19 ms·

Diem – A rebrand of Facebook’s Libra

235 points by obilgic 6y ago

PedroBatista 6y ago
Whims of an amoral and decadent empire.
marcinzm 6y ago
Are they rebranding because of bad publicity?
- e_carra 6y ago
  It was my first thought! Maybe.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- flixic 6y ago
  Yes. They never say it outright, but this is the way their PR statement begins: "The Libra Association announces the adoption of a new name and the recruitment of key executives, reinforcing its organizational independence. Now transitioning to the name “Diem”, which denotes a new day for the project, the Diem Association will continue to pursue a mission of building a safe, secure and compliant payment system that empowers people and businesses around the world." https://www.diem.com/en-us/updates/diem-association/ https://www.diem.com/en-us/updates/diem-association/
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
zelphirkalt 6y ago
Sometimes those names make you wonder. Is it a bad attempt at name squatting? As in diem25? So that all the kids will think of FB currency first, when they hear diem25? Or is it the latin word "diem"? Did they mean to write "dime" and have a typo? And of course in typical FB fashion, the website will be garbage, if you don't allow all their abusive scripts.
- yunohn 6y ago
  Maybe based on the phrase "per diem" [1]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_diem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_diem
- pimlottc 6y ago
  What is diem25?
  - gravitas 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Europe_Movement_2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Europe_Movement_2...
- creddit 6y ago
  Yup, FB is primarily attempting to subvert a fringe European political movement.
  - zelphirkalt 6y ago
    Well, I wouldn't put it past them, since they are quite anti-democratic in their nature.
- sesuximo 6y ago
  I thought of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngo_Dinh_Diem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngo_Dinh_Diem
- numair 6y ago
  This has been downvoted, but I guarantee that people involved with this process would have read Yanis’ work (he’s one of the most famous economic ministers of the early 21st century) and been familiar with the Diem movement. I wonder what Diem25 will do now that they’ve been either trolled or namesquatted by Facebook, depending on how you want to look at it. Maybe they’re hoping Diem25 will embrace the collision and ride on their platform?
obilgic 6y ago
> On December 1, 2020, the Libra Association was renamed to Diem Association.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sizt 6y ago
MONEY. MONEY. MONEY.
pimlottc 6y ago
Article title at the time of this post, in case HN editors change it: > Diem - A rebrand of Facebook Libra Understanding who is behind this is extremely relevant.
- obilgic 6y ago
  It is not the original title. They have already modified it. Original title was: > Facebook Diem (Facebook's Libra has rebranded) https://i.imgur.com/nS9FaV5.png https://i.imgur.com/nS9FaV5.png
  - pimlottc 6y ago
    Ah, thought I had caught it early enough, thanks for the correction.
    - obilgic 6y ago
      tbh this non-transparent editing of titles etc. is kind of distracting. It would be much better if they could leave a comment with the change they make.
  - rozab 6y ago
    Oh. That new title obfuscates the fact that Facebook is still behind this, imo, although the old wording was awkward
- hobofan 6y ago
  Pretty scary that there is almost no mention of Facebook on the website (only in the logo of Novi, the wallet app for Diem by Facebook). I'm wondering if all involvement in Diem at Facebook goes through Novi, and with that the members section is "truthful" (though still obfuscating the involvement), and/or if they will cherry-pick which companies appear on the list of members based on how good/bad their image is.
- swyx 6y ago
  why so little trust of the HN mods?
nannal 6y ago
I'm learning another cased language that isn't Latin, is Diem the right declension to use in this instance?
presidentey 6y ago
FB’s brand is suffering. They understand this themselves obviously. It’s best to liberate new products from the word “facebook” and make it appear as a seperate entity. That’s basically what this is.
- mromanuk 6y ago
  I’m not sure about that. Whatsapp and Instagram are going in the opposite direction, they added Facebook in the Splash Screen.
  - ourcat 6y ago
    Interestingly too, I noticed the box for their Oculus Quests only subtly display the FB connection. And on the recent model, using a different/new 'thinner, all-caps' logo.
  - flixic 6y ago
    That "unified" splash screen is menacing. A constant reminder that wherever you turn, it's a FB property. With Google/Apple/Microsoft it's quite straightforward, everything they make is clearly their style, their brand. This is not the case with Facebook's properties, they don't have a unified design language or branding. So adding a unified splash is a step in "marking it's territory", I just hate the feeling of that.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - pferde 6y ago
      So, are you basically saying that you feel uncomfortable having the ugly, naked truth made more obvious to you?
      - flixic 6y ago
        I think so, yes. It felt better to see Instagram at least visually untouched by the blue "f". Although, that splash has helped me reduce my usage of FB apps, so maybe that's a positive.
joosters 6y ago
They're just rebranding to annoy author David Gerard, who recently published a great book "Libra Shrugged" looking into Libra and Facebook's bad ideas: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/libra/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/libra/
Inhibit 6y ago
I'm not sure I feel empowered by any scheme where I'm the marketable product. Also, since they didn't bother to s/Libra/Diem that white paper is this just the same scheme with a different name? It's somewhat unclear.
flixic 6y ago
Libra was interesting. With their basket of currencies and easily programmable contracts, it was a semi-unique project in crypto space. Over the months, their ambition has been cut a lot by regulators. No more basket of currencies, now just US Dollar. At this point I'm not sure there's any benefit to it being on the blockchain either.
- joosters 6y ago
  Was there ever any benefit to using a blockchain - other than marketing BS, of course? It was always Facebook (or their chosen partners) who controlled the coin, so the blockchain was pointless - there never was any decentralized trust, as I understand it?
  - flixic 6y ago
    There were some interesting ideas about decentralized management of "treasury" (and issuing/burning of Libra coins), mostly related to the "basket of currencies" model. I think that will stay even with value only being pegged to the US Dollar, but there is less need for that.
    - 1996 6y ago
      > mostly related to the "basket of currencies" model. I think that will stay even with value only being pegged to the US Dollar, but there is less need for that Indeed, that was their most unique feature. A stablecoin pegged to a basket of fiat (say just USD, CAD, EUR, GBP, JPY, SGD), using traditional crypto tools (burning, pegging) definitely has a place and a bright future ahead. However, there's no need for facebook - defi may be able to do that with smart contracts over wrapped stablecoins (say USDC for the USD, etc.) Hell, even USD, EUR, JPY would still be EXTREMELY valuable and useful.
  - hobofan 6y ago
    "Blockchain" in some sense can also be seen as a programming framework where you have a common set of functionality that people know how to work with and can gain a transferable skill set with. Similar to how MVC knowledge is to some degree transferable between Rails and Django. So in that regard I wouldn't immediately dismiss a usage of a blockchain as pointless. Given that PoA chains are usually pretty efficient, there also doesn't seem to be an immediate downside to it.
chodeboy 6y ago
Can someone give me a quick rundown of Facebook's involvement? I get that they are the driving force behind it but what does it mean in practice? Do they have any power over the currency and its flow? Is Facebook governing the currency? Are there privacy concerns and if so, how do manifest in practice? Is it tied to Facebook stock or something, if not then what's the point?
- davidgerard 6y ago
  They started the whole thing, were the only member of the Libra Association (now Diem Association) for several months, and still fund the staff and almost all of the engineering effort. Diem is deeply and fundamentally a Facebook project.
  - shemnon42 6y ago
    Currently a deeply Facebook project, like Kubernetes was a deeply Google project until RedHat joined in. This rebranding and the association in general makes that kind of a transition smoother.
x87678r 6y ago
Are any crypto currencies widely used for transactions these days? ie the classic coffee shop purchase. BTC had a start but now seems only useful for people buying as an asset.
- anaxag0ras 6y ago
  In my experience, most shops that accept Bitcoin also accept Bitcoin Cash or Ethereum. I personally use BCH to purchase domains from porkbun.
- user-the-name 6y ago
  No. Cryptocurrencies are currently used mainly for: 1. Speculation on highly manipulated markets. 2. Illegal transactions. 3. Ransomware. 4. Innovative new kinds of fraud using smart contracts.
- flixic 6y ago
  Today's Bitcoin's average transaction fee is $6.34. For "coffee shop purchases" that is horrendous. Ethereum is better, at $1.43, but still not usable for coffee. Only highly-centralized cryptocurrencies, such as Stellar, have reasonable transaction fees. I think for the time being it's meaningful to think of cryptocurrency transactions as stock purchases / fees to the stock exchange.
  - meowster 6y ago
    There are decentralized crypto currencies that have sub 1 cent fees - where the fee even gets smaller as the blocksize automatically adjusts larger to accommodate more transactions. Edit: Monero. It's currently 15th on Coin Gecko by market cap at $2.3 billion. It's 3rd in the number of most developers behind Bitcoin and Ethereum.
    - 1996 6y ago
      > It's 3rd in the number of most developers behind Bitcoin and Ethereum. It's a gameable metric. How do you track it anyway- by github contributors? By number of people submitting patches? Also, not all contributors are equal...
cblconfederate 6y ago
I don't think an interesting cryptocurrency will ever come out of the US , they have the dollar.
- endergen 6y ago
  This is the most on point comment.
- obilgic 6y ago
  US has a culture that knows that resisting the change isn't way to stay as #1, and you better innovate and disrupt yourself. However, state's innovation might not end up being what crypto advocates are looking for.
  - smt88 6y ago
    I wish the US still had that culture. Our federal legislature has been intentionally deadlocked by a single man for years, without any hope of that changing.
    - kortilla 6y ago
      This mistake in this line of thinking is that innovation comes from the government.
      - smt88 6y ago
        And yet here I am on the internet, an invention of government-funded researchers. But seriously: I didn't innovation originates from the government, but our elected officials are certainly a reflection of the culture of our country. In fact, one of our major political parties rages against the things that made the US innovative: creating a haven for immigrant scientists and entrepreneurs, excellent research universities, and social programs that acted as a safety net for anyone taking a risk on an innovative business.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    > US has a culture that knows that resisting the change isn't way to stay as #1 Are you kidding? This is the country that avoids the Metric system remember. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Metric_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Metric_America oops.
2Gkashmiri 6y ago
Good riddance but im not sure how. The entire idea of Libra as a cryptocurrency was more ludicrous than any state adopting btc. It essentially was the western Union / paypal with same contributors but with a shiny new word, crypto. My question. What is the "benefit" of using Libra when you can just as easily transact with xrp ? Dictatorship by Facebook first, tracking of spending for MOAR ADS. Who benefits from Libra ? Not the end user at least. Oh and fees. If there are no fees on Libra,why is PayPal investing money in this model ?
TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago
The whole “unbanked” thing is really unconvincing, because there's no way Libra/Diem will be usable for people who don't have identity documents and the evidence needed for KYC/AML forms, and that excludes most unbanked people. As for international money transfers: TransferWise and the like are already providing better solutions in that space without forcing you to use Facebook Coins. Now you might say that mostly caters to the rich world, and that's true, but the people who can't use TransferWise are probably not going to be able to use Libra/Diem either for the same reasons they can't use TransferWise: ID documents, KYC/AML, plus capital controls and sanction regimes which aren't magically going to disappear for this new currency. It won't provide one of the few benefits of Bitcoin etc either, namely the ability to make illegal transactions more easily.
- that_guy_iain 6y ago
  > The whole “unbanked” thing is really unconvincing, because there's no way Libra/Diem will be usable for people who don't have identity documents and the evidence needed for KYC/AML forms, and that excludes most unbanked people. Who says the countries this will be used in have KYC/AML? The unbanked people this would be for aren't in countries that have those laws. > As for international money transfers: TransferWise and the like are already providing better solutions in that space without forcing you to use Facebook Coins. Now you might say that mostly caters to the rich world, and that's true, but the people who can't use TransferWise are probably not going to be able to use Libra/Diem either for the same reasons they can't use TransferWise: ID documents, KYC/AML, plus capital controls and sanction regimes which aren't magically going to disappear for this new currency. Can't use transferwise, so can't use something else. This isn't aimed at people who can use banking where KYC or AML apply. It's for people who are curently using other unbanking payment methods.
  - josh2600 6y ago
    Anything that’s settled in dollars or dollar-like synthetic instruments will have KYC/AML.
    - 6y ago
ffpip 6y ago
Wow. They really want to get away from the facebook brand. Zero mentions of Libra or facebook, despite the fact it was renamed only a few days ago. Not even in the FAQs.
nixass 6y ago
Of course, some random african lady on the front page, look how progressive people behind Diem are
- TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago
  They claim to care about the “unbanked” so it's fitting surely?
  - xwdv 6y ago
    Tbh the image this projects is that Diem is not for me, or even anyone here.
tomp 6y ago
Ok, so let's focus on the underlying idea, without the "Facebook is trying to rebrand their evil brand" cruft. Basically, I think the underlying idea is valuable - low-cost, fast, reliable, accessible money transfers - clearly something missing right now in this world, even for the "global rich" (citizens of first-world countries), let alone for the "unbanked". It could even scale even more to a money store but that's basically being a bank, which is related but somewhat orthogonal (e.g. both Revolut and TransferWise started as mostly money-sending services and are now moving towards the "bank" stage). So, my thoughts / questions are the following: 1) Is there a reason this is tied to the blockchain? For most purposes, blockchain without proof of work is just a glorified git repository, and I'm pretty sure that not even the most law-abiding citizens want all their transactions to be public. 2) Is there a reason this would be tied to a company, instead of being run by e.g. a charity? I understand why Facebook / Apple might be more successful with launching this than e.g. TransferWise (they can utilize their platform to push this (or any other) idea to a massive userbase), but really there's no underlying reason why you'd want this to be run by a non-financial company (and an ad ("use people's data to manipulate them") company) and many reasons why you wouldn't want to comingle your financial data with the likes of Facebook / Google / Apple. 3) Why a "new currency" ("stablecoin")? I understand that it might have some desirable properties but I'm pretty sure that most people would be negatively surprised if their "stable" coins started losing value (in terms of their local currency). Also, I'd say that most people don't even care/think about "FX rates" etc. and those that do are mainly currency traders / "speculators". So I envision the "ideal" system to be basically just an app displaying "sending 100EUR to person A in country Z will cost you 0.3% and the payment will arrive in 20 minutes" and the other person seeing "person B sent you 8919 INR". 4) I'm sure there are many issues with fraud/reversible transactions/KYC/anti-terrorism/anti-money-laundering that would need to be resolved somehow. I think this is an ideal case scenario for a charity - an almost-government (non-profit, "for the people") organisation handling an area of "social tech" that global governments aren't tackling (because they aren't incentivized to) but fundamentally all the pieces of technology are there. If anyone is interested in funding / founding such an organization, let me know.
- baby 6y ago
  1) think of it as a centralized database that needs replication, you’d be a bit worried if this central place got attacked, so then you need some gossip-based protocol in place to allow some users to police the system. Consensus is a simple one because it allows most users to trust that consensus was agreed on correctly, as opposed to systems like transparency protocols that require users to more willingly engage in policing. 2) it is tied to non profits as well! The whole point is to fund this project by companies, no a company 3) we will support single currencies (a USD coin, for example) 4) that’s what we’re working on!
ourcat 6y ago
Interestingly hosted by Wordpress.com (VIP).
christiansakai 6y ago
Anything by Facebook is a no. Anything cryptocurrency by Facebook is a double, triple, quadruple no.
- st1x7 6y ago
  So mixing shady with shady doesn't cancel them out? Huh.
  - christiansakai 6y ago
    You can only get murkier shades.
nathias 6y ago
Digital value transfer is a oligopoly of a few US companies that can effectively exclude anyone in the world from the digital economy in general, any innovation and any competition by anyone at all is a very good thing. It's too bad that fb listened to the US politics and made their project much worse, but its still very good in terms of cyrpto adoption by the non-technical people which can in turn make way for other, better projects.
ptrwis 6y ago
My general impression after reading between the lines over last years about Libra is they are targeting in-app micropayments and more like a competition to something like Paysafecard.
moocowtruck 6y ago
i find the entire site difficult to read :\
- grishka 6y ago
  Don't you think it could use some more animations? /s
Traster 6y ago
This project seems to be a fantastic advertisement of why large companies can't innovate. Rather than building a product that people can use - even in a very limited setting, Libra has been a series of big announcements followed by enormously expensive negotiations with regulators. How long has this been going on for and how many people are using this? That's not how you innovate.
- chillacy 6y ago
  I suppose it’s easier when you’re smaller and you can just ignore regulations (Uber, Airbnb).
ehejsbbejsk 6y ago
I still don’t see why anyone should use crypto in place of fiat. The space is dominated by commercial interests and they’re not at all focused on dislodging traditional financial institutions that are entrenched which is the source of all the problems.
martini333 6y ago
"Powered by WordPress.com VIP"
rishabhd 6y ago
Just did a search on site for "facebook" (ignored community forums), all the results are very carefully worded and scrubbed as of now.
- flixic 6y ago
  Same was true for Libra as well. The only place you would find "Facebook" was FAQs (to say that it is NOT a FB product, fully independent, nothing to see here) and whitepapers (that explained FB role in more detail, but not more honesty).
rubyist5eva 6y ago
still a hell to the no
gjsman-1000 6y ago
Interesting. They went from "Libra" (implying Freedom) to "Diem" (which sounds a lot like Die or Dying).
- Fnoord 6y ago
  Diem is known from "Carpe Diem", in English "Seize the Day". Hence Diem possibly means Day. I don't know why the name. Though, if you call it Noctum it has a negative/blackhat connotation, IMO.
- JustSomeNobody 6y ago
  Per Diem. It sounds a lot like per diem.
- Geee 6y ago
  They probably did a search for short domain names, and went from there.
- davidgerard 6y ago
  Their press release for the name change even called it "a new day for the project" - a Novi Diem, if you will. https://www.diem.com/en-us/updates/diem-association/ https://www.diem.com/en-us/updates/diem-association/
- geraldbauer 6y ago
  From The Awesome Diem (formerly Libra) Page [1]: Diem stems from the famous latin phrase 'Carpe Diem' translating to 'Enjoy the present, make the most of today', a common mistranslation is 'Seize the Day' (via Wiktionary) Carpe is the second-person singular present active imperative of carpō "pick or pluck" used by Horace to mean "enjoy, seize, use, make use of". Diem is the accusative of dies "day". A more literal translation of carpe diem would thus be "pluck the day as it is ripe" - that is, enjoy the moment. It has been argued by various authors that this interpretation is closer to Horace's original meaning (via Carpe diem @ Wikipedia) [1]: https://github.com/openblockchains/awesome-diem https://github.com/openblockchains/awesome-diem
  - 6y ago
JustSomeNobody 6y ago
It is still Facebook, so nope. Actually, hell nope.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
camgunz 6y ago
The core feature of any cryptocurrency is "money w/o state regulation", but when you're talking about selling it for any major currency (Dollars, Euros, Sterling, Yen, RMB) guess what, you're regulated. There is no way around this, regulators are wise (more than wise, hypervigilant) to it. As a result, this stuff is just cumbersome currency that roasts the planet. No thank you.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  It functions like diamonds, real estate and some other commodities used to... medium of exchange for illegal transactions. It’s pretty obvious — the price spikes with the rise of certain internet grifts and wanes as they settle down.
  - fastball 6y ago
    Yep, you're right, people are definitely only using cryptocurrency for illegal transactions.
- colordrops 6y ago
  How is there still so much of ignorance over cryptocurrency this far along after its inception? Just because you buy and sell gold with major currencies doesn't mean gold is regulated. Crypto isn't much different. If you can get it anonymously, you can move it anywhere you want as long as you stay on the blockchain. Once you leave the blockchain, you aren't dealing with crypto anymore. Once you sell gold you aren't dealing with gold anymore. I don't know about Diem in particular, but a state or corporate issued currency is not a general indictment of cryptocurrency.
  - logifail 6y ago
    > If you can get it anonymously, you can move it anywhere you want as long as you stay on the blockchain Q: Is this fundamentally different to having a suitcase full of cash?
    - 6y ago
1f60c 6y ago
Calibra was renamed to Novi, and now Libra has been renamed to Diem? How confusing.
asciimov 6y ago
Diem/Libra seems like a convoluted scheme for Facebook to be able to globally repatriate money at will. Sure they would have to manage to grow it to a certain scale first, but by controlling the whole wooden nickel factory it wouldn't be hard nor detectable for them to do.
- AtlasBarfed 6y ago
  "We're a creepy Orwellian company with a demonstrated record of having no morals and psychologically manipulating people not only for profit, but for sport! Have faith and trust in our cryptocurrency!"
wejick 6y ago
Diem is silent in Indonesian slang language
geraldbauer 6y ago
FYI: I collect all things Facebook's Diem (formerly Libra) at the Awesome Diem (formerly Libra) page [1] incl. Best Libra Book of the Year 2020 Award and much more. [1]: https://github.com/openblockchains/awesome-diem https://github.com/openblockchains/awesome-diem
latchkey 6y ago
I love clicking "I do not accept cookies" on a facebook site and having it not do anything else. It feels so liberating.
halukakin 6y ago
If a company owns the regulation of a widely used currency, how will it be devalued if it becomes necessary. Popular currencies need to be regulated by the people, even if indirectly. Otherwise in times of crisis these currencies will be harmful to most.
bergstromm466 6y ago
Banking is the lucrative and powerful form of rentier capitalism. Combined with the ability to mine user data for 'insights' and you’ve got the greatest panopticon. Hello corporate dystopia.
- bergstromm466 6y ago
  Banking is the most
flyGuyOnTheSly 6y ago
Landing page looks almost exactly like the hundreds of other scamcoins I have researched over the past few years tbh.
atareh 6y ago
What I haven't seen posted here is this: - the prospect of large corporations making thousand percent ROI is very real, while the common person using this does not get any of that. My opinion of this is that we should be concerned - what are the possible upsides of corporations having outsized returns that can't be touched by governments at all (at least with current day laws) This would only serve to make the wealth gap more extreme. I urge everyone to read more here: https://www.coindesk.com/billion-dollar-returns-the-upside-of-facebooks-libra-cryptocurrency https://www.coindesk.com/billion-dollar-returns-the-upside-o...
Lammy 6y ago
Libra seems increasingly like a regulator-lightning-rod that Facebook never actually intend to be successful but that keeps prying eyes away from other parts of their business.
Ice_cream_suit 6y ago
Poorer countries are going to see this as Western neo-colonialism. They have a point. Would you want your national currency to be controlled by a Chinese private company?
fataliss 6y ago
What I don't get is why people all try to do their own when there is already a slew of existing solution and it hasn't gained adoption. Why not back something like Stellar if what you really care about is helping financial transactions!
feralimal 6y ago
It doesn't mention facebook. Why? If you look at the members section, at the bottom of this page, facebook is not there. https://www.diem.com/en-us/association/ https://www.diem.com/en-us/association/
ineedasername 6y ago
I don't think branding was really the issue here. Nore does the semantic weight of Diem vs. Libra really present a significant difference. The problem has always been that it's an attempt to create an extra-governmental monetary system spearheaded by one of the largest tech companies in the world, in particular one that has a low level of social trust within both the political sphere and the libertarian-privacy-maximalist sphere that represents a cornerstone of crypto support. For my own opinion, it doesn't matter how independent the oversight group may be from Facebook, it is still a Facebook initiative. Web standards, ostensibly independent, can be subverted by corporate interests. I have no trust that something as foundational to the world economy as a global monetary system would not also be subject to such interests at a fundamental level. Give the ACLU a seat, give the EFF a seat, find a dozen other non-corporate NGO's with a tangential interest in such a project, and I will still not be convinced that the system wouldn't be coopted a plutocratic oligarchy, if not outright kleptocracy. There would simply be too much power and money that would acrue to the "winners". Whatever the future of crypto may be, it should be shoved forcefully away from such a direction, as well as any direction that makes it easy to facilitate criminal enterprise/money laundering. I freely admit that I don't have a solution that solves that range of problems though.
atemerev 6y ago
Well, for somebody it finally became obvious that Zuckerberg's Libra is a play on Winklevosses' Gemini (their crypto exchange project) :)
29athrowaway 6y ago
This will only be allowed to succeed if: - it's compatible with existing tax systems. - it doesn't get in the way of the banking system. - it doesn't get in the way of existing power structures, e.g.: people that depend on an impoverished populace.
one-word-answer 6y ago
Sneaky

235 points by obilgic 6y ago

PedroBatista 6y ago

Whims of an amoral and decadent empire.

marcinzm 6y ago

Are they rebranding because of bad publicity?

e_carra 6y ago
It was my first thought! Maybe.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
flixic 6y ago
Yes. They never say it outright, but this is the way their PR statement begins: "The Libra Association announces the adoption of a new name and the recruitment of key executives, reinforcing its organizational independence. Now transitioning to the name “Diem”, which denotes a new day for the project, the Diem Association will continue to pursue a mission of building a safe, secure and compliant payment system that empowers people and businesses around the world." https://www.diem.com/en-us/updates/diem-association/ https://www.diem.com/en-us/updates/diem-association/
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

zelphirkalt 6y ago

Sometimes those names make you wonder. Is it a bad attempt at name squatting? As in diem25? So that all the kids will think of FB currency first, when they hear diem25? Or is it the latin word "diem"? Did they mean to write "dime" and have a typo? And of course in typical FB fashion, the website will be garbage, if you don't allow all their abusive scripts.

yunohn 6y ago
Maybe based on the phrase "per diem" [1]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_diem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_diem
pimlottc 6y ago
What is diem25?
- gravitas 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Europe_Movement_2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Europe_Movement_2...
creddit 6y ago
Yup, FB is primarily attempting to subvert a fringe European political movement.
- zelphirkalt 6y ago
  Well, I wouldn't put it past them, since they are quite anti-democratic in their nature.
sesuximo 6y ago
I thought of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngo_Dinh_Diem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngo_Dinh_Diem
numair 6y ago
This has been downvoted, but I guarantee that people involved with this process would have read Yanis’ work (he’s one of the most famous economic ministers of the early 21st century) and been familiar with the Diem movement. I wonder what Diem25 will do now that they’ve been either trolled or namesquatted by Facebook, depending on how you want to look at it. Maybe they’re hoping Diem25 will embrace the collision and ride on their platform?

obilgic 6y ago

> On December 1, 2020, the Libra Association was renamed to Diem Association.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sizt 6y ago

MONEY. MONEY. MONEY.

pimlottc 6y ago

Article title at the time of this post, in case HN editors change it: > Diem - A rebrand of Facebook Libra Understanding who is behind this is extremely relevant.

obilgic 6y ago
It is not the original title. They have already modified it. Original title was: > Facebook Diem (Facebook's Libra has rebranded) https://i.imgur.com/nS9FaV5.png https://i.imgur.com/nS9FaV5.png
- pimlottc 6y ago
  Ah, thought I had caught it early enough, thanks for the correction.
  - obilgic 6y ago
    tbh this non-transparent editing of titles etc. is kind of distracting. It would be much better if they could leave a comment with the change they make.
- rozab 6y ago
  Oh. That new title obfuscates the fact that Facebook is still behind this, imo, although the old wording was awkward
hobofan 6y ago
Pretty scary that there is almost no mention of Facebook on the website (only in the logo of Novi, the wallet app for Diem by Facebook). I'm wondering if all involvement in Diem at Facebook goes through Novi, and with that the members section is "truthful" (though still obfuscating the involvement), and/or if they will cherry-pick which companies appear on the list of members based on how good/bad their image is.
swyx 6y ago
why so little trust of the HN mods?

nannal 6y ago

I'm learning another cased language that isn't Latin, is Diem the right declension to use in this instance?

presidentey 6y ago

FB’s brand is suffering. They understand this themselves obviously. It’s best to liberate new products from the word “facebook” and make it appear as a seperate entity. That’s basically what this is.

mromanuk 6y ago
I’m not sure about that. Whatsapp and Instagram are going in the opposite direction, they added Facebook in the Splash Screen.
- ourcat 6y ago
  Interestingly too, I noticed the box for their Oculus Quests only subtly display the FB connection. And on the recent model, using a different/new 'thinner, all-caps' logo.
- flixic 6y ago
  That "unified" splash screen is menacing. A constant reminder that wherever you turn, it's a FB property. With Google/Apple/Microsoft it's quite straightforward, everything they make is clearly their style, their brand. This is not the case with Facebook's properties, they don't have a unified design language or branding. So adding a unified splash is a step in "marking it's territory", I just hate the feeling of that.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - pferde 6y ago
    So, are you basically saying that you feel uncomfortable having the ugly, naked truth made more obvious to you?
    - flixic 6y ago
      I think so, yes. It felt better to see Instagram at least visually untouched by the blue "f". Although, that splash has helped me reduce my usage of FB apps, so maybe that's a positive.

joosters 6y ago

They're just rebranding to annoy author David Gerard, who recently published a great book "Libra Shrugged" looking into Libra and Facebook's bad ideas: https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/libra/ https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/libra/

Inhibit 6y ago

I'm not sure I feel empowered by any scheme where I'm the marketable product. Also, since they didn't bother to s/Libra/Diem that white paper is this just the same scheme with a different name? It's somewhat unclear.

flixic 6y ago

Libra was interesting. With their basket of currencies and easily programmable contracts, it was a semi-unique project in crypto space. Over the months, their ambition has been cut a lot by regulators. No more basket of currencies, now just US Dollar. At this point I'm not sure there's any benefit to it being on the blockchain either.

joosters 6y ago
Was there ever any benefit to using a blockchain - other than marketing BS, of course? It was always Facebook (or their chosen partners) who controlled the coin, so the blockchain was pointless - there never was any decentralized trust, as I understand it?
- flixic 6y ago
  There were some interesting ideas about decentralized management of "treasury" (and issuing/burning of Libra coins), mostly related to the "basket of currencies" model. I think that will stay even with value only being pegged to the US Dollar, but there is less need for that.
  - 1996 6y ago
    > mostly related to the "basket of currencies" model. I think that will stay even with value only being pegged to the US Dollar, but there is less need for that Indeed, that was their most unique feature. A stablecoin pegged to a basket of fiat (say just USD, CAD, EUR, GBP, JPY, SGD), using traditional crypto tools (burning, pegging) definitely has a place and a bright future ahead. However, there's no need for facebook - defi may be able to do that with smart contracts over wrapped stablecoins (say USDC for the USD, etc.) Hell, even USD, EUR, JPY would still be EXTREMELY valuable and useful.
- hobofan 6y ago
  "Blockchain" in some sense can also be seen as a programming framework where you have a common set of functionality that people know how to work with and can gain a transferable skill set with. Similar to how MVC knowledge is to some degree transferable between Rails and Django. So in that regard I wouldn't immediately dismiss a usage of a blockchain as pointless. Given that PoA chains are usually pretty efficient, there also doesn't seem to be an immediate downside to it.

chodeboy 6y ago

Can someone give me a quick rundown of Facebook's involvement? I get that they are the driving force behind it but what does it mean in practice? Do they have any power over the currency and its flow? Is Facebook governing the currency? Are there privacy concerns and if so, how do manifest in practice? Is it tied to Facebook stock or something, if not then what's the point?

davidgerard 6y ago
They started the whole thing, were the only member of the Libra Association (now Diem Association) for several months, and still fund the staff and almost all of the engineering effort. Diem is deeply and fundamentally a Facebook project.
- shemnon42 6y ago
  Currently a deeply Facebook project, like Kubernetes was a deeply Google project until RedHat joined in. This rebranding and the association in general makes that kind of a transition smoother.

x87678r 6y ago

Are any crypto currencies widely used for transactions these days? ie the classic coffee shop purchase. BTC had a start but now seems only useful for people buying as an asset.

anaxag0ras 6y ago
In my experience, most shops that accept Bitcoin also accept Bitcoin Cash or Ethereum. I personally use BCH to purchase domains from porkbun.
user-the-name 6y ago
No. Cryptocurrencies are currently used mainly for: 1. Speculation on highly manipulated markets. 2. Illegal transactions. 3. Ransomware. 4. Innovative new kinds of fraud using smart contracts.
flixic 6y ago
Today's Bitcoin's average transaction fee is $6.34. For "coffee shop purchases" that is horrendous. Ethereum is better, at $1.43, but still not usable for coffee. Only highly-centralized cryptocurrencies, such as Stellar, have reasonable transaction fees. I think for the time being it's meaningful to think of cryptocurrency transactions as stock purchases / fees to the stock exchange.
- meowster 6y ago
  There are decentralized crypto currencies that have sub 1 cent fees - where the fee even gets smaller as the blocksize automatically adjusts larger to accommodate more transactions. Edit: Monero. It's currently 15th on Coin Gecko by market cap at $2.3 billion. It's 3rd in the number of most developers behind Bitcoin and Ethereum.
  - 1996 6y ago
    > It's 3rd in the number of most developers behind Bitcoin and Ethereum. It's a gameable metric. How do you track it anyway- by github contributors? By number of people submitting patches? Also, not all contributors are equal...

cblconfederate 6y ago

I don't think an interesting cryptocurrency will ever come out of the US , they have the dollar.

endergen 6y ago
This is the most on point comment.
obilgic 6y ago
US has a culture that knows that resisting the change isn't way to stay as #1, and you better innovate and disrupt yourself. However, state's innovation might not end up being what crypto advocates are looking for.
- smt88 6y ago
  I wish the US still had that culture. Our federal legislature has been intentionally deadlocked by a single man for years, without any hope of that changing.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    This mistake in this line of thinking is that innovation comes from the government.
    - smt88 6y ago
      And yet here I am on the internet, an invention of government-funded researchers. But seriously: I didn't innovation originates from the government, but our elected officials are certainly a reflection of the culture of our country. In fact, one of our major political parties rages against the things that made the US innovative: creating a haven for immigrant scientists and entrepreneurs, excellent research universities, and social programs that acted as a safety net for anyone taking a risk on an innovative business.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  > US has a culture that knows that resisting the change isn't way to stay as #1 Are you kidding? This is the country that avoids the Metric system remember. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Metric_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Metric_America oops.

2Gkashmiri 6y ago

Good riddance but im not sure how. The entire idea of Libra as a cryptocurrency was more ludicrous than any state adopting btc. It essentially was the western Union / paypal with same contributors but with a shiny new word, crypto. My question. What is the "benefit" of using Libra when you can just as easily transact with xrp ? Dictatorship by Facebook first, tracking of spending for MOAR ADS. Who benefits from Libra ? Not the end user at least. Oh and fees. If there are no fees on Libra,why is PayPal investing money in this model ?

TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago

The whole “unbanked” thing is really unconvincing, because there's no way Libra/Diem will be usable for people who don't have identity documents and the evidence needed for KYC/AML forms, and that excludes most unbanked people. As for international money transfers: TransferWise and the like are already providing better solutions in that space without forcing you to use Facebook Coins. Now you might say that mostly caters to the rich world, and that's true, but the people who can't use TransferWise are probably not going to be able to use Libra/Diem either for the same reasons they can't use TransferWise: ID documents, KYC/AML, plus capital controls and sanction regimes which aren't magically going to disappear for this new currency. It won't provide one of the few benefits of Bitcoin etc either, namely the ability to make illegal transactions more easily.

that_guy_iain 6y ago
> The whole “unbanked” thing is really unconvincing, because there's no way Libra/Diem will be usable for people who don't have identity documents and the evidence needed for KYC/AML forms, and that excludes most unbanked people. Who says the countries this will be used in have KYC/AML? The unbanked people this would be for aren't in countries that have those laws. > As for international money transfers: TransferWise and the like are already providing better solutions in that space without forcing you to use Facebook Coins. Now you might say that mostly caters to the rich world, and that's true, but the people who can't use TransferWise are probably not going to be able to use Libra/Diem either for the same reasons they can't use TransferWise: ID documents, KYC/AML, plus capital controls and sanction regimes which aren't magically going to disappear for this new currency. Can't use transferwise, so can't use something else. This isn't aimed at people who can use banking where KYC or AML apply. It's for people who are curently using other unbanking payment methods.
- josh2600 6y ago
  Anything that’s settled in dollars or dollar-like synthetic instruments will have KYC/AML.
  - 6y ago

ffpip 6y ago

Wow. They really want to get away from the facebook brand. Zero mentions of Libra or facebook, despite the fact it was renamed only a few days ago. Not even in the FAQs.

nixass 6y ago

Of course, some random african lady on the front page, look how progressive people behind Diem are

TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago
They claim to care about the “unbanked” so it's fitting surely?
- xwdv 6y ago
  Tbh the image this projects is that Diem is not for me, or even anyone here.

tomp 6y ago

Ok, so let's focus on the underlying idea, without the "Facebook is trying to rebrand their evil brand" cruft. Basically, I think the underlying idea is valuable - low-cost, fast, reliable, accessible money transfers - clearly something missing right now in this world, even for the "global rich" (citizens of first-world countries), let alone for the "unbanked". It could even scale even more to a money store but that's basically being a bank, which is related but somewhat orthogonal (e.g. both Revolut and TransferWise started as mostly money-sending services and are now moving towards the "bank" stage). So, my thoughts / questions are the following: 1) Is there a reason this is tied to the blockchain? For most purposes, blockchain without proof of work is just a glorified git repository, and I'm pretty sure that not even the most law-abiding citizens want all their transactions to be public. 2) Is there a reason this would be tied to a company, instead of being run by e.g. a charity? I understand why Facebook / Apple might be more successful with launching this than e.g. TransferWise (they can utilize their platform to push this (or any other) idea to a massive userbase), but really there's no underlying reason why you'd want this to be run by a non-financial company (and an ad ("use people's data to manipulate them") company) and many reasons why you wouldn't want to comingle your financial data with the likes of Facebook / Google / Apple. 3) Why a "new currency" ("stablecoin")? I understand that it might have some desirable properties but I'm pretty sure that most people would be negatively surprised if their "stable" coins started losing value (in terms of their local currency). Also, I'd say that most people don't even care/think about "FX rates" etc. and those that do are mainly currency traders / "speculators". So I envision the "ideal" system to be basically just an app displaying "sending 100EUR to person A in country Z will cost you 0.3% and the payment will arrive in 20 minutes" and the other person seeing "person B sent you 8919 INR". 4) I'm sure there are many issues with fraud/reversible transactions/KYC/anti-terrorism/anti-money-laundering that would need to be resolved somehow. I think this is an ideal case scenario for a charity - an almost-government (non-profit, "for the people") organisation handling an area of "social tech" that global governments aren't tackling (because they aren't incentivized to) but fundamentally all the pieces of technology are there. If anyone is interested in funding / founding such an organization, let me know.

baby 6y ago
1) think of it as a centralized database that needs replication, you’d be a bit worried if this central place got attacked, so then you need some gossip-based protocol in place to allow some users to police the system. Consensus is a simple one because it allows most users to trust that consensus was agreed on correctly, as opposed to systems like transparency protocols that require users to more willingly engage in policing. 2) it is tied to non profits as well! The whole point is to fund this project by companies, no a company 3) we will support single currencies (a USD coin, for example) 4) that’s what we’re working on!

ourcat 6y ago

Interestingly hosted by Wordpress.com (VIP).

christiansakai 6y ago

Anything by Facebook is a no. Anything cryptocurrency by Facebook is a double, triple, quadruple no.

st1x7 6y ago
So mixing shady with shady doesn't cancel them out? Huh.
- christiansakai 6y ago
  You can only get murkier shades.

nathias 6y ago

Digital value transfer is a oligopoly of a few US companies that can effectively exclude anyone in the world from the digital economy in general, any innovation and any competition by anyone at all is a very good thing. It's too bad that fb listened to the US politics and made their project much worse, but its still very good in terms of cyrpto adoption by the non-technical people which can in turn make way for other, better projects.

ptrwis 6y ago

My general impression after reading between the lines over last years about Libra is they are targeting in-app micropayments and more like a competition to something like Paysafecard.

moocowtruck 6y ago

i find the entire site difficult to read :\

grishka 6y ago
Don't you think it could use some more animations? /s

Traster 6y ago

This project seems to be a fantastic advertisement of why large companies can't innovate. Rather than building a product that people can use - even in a very limited setting, Libra has been a series of big announcements followed by enormously expensive negotiations with regulators. How long has this been going on for and how many people are using this? That's not how you innovate.

chillacy 6y ago
I suppose it’s easier when you’re smaller and you can just ignore regulations (Uber, Airbnb).

ehejsbbejsk 6y ago

I still don’t see why anyone should use crypto in place of fiat. The space is dominated by commercial interests and they’re not at all focused on dislodging traditional financial institutions that are entrenched which is the source of all the problems.

martini333 6y ago

"Powered by WordPress.com VIP"

rishabhd 6y ago

Just did a search on site for "facebook" (ignored community forums), all the results are very carefully worded and scrubbed as of now.

flixic 6y ago
Same was true for Libra as well. The only place you would find "Facebook" was FAQs (to say that it is NOT a FB product, fully independent, nothing to see here) and whitepapers (that explained FB role in more detail, but not more honesty).

rubyist5eva 6y ago

still a hell to the no

gjsman-1000 6y ago

Interesting. They went from "Libra" (implying Freedom) to "Diem" (which sounds a lot like Die or Dying).

Fnoord 6y ago
Diem is known from "Carpe Diem", in English "Seize the Day". Hence Diem possibly means Day. I don't know why the name. Though, if you call it Noctum it has a negative/blackhat connotation, IMO.
JustSomeNobody 6y ago
Per Diem. It sounds a lot like per diem.
Geee 6y ago
They probably did a search for short domain names, and went from there.
davidgerard 6y ago
Their press release for the name change even called it "a new day for the project" - a Novi Diem, if you will. https://www.diem.com/en-us/updates/diem-association/ https://www.diem.com/en-us/updates/diem-association/
geraldbauer 6y ago
From The Awesome Diem (formerly Libra) Page [1]: Diem stems from the famous latin phrase 'Carpe Diem' translating to 'Enjoy the present, make the most of today', a common mistranslation is 'Seize the Day' (via Wiktionary) Carpe is the second-person singular present active imperative of carpō "pick or pluck" used by Horace to mean "enjoy, seize, use, make use of". Diem is the accusative of dies "day". A more literal translation of carpe diem would thus be "pluck the day as it is ripe" - that is, enjoy the moment. It has been argued by various authors that this interpretation is closer to Horace's original meaning (via Carpe diem @ Wikipedia) [1]: https://github.com/openblockchains/awesome-diem https://github.com/openblockchains/awesome-diem
- 6y ago

JustSomeNobody 6y ago

It is still Facebook, so nope. Actually, hell nope.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

camgunz 6y ago

The core feature of any cryptocurrency is "money w/o state regulation", but when you're talking about selling it for any major currency (Dollars, Euros, Sterling, Yen, RMB) guess what, you're regulated. There is no way around this, regulators are wise (more than wise, hypervigilant) to it. As a result, this stuff is just cumbersome currency that roasts the planet. No thank you.

Spooky23 6y ago
It functions like diamonds, real estate and some other commodities used to... medium of exchange for illegal transactions. It’s pretty obvious — the price spikes with the rise of certain internet grifts and wanes as they settle down.
- fastball 6y ago
  Yep, you're right, people are definitely only using cryptocurrency for illegal transactions.
colordrops 6y ago
How is there still so much of ignorance over cryptocurrency this far along after its inception? Just because you buy and sell gold with major currencies doesn't mean gold is regulated. Crypto isn't much different. If you can get it anonymously, you can move it anywhere you want as long as you stay on the blockchain. Once you leave the blockchain, you aren't dealing with crypto anymore. Once you sell gold you aren't dealing with gold anymore. I don't know about Diem in particular, but a state or corporate issued currency is not a general indictment of cryptocurrency.
- logifail 6y ago
  > If you can get it anonymously, you can move it anywhere you want as long as you stay on the blockchain Q: Is this fundamentally different to having a suitcase full of cash?
  - 6y ago

1f60c 6y ago

Calibra was renamed to Novi, and now Libra has been renamed to Diem? How confusing.

asciimov 6y ago

Diem/Libra seems like a convoluted scheme for Facebook to be able to globally repatriate money at will. Sure they would have to manage to grow it to a certain scale first, but by controlling the whole wooden nickel factory it wouldn't be hard nor detectable for them to do.

AtlasBarfed 6y ago
"We're a creepy Orwellian company with a demonstrated record of having no morals and psychologically manipulating people not only for profit, but for sport! Have faith and trust in our cryptocurrency!"

wejick 6y ago

Diem is silent in Indonesian slang language

geraldbauer 6y ago

FYI: I collect all things Facebook's Diem (formerly Libra) at the Awesome Diem (formerly Libra) page [1] incl. Best Libra Book of the Year 2020 Award and much more. [1]: https://github.com/openblockchains/awesome-diem https://github.com/openblockchains/awesome-diem

latchkey 6y ago

I love clicking "I do not accept cookies" on a facebook site and having it not do anything else. It feels so liberating.

halukakin 6y ago

If a company owns the regulation of a widely used currency, how will it be devalued if it becomes necessary. Popular currencies need to be regulated by the people, even if indirectly. Otherwise in times of crisis these currencies will be harmful to most.

bergstromm466 6y ago

Banking is the lucrative and powerful form of rentier capitalism. Combined with the ability to mine user data for 'insights' and you’ve got the greatest panopticon. Hello corporate dystopia.

bergstromm466 6y ago
Banking is the most

flyGuyOnTheSly 6y ago

Landing page looks almost exactly like the hundreds of other scamcoins I have researched over the past few years tbh.

atareh 6y ago

What I haven't seen posted here is this: - the prospect of large corporations making thousand percent ROI is very real, while the common person using this does not get any of that. My opinion of this is that we should be concerned - what are the possible upsides of corporations having outsized returns that can't be touched by governments at all (at least with current day laws) This would only serve to make the wealth gap more extreme. I urge everyone to read more here: https://www.coindesk.com/billion-dollar-returns-the-upside-of-facebooks-libra-cryptocurrency https://www.coindesk.com/billion-dollar-returns-the-upside-o...

Lammy 6y ago

Libra seems increasingly like a regulator-lightning-rod that Facebook never actually intend to be successful but that keeps prying eyes away from other parts of their business.

Ice_cream_suit 6y ago

Poorer countries are going to see this as Western neo-colonialism. They have a point. Would you want your national currency to be controlled by a Chinese private company?

fataliss 6y ago

What I don't get is why people all try to do their own when there is already a slew of existing solution and it hasn't gained adoption. Why not back something like Stellar if what you really care about is helping financial transactions!

feralimal 6y ago

It doesn't mention facebook. Why? If you look at the members section, at the bottom of this page, facebook is not there. https://www.diem.com/en-us/association/ https://www.diem.com/en-us/association/

ineedasername 6y ago

I don't think branding was really the issue here. Nore does the semantic weight of Diem vs. Libra really present a significant difference. The problem has always been that it's an attempt to create an extra-governmental monetary system spearheaded by one of the largest tech companies in the world, in particular one that has a low level of social trust within both the political sphere and the libertarian-privacy-maximalist sphere that represents a cornerstone of crypto support. For my own opinion, it doesn't matter how independent the oversight group may be from Facebook, it is still a Facebook initiative. Web standards, ostensibly independent, can be subverted by corporate interests. I have no trust that something as foundational to the world economy as a global monetary system would not also be subject to such interests at a fundamental level. Give the ACLU a seat, give the EFF a seat, find a dozen other non-corporate NGO's with a tangential interest in such a project, and I will still not be convinced that the system wouldn't be coopted a plutocratic oligarchy, if not outright kleptocracy. There would simply be too much power and money that would acrue to the "winners". Whatever the future of crypto may be, it should be shoved forcefully away from such a direction, as well as any direction that makes it easy to facilitate criminal enterprise/money laundering. I freely admit that I don't have a solution that solves that range of problems though.

atemerev 6y ago

Well, for somebody it finally became obvious that Zuckerberg's Libra is a play on Winklevosses' Gemini (their crypto exchange project) :)

29athrowaway 6y ago

This will only be allowed to succeed if: - it's compatible with existing tax systems. - it doesn't get in the way of the banking system. - it doesn't get in the way of existing power structures, e.g.: people that depend on an impoverished populace.

one-word-answer 6y ago

Sneaky