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Facebook’s Libra is still dead – Diem to be sold off for spare parts
- xunn0026 5y agoThis shows why some things must start grass root. A move from the top would trigger all kinds of political people. Let's enjoy the 10% inflation! (Of course, most currencies debased in lockstep this pandemic, so a basket of currencies would have been equally bad. But it would have been a good indicator!)
- acdha 5y agoInflation doesn’t always have the same cause. If you look past the clickbait, the inflation we’re seeing is dominated by just 3 sectors (cars, oil, meat) and it has nothing to do with monetary policy but rather things like the pandemic you may recall is raging at record highs.
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y agoAnecdotes aren’t supposed to be evidence, but just about everything is starting to cost more. While I don’t have the wherewithal to create my own inflation index, I suspect the CPI is a victim of Cunningham’s Law and the “true” amount of inflation is substantially higher than it lets on. I’m also in disbelief whenever pundits try to reassure me inflation isn’t that bad because it is either “transitory” or due to pandemic supply issues.
- acdha 5y agoYes, that’s the danger of relying on anecdotes. You see that price go up and it’s easy to react emotionally and think it’ll be like that forever, but you probably won’t have anywhere near as strong a reaction when prices recover as they have in many cases over the last year. When professionals study this and release their analysis of the causes, it doesn’t have the same impact as that sticker shock did, either, because it's generally dry material. Here’s a non-anecdotal source: https://theovershoot.co/p/understanding-covid-flation https://theovershoot.co/p/understanding-covid-flation
- xunn0026 5y agoSo monetary policy does everything except cause inflation? The article is paid. But I see it excludes energy which is pretty relevant, especially during winter.
- acdha 5y ago> So monetary policy does everything except cause inflation? No, inflation can have more than one causes. That's why care is needed to identify which factors contributed to a particular incident, just as you might have a different solution to a headache based on whether, say, you also have symptoms of a cold or were drinking heavily the night before.
- xunn0026 5y agoBut how odd when after a night of heavily drinking it turns out to be a cold?
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y agoI don’t foresee prices recovering in a significant way. My apartment complex wanted an additional $300/mo rent for a yearly renewal and no matter how strong of a recovery there may be on the horizon, I sense higher prices are mostly here to stay. From a business standpoint, a perception of high inflation is the perfect cover for raising prices, especially if it seems like everyone else is doing it. Plus, assuming costs do go down again, you can pocket the difference rather than lowering prices just to need to raise them again for inflation later.
- acdha 5y agoI think it's more complicated than that because that trend has been going on for a long time with no connection to inflation or even supply chain snafus. Fixing it is going to require changing a thorny mess of policies constricting adequate housing construction, density, redevelopment, etc. and private investors piling into housing as a revenue stream. Housing really looks a lot like what you'd expect where there simply isn't enough supply for market forces to keep prices in check.
- fleddr 5y agoNice. I'll then try to work around the problem by only buying things that don't rely on oil.
- scottiebarnes 5y agoHave a look at housing prices and stock prices
- acdha 5y agoStocks are not something people need to buy. Housing is, but again, there are multiple factors driving those prices up. This is coming up in the context of a cryptocurrency so there's clearly a financial conflict of interest causing people who hold cryptocurrencies to attribute the problem to monetary policy with the solution being to buy their tokens but that ignores the other factors like changes in demand due to the pandemic, well-known problems related to supply issues & zoning running back decades, increased competition from investment funds buying properties, changes in consumer buying habits, etc.
- scottiebarnes 5y agoStocks is where people park their money when bonds yield nothing and future expected value of money is decreasing. When the fed keeps a near zero interest rate, people have lower monthly mortgage payments, and can thus take on more debt. When they have the ability to take on more debt, they can bid higher on housing prices. When the fed injects trillions of dollars into the economy in the form of stimulus and quantitative easing, there is a surplus of money that makes it way throughout the economy, and this attributes to inflation. It's called a debt crisis leading to hyperinflation and economic collapse. It may not be happening now, and maybe not even in our lifetime, but it is inevitable based on the current model of monetary policy. And when the USD/US economy collapses, it will be the biggest one in history.
- acdha 5y agoI am familiar with the cryptocurrency marketing pitch but remember that people are trying to use fear to sell tokens. It’s never good to get advice from someone with that large a conflict of interest. We’re nowhere near what economists consider hyperinflation and the 7% we’re seeing is more convincingly explained by the well-known issues caused by a global pandemic which will not run forever.
- streamofdigits 5y agoThere are so many lessons to learn here, but I don't think we are in the lesson-learning era.
- notum 5y agoYou're in luck! For only 50 of my LessionCoins I can share some insight on the blockchain.
- awakeasleep 5y agoMaybe one of the lessons could be about David Marcus and how much he really understands the world of finance
- davidgerard 5y agoOP here. For an experienced payments guy like Marcus, I was shocked how little he understood of what Libra's plans implied.
- nullstyle 5y ago
- cmrdporcupine 5y agoCould you not phrase this in a more respectful way?
- nullstyle 5y agoI chose to dress the OP in a manner mirroring the OP. He behaves as a prick.
- cmrdporcupine 5y agoIrrelevant, HN is not the forum for "discussions" in that tone.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
- user249 5y ago> The US government was just absolutely not going to let Facebook do a private currency, backed by a basket mostly of foreign currencies, at worldwide scale. How does this affect the rest of Crypto, because I suspect that governments around the world can shutdown Bitcoin and others any time they want. Given that fact, I'm wondering why other crypto currencies are being tolerated.
- c01n 5y agoBitcoin is decentralized, Diem was centralized. It is hard to shutdown decentralized networks. Hollywood still cant shutdown bitorrent/piratebay.
- oneoff786 5y agoYou can’t get rid of Bitcoin, but if you make it illegal for retailers to accept Bitcoin and for currency exchanges like Coinbase to operate its pretty much taken care of.
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- celticninja 5y agoThe time for that has passed, you have Coinbase listed on the NASDAQ, you dont just make something like that illegal overnight. As I said the ship has sailed, squashing it is harder now that crypto firms can hire their own lobbysists
- oneoff786 5y agoSure you can. Executive order. Boom.
- 5y ago
- 2Gkashmiri 5y agocool. i really believe either the governments around the world have to accept "crypto" in the shape and form it is now, like bitcoin which has full traceability and full anonymity or monero which has no traceability and full anonymity or just shut it down in an act of desperation. i do not understand "why" would a for-profit company like paypal or facebook would jump the bandwagon, build their own existing model of tracking and money movement with the poster of "crypto" and be like any other crypto model. it is unsustainable because cryptocurrencies are designed to be without a central distribution model and control. if you introduce that, you might as well use westernunion for cross border transactions or use SWIFT because both of them are designed to keep minting fees for themselves, keep themselves relevant and exercise control. remember, usa can unilaterally decide "oh, well visa/mastercard cannot operate in this country" and guess what, that entire country's card infra goes down. so much for democracy.
- sbarre 5y ago> i do not understand "why" would a for-profit company like paypal or facebook would jump the bandwagon, build their own existing model of tracking and money movement with the poster of "crypto" and be like any other crypto model. Because money is a system of control. Even Bitcoin and other "decentralized" currencies are still systems of control, and the large Internet companies extract revenue from control, so of course they would want "in" on something they see potentially bypassing their controls over time. Why would they sit and watch this grow around them, or be beholden to existing legacy systems like SWIFT or credit cards, when they can potentially build something they are in complete control of instead. Ask yourself why governments reacted so harshly and swiftly against Diem, and you'll see how important a system of control money is.
- lpcvoid 5y agoShutting down cryptocurrencies so the planet can live a bit longer sounds really good.
- fleddr 5y agoAgree. Let's also ban giant TVs, large cars, PC gaming rigs, ACs, dryers, cheap air travel and subsidized international transport to deliver our cheap garbage. It's all excessive and can't be justified, given the doom ahead.
- sasaf5 5y agoAnd the "metaverse" is following in line.
- nsotelo 5y agoI got an occulus quest 2 (manufactured by meta) recently and it's a lot of fun. VR is not revolutionary but it's definitely going to make money for meta and others.
- ninkendo 5y agoDo you still need a FB account? They made some news late last year about maybe getting rid of that requirement but I haven't seen anything about it since. I don't have a FB account and will never get one, but I'm casually interested in the quest2.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoThe Quest 2 is a really nice piece of hardware that is sadly significantly hampered by its ties to Facebook. I will never own one because of it.
- iamjake648 5y agoFacebook login is no longer a requirement.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoI don't believe you're correct. Facebook said something to the effect of not requiring a Facebook login at some future date, and said future date has yet to materialize. Neither did they specify what the alternative login would be, but it wouldn't be surprising if it was just a "Meta" account instead.
- iamjake648 5y agoYou have to reach out to their support, but it's absolutely possible. I did it myself with a five minute chat. It's just an 'Oculus' account at that point, like it was before the requirement.
- 323 5y agoIt was too soon and done in a stupid way. They will try again later. As another example: just because Google Glasses flopped because of privacy issues it doesn't mean that future Apple/... Glasses which will have exactly the same privacy issues will not be a thing.
- saul_goodman 5y agoWhat in-game-currency does Meta use for purchases? My guess is that Meta was partly created to have a virtual world where they could still operate Libra outside of regulation.
- InitialLastName 5y agoTo be fair, Google Glasses didn't just flop because of privacy issues, they flopped because they didn't work very well at first and Google is constitutionally incapable of following through with products.
- hogrider 5y agoYeah, we still use privacy destroying services everyday and most people believe their smartphone listens to them passively all the time. I think it was just too early in the 2010s, no one would bat an eye to a wearable camera headup display thingy now.
- lewi 5y agoWhile the Facebook driven project is dead, an open fork of Libra is currently running and being built on. https://github.com/OLSF/libra https://github.com/OLSF/libra
- throwaway4good 5y agoWhat would this be good for? Isn't Libra supposed to be backed by USD held by the validators in the network?
- dboreham 5y agoThe stablecoin and the core blockchain tech are totally different things. 0L is using the blockchain tech (move language, the Rust BFT implementation, etc), and has no stablecoin -- its currency is like any other decentralized blockchain base currency.
- Ntrails 5y ago> its currency is like any other decentralized blockchain base currency. You did not answer the question of what is it good for. What thing is it doing that makes it important/interesting/useful/valuable?
- dboreham 5y agoSorry, the gist of the question I thought was "is this not useful, _because_ it is based on a stablecoin?". I answered that question. If you're asking what in general the Diem code, used in the 0L project, is useful for : 1. well it's technically a BFT blockchain, like Tendermint. That tech is potentially useful because it can provide a decentralized ledger like a PoW blockchain, but with significantly higher throughput and significantly lower energy use. It's arguably more advanced than Tendermint because it's written in Rust and has a native smart contract VM (move language). and perhaps 2. it's a collaborative project -- there's no sponsoring company or foundation or fund raising with a token and what not. This is attractive to some for various reasons. Bitcoin had that property and some people are interested in blockchains with new tech that share that organizational aspect. Let me know if that doesn't adequately answer the question.
- saul_goodman 5y agoLets see, Libra/Diem was face-masked, and then Meta gets launched. If you can't do what you want, then start up a virtual world where you can still do what you want I guess? I'm not a user of Facebook/Meta/etc, but what in-game-currency do they use?
- grantseltzer 5y agoNow if only the rest of facebook would die
- pessimizer 5y agoSometimes, there's a win. Biden did this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/09/10/facebook-crypto-diem-treasury/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/09/10/facebook...
- cm2012 5y agoThis was the best bitcoin project if it worked since it was designed to actually be used, and not as speculation.
- janandonly 5y agoI found the bias of the author to be a bit... stupefying? > For all the effort from journalists trying to work out the precise 12-dimensional chess Facebook must surely have been playing … maybe Libra was just very stupid. Because it was a blockchain project started by bitcoiners. Maybe it was always just dumb as hell.
- ur-whale 5y ago> I found the bias of the author to be a bit... stupefying? Agreed. But when you look at the name of the blog, it ain't exactly a surprise. Also, he's been at it for quite a while, looks like he's spending inordinate amounts of time "fighting the blockchain". I'm always puzzled when I see folks like this ... the sheer zealotry is simply amazing, and it always leads me to wonder what can possibly motivate them to be so hell-bent on destroying something that has likely zero impact on their lives.
- JustFinishedBSG 5y ago> likely zero impact on their lives. Because it doesn't have zero impact. The amount of money that is scammed out of people and the amount of sheer environmental destruction is sickening and last I checked we all live on the same planet (if you live on the ISS then sorry for making the assumption you were on earth). And your post history speaks quite loudly on what "bias" looks like to you.
- ur-whale 5y ago> the amount of sheer environmental destruction is sickening To re-use another HN poster comment: "now do cloth dryers". Or to phrase it easier to parse: if this is the battle people have decided matters in the fight against global warming, we're really not out of the woods. > And your post history speaks quite loudly on what "bias" looks like to you. Bias, eh? While I do enjoy discussing cryptocurrencies a great deal because I find the tech. and its implications deeply fascinating, I certainly do no buy most of what folks in the space peddle out, nor am I religious about it, unlike the OP. What I enjoy most is a well constructed argument against crypto, but unfortunately, those have been few and far between on HN in the past few years. To give you an example, "just dumb as hell" (from the OP), doesn't fall in the "well constructed argument" bucket. And unlike the do-gooder out to save the world in the 'attack of the 50 foot blockchain blog', or other kind of jihadists like Diehl, I'm not a crypto bible-thumper out to convert the infidels. In short, I find crypto interesting and worth looking into, learning about, improving upon (the existing systems being indeed far from perfect). If you want to label that bias, more power to you, but please don't compare me to the fanatic-on-a- mission-from-god who wrote the OP.
- nazca 5y agoDavid Marcus is perhaps the poster child for failing up. He started a mobile payments company that was acquired by PayPal. The product was later discontinued and generated no value for PayPal. He ended up as the PayPal CEO. IMHO as a PP employee at the time, he was clearly out of his depth in that job. It was abundantly clear he did not have the toolkit to run a large complex business. He then left abruptly to join facebook. At Facebook he started this thing that did nothing but burn money and generate negative headlines. If there was a metric that was the value created for the companies you work for vs. the money you personally earned I think his would be an outlier.
- hatenberg 5y agoOther highlights include years of Messenger dallying and feature creep and abandonment causing the app to be rewritten and all work for years lost the moment he moved out of the org and M, the voice assistant that got killed soon as well.
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- goldenchrome 5y agoI believe that people who are willing to put their neck out there as a high profile leader AND are able inspire others to get to work on a bold vision are rare. I believe those are the sought after qualities in a tech leader. It doesn’t matter if his last 3 projects failed. They were all ambitious and he got people to work on them. Many businesses run themselves on inertia alone and you just need people to keep working. He will find another job.
- adam_arthur 5y agoResults should be what's assessed. A lot of analysis around ideal leaders focuses on the "inputs" instead of the outputs. Of course, important to understand and try to correctly attribute what factors led to success or failure. But if a charismatic, visionary leader chooses to pursue projects that don't have a hope of succeeding, I don't see that as a success. That being said, don't know much about this guy's background. Maybe everything he's worked on were perfectly great ideas and failures were not due to his direction/leadership. Anyway, I only comment on this because there's something of a bias to put extroverts/outspoken people into management roles, but I've found introverted people often do just as well. Of course always comes down to the individual.
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- scrubs 5y agoOh yah that guy ... To tell you the truth I moved on to dating Citi, Wells Fargo at the same time though 2018-2019 and managed to work-in Chase 3-days-week over Christmas. Frankly, all of us are better off without Libra whatever that guy's name was.
- IMAYousaf 5y agoGives me shades of what happened with WalMart's attempts to get a banking charter license earlier, but this time it seems that much of the damage was internal hubris.