. Crypto companies (or, at least, the ones everyone's investing in now) are no longer attempting to work despite governments; instead, they're now attempting to take advantage of the properties blockchains give you (e.g. "money you can't sweep under the rug"; "contracts that execute automatically and can be proven to have executed"; etc.) while still allowing governments to butt into transactions. Essentially, the modern business-investor's interpretation of a blockchain is that it's just the same kind of thing as a securities exchange: a government-regulated platform making novel types of trades liquid by decreasing the costs of those trades. A blockchain is just a securities exchange with lower barriers-to-entry for developers of new types of tradable securities.