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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.

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.

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.