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It looks like a misstep followed by a hasty and ignominious retreat because thats exactly what happened - no one anticipated the reaction from lawmakers and rul

It looks like a misstep followed by a hasty and ignominious retreat because thats exactly what happened - no one anticipated the reaction from lawmakers and rules agencies. Its kind of hard to see this from the perspective of people who follow tech and HN, but Libra really may have been the first occasion that the possibility of crypto as anything other than an investment instrument - e.g. an actual usage as currency - penetrated the awareness of top national political leadership. Yes the ICO's got some attention but in many ways that attention seemed to suggest that crypto would be tolerated. And probably it will be, as long as it is simply another category of asset. It will not be tolerated as currency, and governments will destroy any crypto that threatens to become one. For now, BTC is safe because its usage as a currency is minuscule and threatens no one. If it were to become successful, it will be destroyed. I've always known that was a possibility but now I'm sure of it.

Barrin92 7y ago
>no one anticipated the reaction from lawmakers and rules agencies. if that's really the case at the Facebook headquarters they need to do some soul searching about how in touch they are with the world at large. Because when I read that the biggest social network on the planet is going to try to introduce its own currency it took me and I think a lot of other people exactly two seconds to figure out that Uncle Sam and the EU would have none of it.
- jeremyjh 7y ago
  Why would Visa, Mastercard and others agree to participate if they believed it was doomed in this way? I do not think it was nearly so obvious as you suggest. The way rules agencies had treated crypto so far looked accommodating.
  - Swenrekcah 7y ago
    I think there are two strategic reasons for joining even if they believed it was doomed. 1. Like someone said above, know your enemy. 2. In the 0.1% offchance that it took off they really don’t want to be left out.
  - notahacker 7y ago
    When you're at Visa and Mastercard scale you can happily spend the relatively tiny amount of money and man hours on something you're 99.9% sure isn't an existential threat to your business, just to have that warning and that hedge... and that ability to propose that Libra follows exactly the same expensive compliance processes they do to guarantee it doesn't have an edge on transaction costs.
  - SI_Rob 7y ago
    I spent a couple years in the DC blockchain scene. If my experience is anything to go by, the answer has a lot to do with how much of the technical expertise in this space is concentrated behind a screen consisting of a relative handful of self-declared consultants. These characters (many with Deloitte on their biz cards) prowl the power hangouts of DC to talk up how great crypto is, while handing out free samples to every midlevel policy wonk they can get beer time with. This has been going on for years and I see Libra as the first major attempt to capitalize on this ground game. These wonks then make all the right favorable noises when queried by the FBs and VISAs of the world about the posture of the agencies, organizations, departments and NGOs they work for regarding crypto. As there's little to no in-group tolerance for critical introspection, there's correspondingly little to no collective power of seeing how this all looks from the outside. It's a tight mutual feedback loop, twisted into hysteresis because everyone except the general public stands to gain from telling each other that the regulatory coast is clear.
  - SomeOldThrow 7y ago
    Hope. Media backlash is free.
mtgx 7y ago
It's not just that lawmakers were against it - it's that most of the so-called "vocal minority" and Facebook's loss of goodwill with users meant that there was nobody left to stand up for them against those lawmakers. Companies like Google and Facebook abuse their users' trust and goodwill for years and years, thinking they will take it and nothing bad will come out of it while they shower in billions of dollars every year. But eventually something bad will happen and there will find they have zero allies, making them much easier targets. This is also why the new antitrust cases and talks about breaking them apart have popped up lately - these companies are no longer the "Internet's darlings" -- they had that and they decided to piss all over it with their anti-user actions over the years.
SomeOldThrow 7y ago
A more accurate term than “crypto” would be “private currency”. It offers very few of the benefits other cryptocurrencies offer (to non capitalists) except for resilience to the failure of a single state issued currency. “Crypto” is a complete red herring.
hos234 7y ago
So you are saying Facebook should declare itself as a (virtual) country and then try?
biolurker1 7y ago
Imagine FB announcing plans to drop Libra and work with Bitcoin because it cannot be crushed
kebman 7y ago
I think your view is very interesting. How does one go about destroying a threat to the current currency system?
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> no one anticipated the reaction from lawmakers and rules agencies Everyone should have anticipated that reaction. Finance is filled with smart people trying to pull fast ones. Regulators and lawmakers are sensitive to being blindsided, moreso with anti-money laundering. The moment I saw the announcement I knew they screwed up. So did everyone in D.C. who isn’t selling blockchain consulting. It was hamfistedly introduced by the wrong people (Facebook) at the wrong time.
- repolfx 7y ago
  That's a very D.C. mentality. In law there isn't meant to be a "wrong people" or "wrong time". Either something is illegal, or it's not. But the rule of law is very weak these days, especially given the huge bloat of regulations on the book in America related to AML.

Barrin92 7y ago

>no one anticipated the reaction from lawmakers and rules agencies. if that's really the case at the Facebook headquarters they need to do some soul searching about how in touch they are with the world at large. Because when I read that the biggest social network on the planet is going to try to introduce its own currency it took me and I think a lot of other people exactly two seconds to figure out that Uncle Sam and the EU would have none of it.

jeremyjh 7y ago
Why would Visa, Mastercard and others agree to participate if they believed it was doomed in this way? I do not think it was nearly so obvious as you suggest. The way rules agencies had treated crypto so far looked accommodating.
- Swenrekcah 7y ago
  I think there are two strategic reasons for joining even if they believed it was doomed. 1. Like someone said above, know your enemy. 2. In the 0.1% offchance that it took off they really don’t want to be left out.
- notahacker 7y ago
  When you're at Visa and Mastercard scale you can happily spend the relatively tiny amount of money and man hours on something you're 99.9% sure isn't an existential threat to your business, just to have that warning and that hedge... and that ability to propose that Libra follows exactly the same expensive compliance processes they do to guarantee it doesn't have an edge on transaction costs.
- SI_Rob 7y ago
  I spent a couple years in the DC blockchain scene. If my experience is anything to go by, the answer has a lot to do with how much of the technical expertise in this space is concentrated behind a screen consisting of a relative handful of self-declared consultants. These characters (many with Deloitte on their biz cards) prowl the power hangouts of DC to talk up how great crypto is, while handing out free samples to every midlevel policy wonk they can get beer time with. This has been going on for years and I see Libra as the first major attempt to capitalize on this ground game. These wonks then make all the right favorable noises when queried by the FBs and VISAs of the world about the posture of the agencies, organizations, departments and NGOs they work for regarding crypto. As there's little to no in-group tolerance for critical introspection, there's correspondingly little to no collective power of seeing how this all looks from the outside. It's a tight mutual feedback loop, twisted into hysteresis because everyone except the general public stands to gain from telling each other that the regulatory coast is clear.
- SomeOldThrow 7y ago
  Hope. Media backlash is free.

mtgx 7y ago

It's not just that lawmakers were against it - it's that most of the so-called "vocal minority" and Facebook's loss of goodwill with users meant that there was nobody left to stand up for them against those lawmakers. Companies like Google and Facebook abuse their users' trust and goodwill for years and years, thinking they will take it and nothing bad will come out of it while they shower in billions of dollars every year. But eventually something bad will happen and there will find they have zero allies, making them much easier targets. This is also why the new antitrust cases and talks about breaking them apart have popped up lately - these companies are no longer the "Internet's darlings" -- they had that and they decided to piss all over it with their anti-user actions over the years.

SomeOldThrow 7y ago

A more accurate term than “crypto” would be “private currency”. It offers very few of the benefits other cryptocurrencies offer (to non capitalists) except for resilience to the failure of a single state issued currency. “Crypto” is a complete red herring.

hos234 7y ago

So you are saying Facebook should declare itself as a (virtual) country and then try?

biolurker1 7y ago

Imagine FB announcing plans to drop Libra and work with Bitcoin because it cannot be crushed

kebman 7y ago

I think your view is very interesting. How does one go about destroying a threat to the current currency system?

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> no one anticipated the reaction from lawmakers and rules agencies Everyone should have anticipated that reaction. Finance is filled with smart people trying to pull fast ones. Regulators and lawmakers are sensitive to being blindsided, moreso with anti-money laundering. The moment I saw the announcement I knew they screwed up. So did everyone in D.C. who isn’t selling blockchain consulting. It was hamfistedly introduced by the wrong people (Facebook) at the wrong time.

repolfx 7y ago
That's a very D.C. mentality. In law there isn't meant to be a "wrong people" or "wrong time". Either something is illegal, or it's not. But the rule of law is very weak these days, especially given the huge bloat of regulations on the book in America related to AML.